Jeremia Peterson is a man driven by a deep, almost sacred passion for knowledge, memory, and the hidden truths buried within the layers of the past. Born in 1955 in Austin, Texas, at the heart of a loving family, he grew up surrounded by his father, his mother, his brother John Thomas — affectionately known as “JT” — and the youngest sibling, Andrew, who was born in 1960.

Trained with both discipline and passion at the University of Chicago, Jeremia could have followed a brilliant academic path. But he was guided by a greater, almost mystical dream: to dedicate his life to the study and revelation of a mysterious, near-mythical archaeological site known as Reytac. This project, to which he devoted his days and nights, gradually became his life’s calling. “I didn’t choose Reytac,” he often said. “Reytac came to me.”

Through the excavations he led in the Sonoran Desert, Jeremia sought less to prove than to understand. In his book Reytac: A History, he doesn’t merely recount the story of a site; he questions legends, explores memories, and digs — both literally and figuratively — to reach the very roots of human transmission. This book, which he dedicates to the person he held most dear — his father, Jeremia Peterson III — is both an intellectual testament and an act of love.

A man of science, but also a thinker and poet, Jeremia is deeply fond of reading, writing, and music. Blues, jazz, rock, and country have always formed the soundtrack of his life. He saw

in God a supreme gift: that of having a close-knit family and faithful friends — among them his soul brother, Scotty.

Today, Jeremia Peterson is defined not only by what he has discovered, but by the way he has lived those discoveries: with humility, with passion, and with the profound conviction that every trace left by humanity is a mirror held up to our own story.