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Having just yesterday finished up my teaching of a 6 week archaeology field school, it’s still hard to get my thoughts off of it, or to refocus on strictly public archaeology issues. But as I think about it, the two topics are not so separate. Our field school, offered by the University of Kentucky Department of Anthropology, was held at the Shaker Village of Peasant Hill, Kentucky (www.shakervillageky.org). This is an extremely public site visited by many tourists, and our excavations were located right in the center of the village. This exposure provided a unique opportunity to engage students in public archaeology and to provide the public with a chance to see how Pleasant Hill changed over time.

Large groups on a tight time frame often peered over a fence at us (or we would run over and give them a “quick explanation”), but more leisurely non-group tourists would stop by to see what we were doing. The students were encouraged to speak freely with the visitors and explain our research goals of pinpointing the location of the 1810 Meeting House and the 1812 Centre Family Dwelling, investigating their spatial relationships and the extent to which they lined up with one another and contributed to the sense of order at the village. As an instructor, I found it gratifying to hear the students seriously repeating to the visitors the very ideas I thought had been going right over their heads as I instructed. On the last day of the field school, Morgan, one of our students, was so affected by the experience that she applied for and has been accepted as a future interpreter at the Shaker village site. This was a first for me, and while it may be a loss for us in our stock of trained excavators, it was an unusual win for public archeology in the broader sense!

Our work this summer had another unexpected public component. Once we verified that the foundation of the 1812 Centre Family Dwelling House was fairly well intact not far from the present surface grade, we added a goal of completely exposing this foundation for permanent viewing. This was extra work (not a small task, the Dwelling House main block was 56.25 ft x 45 ft), since our initial research objective could have been met by just exposing and mapping the two front corners of the building, and then backfilling. But by exposing the full foundation, we hoped to give the visitors a better sense that Pleasant Hill had changed drastically over time, and that it had a dynamic history of experimentation as it developed.

Our two buildings sites readily presented this opportunity as they were oriented to a north-south road, an orientation that was abandoned just a few years after completion of the 1812 Centre Family Dwelling. Realignment of the main village 90 degrees to east-west entailed building a new Meeting House (in 1820) and a new Centre Family House (begun in 1824), both of which are standing today within viewshed of our sites, making their strong testimony to the change of orientation. Coupled with this was the fact that the foundation we were excavating was just yards from where most visitors entered the site, making it a unique opportunity to get them thinking about all those other buildings that used to be at Pleasant Hill. Work progressed well to expose the foundation, but we could soon see that the foundations stones were preserved at many different levels, some just below the present surface grade (established in the 1970s to smooth over an overwise rough building ruin), and others up to a foot below the present grade. These deeper areas created a potential hazard for falls, sprained ankles, etc (Shaker Village has overnight guests who do walk about at night) and an obstacle for lawn maintenance. As we pondered our dilemma, Shaker Village staff member Don Pelly came up with an idea — if we could gradually “feather” down the grade in most areas, starting about a foot and a half out from the foundation to gradually lower down to meet the intact foundation stones, the hazard and maintenance burden would be sufficiently reduced. We coined the term “archeolandscaping” to help ease the burden of this work; I think throwing our new term around helped boost our spirits for say, at least a couple of hours!! Several days of work was required but thanks to the students’ efforts, the 1812 Centre Family Dwelling foundation now has a good chance to remain exposed, working to enhance the visitor experience.

