The following post was previously published in the SHA newsletter as the introductory piece of a new series intended to identify professionals with expertise in particular classes of material culture who can assist others with artifacts in their collections. In light of the SHA’s recent polling of the membership’s comments on the 36CFR79 consultation process,...Read More

The District of Columbia is a strange political entity and our unique status has unexpected effects on local archaeology. But that makes it a perfect place to focus on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the National Historical Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 and the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Park Service (NPS)...Read More

Greetings from Virginia! Though the #SHA2016 Annual Meeting is some months away, we are assisting the social media committee in presenting the archaeological outlets that the Washington, DC metro area has to offer. Archaeology plays a major role towards interpreting George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and we are pleased to take this opportunity to briefly introduce...Read More

Guest post by Christopher Espenshade and Patrick Severts Our goal here today is to introduce two training programs in best practices in metal detecting.  Many battlefield studies rely heavily on metal detecting as an investigative method, and metal detecting can be labor intensive.  The study of a battlefield can require many persondays of detecting; where...Read More

What do you know about the D.C. area, archaeologically? What institutions, organizations, nonprofits, public agencies manage and help preserve our dc archaeological heritage? In upcoming posts, we will be highlighting some of the major D.C. (and surrounding MD and VA) area organizations, who diligently work towards safe-guarding, interpreting, and disseminating our the historical heritage of...Read More

By Giovanna Vitelli Chair, SHA Collections and Curation Committee The subject of deaccession, or the permanent removal of an object from a museum or historical collection, has long been of concern to historical archaeologists. The SHA has highlighted the issue in recent years and has held workshops and conference sessions on the subject in an...Read More

Did you enjoy #SHA2015? Please join us for #SHA2016! The Organizing Committee for the #SHA2016 Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology invites you to Washington, D.C., the Nation’s Capital, January 6-9, 2016! The year 2016 marks the 100th anniversary of the creation of the National Park Service in 1916 and the 50th anniversary of the passage...Read More

It’s hard to believe that the conference is only a few days away! We hope you are all as excited as we are for the 2015 conference in Seattle. Throughout the conference we will be posting session times, updates on sessions, event information, and other fun posts on the SHA Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/SocietyforHistoricalArchaeology) and the...Read More

By Mia Carey Before my maternal grandmother suddenly passed of congestive heart failure in the early 1990s, our family would gather every Friday night to play cards and cook, while some members drank and told stories of the old days. My grandmother was the matriarch of the family, and I believe it was her cooking...Read More

Besides plenty of stimulating intellectual discourse, what do archaeologists need to make their conference experience complete? Why good food and drink of course (perhaps not in that order)! Luckily there could hardly be a more convenient location than downtown Seattle to put some of the best there is from coffee to cocktails and accompanying nosh...Read More