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The Call for Papers for the SHA 2013 conference in Leicester opens this week, and further information will be posted on the SHA website and this blog in due course. In addition to the stimulating conference programme, SHA 2013 will provide opportunities to sample Leicester’s cuisine, which is as diverse as the city itself. A later blog post will focus on the region’s home-grown food and drink, but this week we take a look at what has fast become Britain’s national dish (or one of several, at any rate): the curry.

Indian takeaway

Britain’s place at the centre of a global empire ensured that the spices and cooking techniques characteristic of a curry, and the people with skills and experience required to cook one, found their way from South Asia to Europe. Britain’s first dedicated curry house, the Hindostanee Coffee House, was opened by Dean Mahomed near Portman Square in central London in 1809, although curries catering to the tastes of returning colonial administrators and their families were served in coffee houses and at home since at least the middle of the eighteenth century.

Curry, along with all things Indian, grew in popularity during the nineteenth century; Queen Victoria, as the Empress of India, built an Indian-themed state room at her home on the Isle of Wight, Osborne House. Culinary tastes among the middle classes moved on, but in the major British ports, including London, Liverpool and Cardiff, former Indian sailors opened cafes, mainly catering for fellow Asians.

Immigration from South Asia after the Second World War, in particular refugees from the conflicts between India and Pakistan after partition and independence in 1947, war in the Sylhet region of Bangladesh in 1971, and the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972, brought new permanent communities to Britain. Leicester was one destination for South Asians displaced from their homes by war or economic need; the city’s textile factories and post-war rebuilding schemes provided work and opportunities to settle. Some of the new arrivals entered the catering trade, and a distinctive British Asian cuisine has evolved.

One of the most famous sketches of the British Asian comedy troupe Goodness Gracious Me saw the group ‘going out for an English‘ on a Friday night in Mumbai. Having got ‘tanked up on lassis‘, they mispronounce the waiter’s name, ask for the blandest food on the menu, and over-order bread rolls and chips. The sketch gently mocks the stereotype of the British visiting Indian restaurants after a night in the pub, ordering aggressively spicy curries and too many portions of rice and naan. We’ve all done it. The three-minute sketch, originally broadcast over ten years ago, has now entered popular culture, and is frequently cited in academic papers and book chapters exploring the place of food and reflexive humour in representations of South Asians in modern Britain.

The 2013 conference committee has collated some of our favourite places to eat and drink in Leicester; to set your mouth watering we have added them to this map, and will continue to update it during the run-up to the conference.

CAT Instrument Survey Workshop at Bee Tree Preserve in northern Baltimore County (photo courtesy of author via http://marylandarchaeology.org)

Citizen-scientists didn’t just dominate Maryland archaeology until the 1960s…they were Maryland archaeology. But, as in all areas of scientific endeavor, they were marginalized by a growing body of professional, university trained scientists. The Archeological Society of Maryland (ASM) reversed this trend in 2001 with the creation of the Certified Archeological Technician (CAT) program, offering individuals the opportunity to obtain recognition for formal and extended training in the goals and techniques of archeology without having to participate in an academic degree program. Now in its eleventh year, the program honors its thirteenth and fourteenth graduates: Valerie Hall and David Frederick.

ASM took several years to develop and implement the program, drawing inspiration from several programs around the USA, notably those of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Principal challenges that confronted the organizational committee came largely from the professional community which was very skeptical about the value and wisdom of certifying individuals who did not come through conventional university programs and that insisted on a more thorough academic grounding (largely through a lengthy reading list of regional and national classic studies) than seemed consistent with the objective of the program. Some of those fears were allayed by including representatives on the CAT committee from the Maryland Historical Trust – the state’s principal historic preservation agency and institutional seat of the state historic preservation office – and from the statewide professional organization, the Council for Maryland Archeology. These representatives participate in all discussions regarding program modification and in the “defense” of each candidate for certification.