And finally, I was thinking that while these aspects of our experience were very important, still most important, especially as an influence in public archaeology, were the three days we left the Shaker site and journeyed a short distance to the Civil War site of Camp Nelson, in Jessamine County, Kentucky (www.campnelson.org) to assist archaeologist Dr. Stephen McBride in that site’s annual “School Days” program, where all the 5^th grade classes of Jessamine County come to Camp Nelson and watch or participate in various reenactor and hands-on history stations, including an archaeology station (often cited as one of the most popular by students and teachers). This year’s archaeology station was excavation at one of the Camp Nelson’s sutler stores. Normally the archaeology station is run by three to four archaeologists, but with the help of the 14 student field school we had a great teacher to student ratio. I was struck by the insightful comments our field school students wrote in their journals (required for the class) after the experience. Though many commented about how tiring it can be to work with large numbers of 5^th graders (who would not agree?), they also commented on how exciting it was to watch the amazement of the 5^th graders as they connected with material culture not touched by others for nearly 150 years.   Several commented on how important it was to give these young students a sense that history can be discovered in multiple ways, not just in books, to help them better understand the significance of their own local history, or to help them grasp the fragility of archaeological deposits. I was also struck by what a great job our students did in instructing on things like keeping unit floors flat or artifacts in place, even though they had only a couple weeks of experience behind them.

From our experience, it seems as if there is nothing to reinforce learning like being forced to instruct. Have you had similar experiences by exposing your field school students to public archaeology? What strategies do you use to teach your field school students about working with the public? What advantages and disadvantages come from doing public archaeology in a field school setting?

The Society for Historical Archaeology is committed to diversity, and is excited to announce its support of:

The 2013 Gender and Minority Affairs Student Travel Award

The Gender and Minority Affairs Committee (GMAC) is sponsoring two travel awards to graduate students who are presenting at the 2013 annual meeting in Leicester. Each award provides a prize of $500 to defray travel costs. Applicants must be currently enrolled in a graduate program, be a member of the SHA, and be presenting a paper or poster at the conference.

The goals of the fellowship are to increase diversity and to encourage student involvement at the meetings. Diversity is inclusive of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, abilities, and socio-economic background. Applications are encouraged from diverse populations including, but not limited to, groups historically underrepresented in archaeology.

To apply, send a CV (the name of your advisor/supervisor should be indicated on the first page), a letter of interest, and your poster or paper abstract submission. In your letter, please address the following:

1) Explain how you will increase diversity in historical archaeology, and why increasing diversity within the discipline and the SHA is important.

2) State how participation in the SHA Conference will advance your career and research.

3) Explain how your paper will potentially benefit those who attend your session.

The letter should be succinct and no longer than two single-spaced pages.

Following the conference, award recipients are required to submit a one-page report to the GMAC Chair on their conference experience and their thoughts on diversifying archaeology that will be posted to the SHA Blog.

Please note: individuals can apply for both the GMAC and Ed and Judy Jelks Student Travel awards, but may only receive one in the same year.

Deadline for submission:  September 3, 2012

Submit your application materials to Flordeliz T. Bugarin, Chair of the Gender and Minority Affairs Committee, via email at florie_bugarin@yahoo.com.

The award will be announced by October 3, 2012, and the award funds will be distributed at the SHA conference in Leicester.

Don’t forget that in addition to the GMAC Travel Award, there are two other awards available to enable students to attend the SHA 2013 conference in Leicester.

All graduate students who are presenting a paper at the SHA conference should consider applying for the Ed and Judy Jelks Student Travel Award; two awards of $500 are available.

The Quebec City Award, of up to $750, is granted to assist French-speaking students to attend the SHA conference. To be considered for the prize, candidates must be a standing member of SHA, be registered in a French-language university (contrary to the name of the award, you don’t have to be studying in Quebec!) and preparing a thesis or dissertation in French – and they must present a substantive or theoretical paper at the annual conference. Further information about the award, and how to apply, can be found on the SHA Awards webpage.

Good luck!

Image: “Muro Occidentale o del Pianto” (Western Wall or Wailing Wall) by Fabio Mauri (1993) CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr

On the 29th June, archaeologists from around the world will contribute to an innovative mass-blogging project online called the ‘Day of Archaeology‘ . This digital celebration of archaeology is now in its second year following on from a very successful launch in July 2011 and has attracted over 400 archaeologists from all walks of life to share a day in their working lives with the rest of the world by blogging, tweeting, photographing or videoing their working day.

