William D. Lipe

Lipe retired in May 2006. He is currently Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Washington State University.

In 1995, Lipe became the president of the Society for American Archeology. During his two years as president, Lipe focused on increasing the attention and acknowledgement of CRM and the need for public education of archaeology. He created offices and committees for such purposes.

Since 1984, Lipe has worked with the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. His work involved the population relocation of the 1200s C.E., for which he proposed a snowball effect model. In addition, Lipe wrote a chapter in the first published monograph by the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center. The chapter was about a theory on the social scale of Anasazi kivas (now known as ancestral Pueblo sites), which found a middle ground between two contrasting theories.

Lipe worked on the Dolores Archaeological Program in southwest Colorado from 1978 to 1985, and since 1984, he has worked as a research associate at the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center in southeastern Utah. In 1995, Lipe became the president of the Society for American Archeology.

From 1978 to 1985, Lipe worked on the Dolores Archaeological Program. During this time, he oversaw excavations in the Grass Mesa region. Lipe helped enhance the program's design and databases.

In 1974, Lipe's article, “A Conservation Model for American Archaeology” was published. In the article, he discusses the solution to the destruction of archaeological sites: promoting conservation with public education, more archaeological and environmental preserves, and archaeological involvement in the planning of development projects. In the 1970s and 80s, Lipe's Conservation Model became part of Cultural Resource Management (CRM).

From 1971 to 1976, Bill Lipe worked in the Cedar Mesa area with R.G. Matson. The two investigated Basketmaker II site locations and occupation patterns. In 1972, they began and directed the Cedar Mesa Project. Lipe and Matson added to the knowledge of Basketmaker II. They made the "first complete settlement pattern analyses", "the first dating of the mesa-top Grand Gulch Phase", "the first description of western Basketmaker II habitation structures," "the first reliable population figures", and "the first understanding of diet, including the recognition of Basketmaker II dependence on maize".

In 1958, Bill Lipe was hired as a crew chief for the University of Utah section of the Glen Canyon Archaeological Project where he remained for three years. During this time, he published reports in the anthropology papers in the University of Utah Anthropological Papers. In 1964, Lipe got a tenure track job at the State University of New York at Binghamton (later renamed Binghamton University) and later began work in the Cedar Mesa region of Southeast Utah. In 1972, he accepted the assistant director of Research position at the Museum of Northern Arizona in Flagstaff and worked there until 1976. That same year, Lipe was hired by Washington State University in Pullman and has worked there ever since.

William D. Lipe (born 5 May 1935), also known as Bill Lipe, is an archaeologist known for his work in the American Southwest and his Conservation Model. Lipe has contributed to Cultural Resource Management (CRM) and public archaeology. In addition to this, he has done work with the Glen Canyon Project, the Dolores Archaeological Program, and the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.

Bill Lipe was born to Raymond and Louise Lipe on 5 May 1935 in Struggleville, Oklahoma. His family moved to Bristow, Oklahoma in 1941, where Lipe later graduating high school. In 1953, he started college at the University of Tulsa, wanting to study journalism. However, he later discovered a passion for anthropology and decided to change his field of study. The University of Tulsa did not have an anthropology department, so he transferred to the University of Oklahoma. In 1957, Lipe graduated with a bachelor's degree in anthropology. The same year, he began graduate school at Yale University, and graduated in 1966 after punctuated years of archaeological work. On 17 February 1962, Lipe married June Finley, and the two went on to have three children, Carrie, Jessica, and David. On 19 June 2005, June Lipe passed away.