Most members of the organizational committee brought to the table preconceptions of the purpose of the program. Agency archaeologists saw the CAT program as a training ground for prospective volunteers. Other participants thought that successful candidates might use their credentials to take jobs away from those in the private sector who completed more conventional training programs. The more skeptical professional members feared that CAT awardees would use their certification as legitimization for unscientific collecting, misrepresenting themselves to gain access to sites on private and public properties for personal gain. In the end, the committee established the current purpose of the program: to meet the needs of ASM members seeking formal archaeological training, without assuming personal motivations, and a signed ethics statement providing sufficient insurance against misrepresentation. Since Annetta Schott became the first candidate to complete the program (2003), none of these fears have been realized, and the CAT program has become non-controversial and institutionalized.

The key to the success of the CAT program and the concept that has allayed most fears lies within the program name. The ‘T’ stands for technician; not scientist. Here we modify the citizen-scientist concept in recognition that archaeology differs from most fields of scholarly endeavor in that destruction of physical evidence often is unavoidable, a circumstance not generally encountered in cataloging stars, conducting bird counts, or observing whale behavior. Candidates and graduates work under the direction of professional archaeologists engaged in the ethical study of archaeological resources, helping CAT candidates and graduates recognize the difference between ethical and unethical work.

Each candidate (aged 16 or older) applies to the program, paying a nominal one-time fee ($50) and agreeing to abide by the statement of ethics. Candidates pick or are assigned a mentor who: answers procedural questions; identifies field, laboratory, and archival research opportunities; recommends readings and provides copies of difficult to acquire publications; and serves in all other ways one might expect of a mentor. Candidates complete a course of directed reading; document in a journal as well as on a series of forms the required hours in different aspects of fieldwork (mapping, survey, excavation) and laboratory work; prepare forms for registering newly discovered sites; and participate in a series of required and optional workshops offered by professional archaeologists, including: archaeological law and ethics, overviews of state archaeology; historic and aboriginal ceramics; lithic analysis, etc. ASM’s annual field session in archaeology, conducted over eleven days each spring in partnership with the Maryland Historical Trust since 1974, provides opportunities for candidates to fulfill many requirements, but other state, county, and foundation programs, as well as some opportunities offered by the private sector, are integral to the program.

The CAT program appears to be an unqualified success, both in terms of meeting the specific personal goals of individual participants and in providing programs for ASM members who are not candidates. Presentation of awards to the two latest graduates at ASM’s annual spring symposium – which focuses this year on the archaeology of war and community conflict – publicly recognizes their achievements and inspires others to join and complete the program (current enrolment is 48 in an organization of just over 300). Producing one to two graduates each year, the CAT committee is considering other program developments, including a “Kitten” program for adolescents, an advanced level for CAT graduates, and prospective roles in future programs for graduates, most of whom remain active in ASM. The committee also has begun to work more closely with comparable programs in the neighboring states of Delaware and Virginia and encourages candidates to participate in legitimate archaeological projects outside of the state. I would like to see graduates directing field and laboratory projects under nominal professional direction, work proceeding without constant supervision. Would we realize the worst fears of the program’s early opponents? Or would we greatly expand the capacity of the professional community to explore the past? A worthwhile experiment?

The field of African American historical archaeology witnessed a boom in social and political consciousness from Black scholars during the 1990s. In 1994 Theresa Singleton and Elizabeth Scott broke new ground with the founding of the Society of Historical Archaeology‘s Gender and Minority Affairs Committee. Several years later, African American archaeologist, Maria Franklin (1997a;1997b) published on the lack of racial diversity in the field and archaeology’s affect on the African Diaspora. The 90s also represented a critical time in African American historical archaeology, in particular, with the excavation and later commemoration of both the Freedman’s Cemetery in Dallas, Texas and the African Burial Ground in Manhattan, New York. Cheryl La Roche and Michael L. Blakey’s (1997) article “Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground,” stressed the importance of community collaboration, while Theresa Singleton’s (1999) book, I, too, am America: Archaeological Studies of African American Life, addressed issues of African American representation, and the need for alternative methodological and pedagogical practices within the field.