Based on the ‘Day of Digital Humanities‘, this project was the brainchild of PhD students, Matthew Law and Lorna Richardson, who created the idea during a short discussion on Twitter.  It quickly attracted support from a like-minded team of ‘digital’ archaeologists (note, these digital archaeologists work with the digital medium, they aren’t excavating old backup tapes from the archives!). Support for the original project came from the British Museum’s Department of Portable Antiquities and Treasure (Daniel Pett), UCL’s Centre for Digital Humanities (Lorna Richardson), L-P Archaeology (Stuart Eve, Andrew Dufton, Jessica Ogden), Wessex Archaeology (Tom Goskar) and this year they have been joined by the Archaeological Data Service at the University of York, and also by Patrick Hadley, Karen Hart and Jaime Almansa Sánchez.

How Does the Project Work?

The ‘Day of Archaeology’ would be nothing without the help of the many participants, all contributing their stories for free. The foundations of the project have been built through a social media campaign on various platforms – Twitter, Flickr and Facebook.  For example, since April 2011, over 3300 tweets have been sent using the hashtag ‘#dayofarch’, and the information shared has been recycled many thousands of times via retweets, blogs and Facebook shares.

Within several weeks of the team announcing the project would be happening, enough people had signed up to make it viable and the Day of Archaeology looked like it would be a successful social media experiment (incidentally, social media use in archaeology is part of Lorna’s PhD research at UCL). The project is managed behind the scenes using Basecamp, and the various members of the team contributing their skills to the different aspects of organisation involved (for example publicity, web design, server management etc). Everyone involved is a volunteer, and all the work is done for free.  Content was created under a liberal licence (Creative Commons share-alike) and this year, we aim to deposit an archive with the ADS for posterity in case our server space disappears!

What Sort of Things Did People Contribute in 2011?

Last year contributions for the project were incredibly wide ranging, displaying the panoply of archaeological disciplines, and included professional archaeologists and volunteers.  There are some wonderful posts made via prose, imagery and video. Some notable examples of historical archaeology posts from last year that the team has been flagging up on Facebook and Twitter in the run up to this year’s event include:

The excavation of two households owned by freed African Americans in the nineteenth century in Annapolis, Maryland

An archaeological exploration of 16th and 17th century warfare in Ireland

Historical archaeology research at the Santo Tomé de Guayana site in Venezuela

Excavations by Binghampton University on an urban site dating from the late-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries at the Binghamton Intermodal Transportation Terminal

Retrieving post-medieval artefacts from the River Wear, Durhamin the North East of England ‪

A report from a community-based historic graveyard survey on an island off the west coast of Ireland

The above posts are just a snapshot of the Day’s content, if you visit the project website (www.dayofarchaeology.com), you can see over 435 posts from 2011 that give the casual reader a snapshot of the rich variety of archaeologists at work. The Day of Archaeology provides a unique behind-the-scenes insight into archaeologists’ daily lives; it is a multi-vocal, unscripted, unedited approach that offers open information about the field, both as a practise and as a discourse, but also delivers the discovery, the excitement and the mystery that is now the bread and butter of popular archaeological media. It also provides an insight into the many mundane office and field based tasks – the paper work, the research in dusty archives, the pencil sharpening – all the things you don’t see on the TV programmes…

Take Part in 2012!

You could be involved too. The event is running again on the 29th June (next Friday), and there is still time for you to sign up!  Just email us at dayofarchaeology@gmail.com and we’ll send you details of how to take part. The Day of Archaeology awaits your input!

Have you had an opportunity to read the latest chapter in the depressing Carter’s Grove saga?

Carter’s Grove, for those beyond the Mid-Atlantic, is a mid-18^th-century James River plantation house that is also the site of Martin’s Hundred, one of the settlements attacked by the Powhatan in 1622 and discovered and excavated by Ivor Noël Hume. The property was owned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation (CW) and operated as one of the Foundation’s ticketed sites until 2003, when poor visitation numbers led to its closure.

