Since its beginning in 1980, the Conservancy has now acquired almost 600 endangered sites in 45 states across America. These preserves range in size from a few acres to more than 1,000 acres. They include the earliest habitation sites in North America, a 19th-century frontier army post, and nearly every major cultural period in between.

Examples of Conservancy preserves include California’s Borax Lake site, which encompasses 11,000 years of human occupation; the first mission of Father Kino, as well as several important Sinagua and Hohokam ruins in Arizona; important Caddo Indian sites in Texas and Oklahoma; and in Georgia, key cultural locales of the region’s first Indians.

And the list goes on: several ancient Indian villages in Florida; Mississippian sites in Arkansas and Missouri, at least two of which Hernando de Soto visited in 1541; villages of the eastern lakeshore peoples in Michigan; ancestral sites of New Mexico’s Pueblo people; in Colorado, Yellowjacket and Mud Springs Pueblos–the two largest ruins of the Mesa Verde culture; and in the Northeast, two Paleo-Indian sites and a Seneca Iroquois village.

Some Conservancy sites have been incorporated into public parks such as Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona, Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico, Parkin Archeological State Park in Arkansas, and Hopewell Culture National Historical Park in Ohio.