In years prior, scholars and students alike have historically discussed the need to create an organization (or institute) to identify and address these social and political concerns as well as foster additional dialogue. However, the low numbers of Blacks in the field thwarted previous attempts to solidify an organization until now. More than four decades after the establishment of the Association of Black Anthropologists and a decade after these publications, the Society of Black Archaeologists (SBA) was established.

The groundwork for SBA was laid in 2011 by a few students at the University of Florida who saw the potential to address some concerns within the field of archaeology. At this year’s annual SHA conference in Baltimore, Maryland a group of Black archaeologists came together to discuss their experiences as racial minorities in the field. The meeting brought together veteran and amateur archaeologists, reaffirming the organizations commitment to promote the development of five goals:

1. To lobby on behalf and ensure the proper treatment of African and African Diaspora material culture.
2. To promote archaeological research and recruit more blacks to enter the field of archaeology.
3. To raise and address contemporary concerns relating to African peoples worldwide.
4. To highlight the past and present achievements and contributions that blacks have made in the field of archaeology.
5. To ensure that the communities affected by archaeological work are not simply viewed as objects of study or informants. Rather, they should be treated as active makers and/or participants in the unearthing and interpretation of their history.

As of right now SBA currently operates as a listserv as opposed to a formal organization; however, it is currently engaged in two new projects. The first project is interested in exploring the history of blacks in archaeology. SBA is working to collect oral histories from individuals throughout the African Diaspora who have had exposure to archaeology. The Oral History Project was created to collect and archive oral history interviews of Blacks in the field to gain a better understanding of the roles and experiences Blacks have had in the past and present. The first interview was with Whitney Battle-Baptiste, an associate professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and can be heard online at the SBA website. Listeners can hear Dr. Battle-Baptiste discuss how her worldview influenced her research, and her humble beginnings in the field of archaeology.

In addition to the Oral History project, SBA members have been working to increase the presence of archaeology in the field of African Diaspora Studies and organized a panel presentation entitled, “Our Things Remembered: Unearthing relations between Archaeology and Black Studies,” at the National Council for Black Studies 2012 annual conference in Atlanta, Georgia. SBA has also been invited to organize an additional panel for the 2012 Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) convention to be held in Philadelphia this September.

If you have an interest in archaeology and would like to join our listserv please e-mail sbarchaeologists@gmail.com. The organization is still in its foundational stage and we are currently looking for relevant information to post on the website including job openings, internships, field schools, and articles for the blog attached to the website. We are always open to comments and suggestions.

Please check out the SBA website often for updates at www.societyofblackarchaeologists.com or find us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/sbarchaeologists

References

• Franklin, Maria
• 1997a “Power to the People”: Sociopolitics and the Archaeology of Black Americans. Historical Archaeology 31(3):36-50.
• 1997b Why are there so few black American archaeologists? Antiquity: an international journal of expert archaeology 71(274).
• La Roche, Cheryl and Michael Blakey
• 1997 Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground. Historical Archaeology 31(3):84-106.
• Singleton, Theresa (editor)
• 1999 “I, Too, Am America”: Archaeological Studies of African-American Life. University Press of Virginia, Charlottesville

New Walk and De Montfort Square, Leicester

Once you get to Leicester for the SHA Conference in January 2013, you are most likely to travel between the university, and the shops, bars and hotels of the city centre, by taking a stroll down New Walk. New Walk isn’t really all that new; in 1785 the Leicester Corporation decided to lay out a pedestrian walkway which would link the town with the racecourse (now Victoria Park, which was laid out in 1883). This promenade still serves its original function, the passage of pedestrians unimpeded by vehicles to this day (although you might see the odd transgressive cyclist).

The New Walk Museum

The New Walk Museum and Art Gallery

Halfway down the New Walk, this museum and art gallery was originally built as a Nonconformist school in 1836, and became a museum in 1849, when the Leicester Literary and Philosophical Society presented its collections to the city. The museum combines an ongoing series of temporary exhibitions with its own permanent collections of Picasso ceramics, art from the 16th to 21st centuries, natural history, and dinosaurs! Entry to the New Walk Museum is free, and the opening hours and access information can be found here.