In 2006, Carter’s Grove was sold by CW to Halsey Minor, an internet technology entrepreneur, for more than $15 million; CW held the note. Minor has since stopped paying the mortgage and declared bankruptcy to avoid foreclosure. The case is now in United States Bankruptcy Court in Norfolk.

The Washington Post recently ran a story about the situation. The comments are fascinating (as only comments in the digital age can be). Most people mock Halsey Minor, mercilessly so, blaming him for what is happening to Carter’s Grove and looking forward to his pending comeuppance from the bankruptcy court judge.

A fair number, however, blame CW. Jtrice12 wrote that CW “should be ashamed for selling the place to someone with no expertise in historical preservation… They’ll never get another penny of my money.” “Astoundingly poor management,” concurred Doctor_Dru. CW “sold off Carter’s Grove instead of fulfilling [its] core mission,” PBrown448 declared, and so “off with the [CW] trustees[’] heads!”

The Carter’s Grove situation reveals the challenges facing organizations everywhere which manage historic sites. It also reveals how the challenge of sustainability extends beyond historic houses to archaeological properties (like Martin’s Hundred) and to the reconstructions / replicas often built to re-imagine these places on the landscape. Typically, reconstructions and other types of archaeological site interpretation can still require an infrastructure that includes not just visitor amenities but the expertise of archaeologists and educators. These are not inexpensive propositions.

Joan Poor, an environmental economist, has convinced me that cultural economics is an under-utilized tool for informed decision-making about the investment in and sustainability of historic properties. Cultural economics is concerned with the application of economic analysis to, among other things, the heritage and cultural industries (Towse 2010; see also the Journal of Cultural Economics). Poor believes that a public archaeology would not only benefit from a perspective rooted in cultural economics, but demands it.

Poor’s research in southern Maryland focuses on the analysis of historic sites as public goods, and just how much people are willing to pay to support them. Using the methods of cultural and natural resources economics, Poor works to establish values for historic and preservation attributes which cannot be measured in the private market. She has found that most people are indeed willing to support historic sites through tax dollars as well as through visitation (Poor and Smith 2004).

This willingness, however, has its limits. Poor suggests that site managers can find these limits through economic analysis and then develop realistic plans for the management of historic properties, including, if necessary, the conversion of a public good into a private good, such as selling a historic house.

Poor also argues that willingness-to-pay is not some forever fixed number, and that knowing the public’s limits can lead to the development of longer-term strategies for educating the public and, ultimately, increasing willingness-to-pay.

Unlike standing structures, archaeological sites don’t often need new roofs, paint jobs, or insurance. Still, there are real infrastructural costs for their preservation, accessibility, and interpretation. Cultural economics may provide yet another measure for determining the sustainability of various strategies for managing archaeological sites.

I have been thinking about Poor’s comments a lot lately because I am getting the sense that the rotten economy is masking a larger transformation in the public’s attitudes and support of historic preservation, especially archaeological sites. On the one hand, many surveys suggest that the public has never been more aware of and supportive of archaeology (see, for example, Ramos and Duganne 2000); on the other, a number of archaeology programs are on the chopping block, from museums to universities to government (none more draconian than what has been proposed for Parks Canada [read the SHA response to these cuts]). It’s not clear whether these proposed cuts reflect cost-saving measures or something else altogether. An analysis based in cultural economics might help tease out issues of a recession-induced inability to pay versus a declining willingness-to-pay.

Are there lessons we can take away from the Carter’s Grove debacle? Are we entering a new phase in the public support of archaeology? How can archaeological projects (a term used here broadly) be sustainable projects?

I am grateful to Dr. Joan Poor, Provost, Truman State University, for introducing me to the importance of cultural economics and inviting my participation in her project at Point Lookout State Park near Scotland, Maryland.

