Chris Johnston is Senior Project and Operations Director at Paleocultural Research Group (PCRG), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Longmont, Colorado. PCRG conducts research across the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, combining grant- and agreement-funded projects with volunteer support for field and laboratory work throughout the region. Chris began his professional career as a work-study student in PCRG’s laboratory while completing his undergraduate studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He later worked as an archaeologist for the U.S. Forest Service and in the cultural resource management sector. He earned his MA from Colorado State University, where his thesis examined communal bison hunting at the Roberts Ranch Buffalo Jump in northern Colorado.
Chris Johnston
In 2016, he became Colorado’s Assistant State Archaeologist, overseeing the statewide permit system and servingas coordinator and lead instructor for the Program for Avocational Archaeological Certification (PAAC). Chris returned to PCRG in 2018 as Operations Director and Project Archaeologist and continues to serve in both roles.
Chris’s research interests span a broad range of periods and places across the Plains and Mountain regions. He has more than 15 years of experience in lithic analysis, along with extensive expertise in lithic quarries, hunter-gatherer archaeology—particularly in Colorado’s high country—and Middle Missouri Plains Village archaeology. More recently, he has led several multiphase research projects in southeastern Colorado, including a landscape-level analysis of hunter-gatherer sites spanning nearly 10,000 years and a study of the final vestiges of the Santa Fe Trail.
Chris has authored numerous technical reports and peer-reviewed publications. He also co-edited The Lithic Caches of Colorado, an edited volume published in Southwestern Lore. He has served as treasurer of the Plains Anthropological Society since 2014 and is a former president of the Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists (CCPA). In his limited downtime, Chris enjoys spending time with his family and coaching his two sons in baseball, flag football, and basketball.
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