• Ramos, Maria, and David Duganne
  • 2000  Exploring Public Perceptions and Attitudes about Archaeology.  Washington, DC, Society for American Archaeology; http://www.saa.org/Portals/0/SAA/pubedu/nrptdraft4.pdf; accessed June 13, 2012.
• Poor, P. Joan, and Jamie Smith
  • 2004  Travel Cost Analysis of a Cultural Heritage Site: The Case of Historic St. Mary’s City.  Journal of Cultural Economics 28:217-229.
• Towse, Ruth
  • 2010   A Textbook of Cultural Economics. Cambridge University Press.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user roger4336 via Creative Commons License]

As a professional organization, the Society for Historical Archaeology promotes the participation of student members and supports the advancement of their careers. Students, in turn, may see the SHA as a resource in their professional development. One way the SHA encourages student participation in the annual meeting is through the Ed and Judy Jelks Student Travel Award, discussed on the SHA blog by both Paul Mullins and Charlie Ewen. Graduate students may apply for the $500 award to defray the cost of travel when presenting research at the annual conference.

What kind of students and research win the award? Mullins concisely described the work of last year’s two recipients and we were curious to learn a little more about Corey McQuinn and Adrian Myers as students. We interviewed McQuinn and Myers and the following is a summary of their responses.

Corey McQuinn, a master’s student concentrating in Historical Archaeology at the University of Albany, researches enslavement in the Northeast, an understudied topic. He examines the Mabee Farm in Rotterdam, New York, and how different archaeological models of enslavement and racialization apply to the Northern context. Through another project focused on the Underground Railroad in Albany, New York, he studies how the construction of a community that supported the Underground Railroad relates to New York’s earlier history as a slave state and its continued economic dependence on enslaved labor corps.

In addition to this academic research, as a project manager for the cultural resource management firm Hartgen Archaeological Associates, Inc., McQuinn says he must be flexible and cover a broad range of time periods and historic contexts. He has worked in a variety of historical contexts, including cemetery excavations, tavern sites, Shaker village sites, farmsteads and industrial contexts. He has also helped to run Hartgren’s youth archaeological field school summer programs, getting students involved in community archaeology.

The Ed and Judy Jelks Travel Award helped McQuinn attend his first SHA conference, where he presented a paper, met other professionals in his field, including authors of papers and books he has read. A highlight of the conference was getting to know people and learning about work in progress. He finds both the annual conference and quarterly newsletter valuable resources for identifying potential partnerships and opportunities in the future.

Though his three kids, Remember, Beatrix, and Jasper, are his greatest successes, McQuinn also received the New York Archaeological Association’s William Beauchamp Student Award in 1998 and the 1997-1998 Dana Student Internship Grant from Ithaca College. He is looking forward to completing his master’s thesis next semester and his PhD in the future.

A PhD candidate at Stanford, Adrian Myers, learned of the Ed and Judy Jelks Travel Award through attending the SHA conference, SHA business meetings, and from the HISTARCH email listserv. The award enabled him to present a paper, “Dominant Narratives, Popular, Assumptions, and Radical Reversals in the Archaeology of German Prisoners of War in a Canadian National Park” in the session chaired by Michael Roller and Paul Shackel, “Reversing the Narrative.” The paper was about all the surprising and counterintuitive things he encountered while studying the history of Nazi soldiers in a prison camp in Canada during World War II. Long interested in the history of the Second World War, his dissertation research is a historical archaeological study of a prison camp in Manitoba, Canada. Over three seasons of work he and colleagues surveyed, mapped, and excavated portions of the camp. Myers also travelled to Germany and met with three men who had been prisoners of the camp.

Myers has participated in a variety of other projects, including the “Van Project” at the University of Bristol, the Stanford Gymnasium Dig, and Bonnie Clark’s field school at the Granada Relocation Center, a World War II Japanese internment camp in Colorado. He also used free Google Earth imagery to map the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay, assembled and co-edited a book on archaeology and internment camps, did a study on 20th century porcelain electrical insulatorsand also manages to work part-time in CRM archaeology.

Also a recipient of the National Geographic Society Waitt Grant (2009), Myers suggests undergraduate students pursue ideas for projects, even if it seems impossible and incredibly far off, especially if they are passionate about the subject. He suggests finding a supportive graduate program and, with effort the research can probably be done. He also says having an awesome adviser helps.

Both McQuinn and Myers sound passionate about their research and actively pursue opportunities to participate in projects and make connections with their peers in historical archaeology. They recognize the SHA as a resource for students and advise them to participate in the organization by speaking or corresponding with other archaeologists and presenting at conferences. The Academic and Professional Training Student Subcommittee (SSC) is starting a group discussion on student professionalism and the Society for Historical Archaeology. Please become a member of the conversation by joining the SSC Yahoo! group. Email your request to JCoplin@gc.cuny.edu and include your email to join.

We look forward to hearing from you!

In February historian William Cronon admitted his deeply rooted skepticism about Wikipedia as a scholarly resource.  Cronon, the President of the American Historical Association, acknowledged he had originally had misgivings about an online resource penned by the masses, and he recognized that he and many other scholars were hard-pressed to see Wikipedia as much more than a shallow and often flawed introduction to a modest range of topics.

Yet this year Cronon was compelled to confess that Wikipedia is now one of the single most comprehensive research sources on the face of the planet, and as I write today it has 3,961,053 articles traversing literally every possible subject from musicians’ biographies to historical events.  The pages are updated almost instantly; current events are updated in nearly real time, and each time an elder musician or movie star draws their last breath their Wikipedia entry appears to be edited before the body has cooled.  Wikipedia includes thoughtful if brief entries on astoundingly specialized topics, including entries on the simulated Nazi invasion of Winnipeg, the Bredon Hill Hoard, or the traditional Icelandic dish of Svio.  Wikipedia’s History Portal is systematically organized by period and culture groups for those seeking broader entry points, and many entries have links to peer-reviewed scholarship.  Nearly any search engine will identify a Wikipedia entry as the very first possibility out of scores of other web pages, and it is among the single most visited web pages in the world.  Strong Wikipedia entries provide a succinct introduction to a subject, reliable background on it, and links to resources containing more detail.  Some subjects are not completely amenable to Wikipedia-style linear outlines, but many of the subjects scholars examine can be very thoughtfully introduced in a Wikipedia entry.

What Cronon recognized is that it is foolish for scholars to ignore such a rich resource, because many people wade into scholarly topics and perspectives through their introductions in Wikipedia pages, and many times we need only a reliable overview of a topic.  When he wrote in February, the American Historical Association—the largest and oldest professional historians organization in the US—had a superficial Wikipedia entry, but now it has a thorough entry that includes an astounding set of links to Wikipedia entries for nearly every single AHA President since 1884, which has included George Bancroft, Woodrow Wilson, C. Vann Woodward, and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich among its number.

In February the Society for Historical Archaeology did not even have a Wikipedia page, and we now have a brief entry on which we can build a more thorough introduction to the SHA and historical archaeology.  The historical archaeology entry is likewise exceptionally lackluster from a discipline that has produced so much insight into a half-millennium, and an enormous number of Wikipedia entries could be strengthened by contributions from historical archaeologists and material culture scholars.

Many of the scholars who founded our discipline remain largely invisible on Wikipedia, as well, which is especially disappointing since many of them are still active in SHA, many have former students who could very ably represent the discipline’s first practitioners, and we have some fabulous oral histories with some of the SHA’s founding figures.  There are now entries for a handful of these figures, including Ed Jelks, John Cotter, and J.C. “Pinky” Harrington among others, but certainly many more influential scholars could be introduced to a broader audience through relatively brief Wikipedia entries that would lead students, avocationalists, and even some professionals to the work of these earliest historical archaeologists.  Developing wikipedia entries for all the Harrington Award winners would be a fabulous class project for somebody out there.  Of the 27 winners, virtually none has a respectable wikipedia entry directing readers to each scholar’s work and scholarly importance.

Some archaeological sites have thorough Wikipedia entries, with 36 entries for archaeological sites in Virginia alone, including the sites we would expect like Mount Vernon and Jamestown, but also a few lesser-known but fascinating places like the Falling Creek Ironworks.  Many more entries for historical sites could productively incorporate archaeological analysis of those spaces to balance out the conventional historical pictures or architectural histories that dominant Wikipedia.  Indeed, a vast range of Wikipedia subjects have material culture if not concrete archaeological implications that remain largely unaddressed.

It would not be that hard to make historical archaeological insight a central feature of many more Wikipedia entries.  SHA probably does not need to be intent on coordinating a host of archaeological wiki contributors, but there is good reason for us to take Wikipedia seriously and recognize all the potential it has for historical archaeology and the SHA.

Are you involved in a local, national, or international archaeology society? Are you the publisher of an archaeological magazine or journal? Do you work for a national heritage body, commercial archaeology unit or consultancy?

One way that your organization can get involved in the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual conference at the University of Leicester on 9th – 12th January 2013, is by exhibiting your products, services and publications at the conference’s Archaeology Market Place. Formerly known as the Book Room, the Archaeology Market Place will include exhibits of products, services and organizations in the archaeological community. This is both an opportunity to support the conference, and to advertise your services to a new, receptive audience.

The 46th Annual Conference on Historical and Underwater Archaeology will include an estimated 500 scholarly presentations on all aspects of historical archaeology, and many more delegates, representing organizations from across the world. The conference theme is Globalisation, Immigration, Transformation – reflecting both the vibrant multicultural history and contemporary character of the city of Leicester, but also acknowledging the transformation of historical archaeology into a global discipline. Centrally located in the heart of the English midlands, Leicester is well connected by air, rail, and motorway links, and an international audience is assured.

Information about exhibiting at the SHA conference Archaeology Market Place can be found in the Exhibitor Prospectus, here. Manned tables for companies, publishers and for profit organizations (includes one full conference registration and one exhibitor staff registration) cost $500, and only $300 for University presses, sister organizations, museums, government agencies and non-profit organizations. Un-manned browsing tables are also available.

We hope that you will join us in Leicester, England 9th – 12th January 2013, at the University of Leicester.

It’s Tech Week on the Blog and the Technology Committee has something special in store. We have brought together three innovators in the field of online databases and data sharing, and have asked each author to answer a question:

Where do you see online databases and data sharing in five to ten years? What role do you see your respective organization playing in the larger field of archaeological data sharing and online databases? What major hurdles do you think stand in the way of wide scale acceptance and use of online databases in the archaeological community?

Our contributors:

Mark Freeman from Stories Past

• Mark has worked with the National Park Service and a range of other groups to develop online databases for everything from data driven research databases to interactive education modules. Primarily working with museums and governmental agencies, Mark represents the cutting edge in online databases and data sharing.

Jillian Galle from the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS)

• DAACS, which is based in Monticello’s archaeology department, is one of the largest and most respected online databases for Historical Archaeology. Starting in 2000, when many archaeologists hadn’t even thought of online databases, DAACS was working hard to provide researchers information that would normally take years to get. Jillian has been the DAACS project manager for twelve years and is a pioneer in online databases and data sharing.

Adam Brin and Frank McManamon from the Center for Digital Antiquity

• When you think of online databases and data sharing, the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) is probably one of the first things that come to mind. Adam and Frank work with a wide range of database professionals and archaeologists, and have created an extensive database for everything from digital documents to data sets to GIS files. tDAR represents a digital repository for archaeological data from all over the world. Perhaps the largest archaeological database, tDAR is constantly working to bring more information to researchers and to expand our understanding of the history and prehistory of the world.

Each author has provided us with an interesting view point from their own personal experience and organization. By looking at each post, it should be possible to get a good understanding of where data sharing has come from, where it is going, and what is on the horizon. We encourage you to read the posts and join in the conversation in the comment section or on Twitter, using the #SHAtechWk hashtag.

• The Posts:
• Mark Freeman: Primary Archaeology data for non-archaeologists?
• Jillian Gale: Will Today’s Historical Archaeology Training Predict the Future of Digital Research Archives?
• Adam Brin and Frank McManamon: Sustainable Archaeological Databases – A View from Digital Antiquity

Click on the banner at the bottom of each post to return to this page! Thanks for reading, and enjoy Tech Week!

This post is part of the May 2012 Technology Week, a quarterly topical discussion about technology and historical archaeology, presented by the SHA Technology Committee. This week’s topic examines the use and application of digital data in historical archaeology. Visit this link to view the other posts.

Is there value in exposing archaeological primary data to non-professional audiences? Can online archaeology databases serve broader goals? Can they both inform and serve as a tool for advocacy at time when the practice of archaeology is again being challenged in popular culture?

The National Park Service website, museum.nps.gov, is the online face of ICMS, the database tool that the Department of the Interior uses to manage its collections. In pre-launch testing the most common reaction was surprise that the parks actually had collections. Individual parks decide what to present on the website and it currently includes nearly 450,000 records, representing over four million objects, half of which are archaeological. Some information is removed before it reaches the web. Crucially for archaeology, this includes site name, site location, within-site provenience and UTM data; excluded to protect sites from the very real threat of looting, and at the request of Native American groups.

But stripping the artifacts of physical context before they reach the web is problematic at best for archaeology, so an attempt has been made to restore some contextual information. Collection highlights were developed to be used by the park staff to allow the grouping of objects, creating a virtual context that can represent a physical space – a site or an archaeological feature – or a thematic context, or a virtual exhibit. Fort Vancouver National Historic Site has created several highlights, including The Fort Vancouver Village. The highlight includes narrative text to explain the complex cultural landscape and is supported by 32 selected artifacts. Those artifacts are hyper-linked to the over two hundred thousand records which are part of Fort Vancouver’s online collection. I’d argue that even if most visitors never look at those records. they need to know that they are there. The National Park Service doesn’t just have great scenery, they have curated over forty million cataloged objects.

At Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia plantation along the Potomac River, The South Grove midden excavation uncovered more than 60,000 artifacts. These represent almost 400 ceramic and glass vessels, hundreds of pounds of brick, mortar, and plaster fragments from renovating buildings, buckles, buttons, tobacco pipes, and more than 30,000 animal bones. A new website (in progress at www.mountvernonmidden.com) focuses on 400 objects, but the full database is there (and available on the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery site) and items are presented in the context of the wider collection. Additionally, the website includes a timeline, a map of the site in relation to the broader plantation landscape, historical notes and related published papers, and a database of the Washington family Invoices and Orders – all part of the larger data set that comprises the project.

So site databases, like the truth, need to be out there. Showing artifacts to the public, without this data-rich environment, suggests that just a few objects have primacy, elevating the qualitative over the quantitative. And if archaeologists want support for the process of archaeology and for digital preservation, then showing the volume of data makes sense.

The problem of exposing the soft underbelly of archaeological data is that at least some members of the public might start to question what’s presented. Why is it so hard to compare one site with another? Why are different methodologies used at different sites? Why does every project record different information? Why does the terminology differ between sites? There is a slow move forward in addressing all these issues (Kansa et al. 2011), but if archaeologists want to hammer home the point that pot hunting and looting are bad, then they should be willing to present and rationalize the datasets that professional archaeologists creates.

I’m not suggesting that advocacy is the only reason to show data. As text books and other electronic publications slowly transition from electronic copies of physical books into fully interactive media, perhaps they’ll also start to include accessible databases, and not just as appendices. Database could support graphs and result sets, allowing data to be manipulated, examined and even challenged. Perhaps eventually these datasets could be more than just one-way presentations of data. On websites, by recording the questions asked of the data, by tracking the datasets produced, these databases might come to be a part of research as well as publication.

References Cited

• Eric C. Kansa, Sarah Whitcher Kansa, & Ethan Watrall
• 2011 ARCHAEOLOGY 2.0 New Approaches to Communication and Collaboration, Cotsen Digital Archaeology.