Victoria Park

Having been the location of Leicester’s first racecourse (now relocated to Oadby, on the outskirts of the city), Victoria Park was laid out in 1883; a set of green lungs for the rapidly expanding city. Victoria Park is home to a number of festivities during the summer, including the Caribbean Carnival, the Summer Sundae music festival, and Leicester Pride. Throughout the year, Victoria Park acts as the University’s back garden, a venue for sporting endeavour, on the football and rugby pitches and tennis courts, and a place of reflection at Sir Edwin Lutyens‘ war memorial of 1923.

Victoria Park. It might look like this in January

1. [CC-BY-SA-2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

2. [CC BY-NC-SA 2.0], via Flickr

3. [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr

Students are an important component of the Society for Historical Archaeology, representing the future of the organization. The Society provides opportunities for professional growth for students in historical archaeology. Each year, the Kathleen Kirk Gilmore Dissertation Award Subcommittee honors a student who makes an outstanding contribution to historical archaeology. In her dissertation Change and the Era of the Atlantic Trade: Commerce and Interaction in the Niumi Commercial Center (The Gambia), this year’s winner, Dr. Liza Gijanto, takes a diachronic look at the impact of the Atlantic trade on the Gambia River. Dr. Gijanto completed her dissertation at Syracuse University, under the direction of Christopher DeCorse. To highlight her contributions and learn more about her work, I interviewed Dr. Gijanto on behalf of the Academic and Professional Training Student Sub-committee. Via email she answered some questions, explaining her perspective and sharing her experiences with current students.

What is your dissertation topic?

My research focuses on the nature of the impact of the Atlantic trade on the coastal Gambian polity of Niumi from the late 17th into the early 19th century. Niumi was the first point of contact for European powers trading along the river and was the Atlantic era commercial center. I examine local responses to increased commerce on the Gambia River tied to the opening of trans-Atlantic trade, situated in a long-term study comparing this period to pre-Atlantic and colonial settings. The Atlantic trade created a multi-ethnic setting where Mande, European, and Luso-African traders interacted on a daily basis through social, political, and economic exchanges. My approach incorporates theories of everyday life, value, and taste examining day-to-day happenings within the scope of larger events such as the opening and closing of the Atlantic trade.

When did you first become interested in your topic and why?

As an undergraduate, I became interested in the Atlantic world through my history courses, and Africa after taking a historical archaeology course taught by Carmel Schrire. I decided that I wanted to work in West Africa on this period, but I did not know exactly where until my master’s advisor Kevin MacDonald was driving me to the airport to go to Syracuse to begin my Ph.D. He asked if I had decided on an area yet for my dissertation, and I told him that I had promised my mom I would only go places that were not dangerous. He said, “I know the perfect place no one is working in The Gambia.” So I went, and thus far it has worked out well.

Remains of the former British trading house at Juffure (Photo by Liza Gijanto).

How do you feel your work is relevant to contemporary communities?

Before I began reading academic and historical accounts of The Gambia, all I really knew about it was from Alex Haley’s novel Roots. When I first got there, I was not prepared for how engrained this story had become in the Gambian national identity, and specifically in Juffure and Albreda where I was living and working. Juffure is the village where Kunta Kinte is from in the novel. From the beginning, my work necessarily took on a heritage/community engagement aspect independent of my dissertation. I was able to help with public education days, and set up an exhibit for the Roots Homecoming Festival. I have also assisted in site preservation and interpretative efforts at James Island and in the capital of Banjul, which was established by the British to block the slave trade. The Gambia has had a unique relationship with the broader Atlantic World and the country has had a number of opportunities to really develop their sites, and present this past for heritage tourists. I am lucky that my research can be of use in this area, and that the National Centre for Arts and Culture in The Gambia has been receptive of my findings and involved me in many of their own projects.

What tips do you have for students identifying, working on, and finishing research?

This is really important. I received really great guidance from my undergraduate professors regarding graduate school. I was encouraged to take a year off working in CRM before going to graduate school and my various bosses and co-workers also influenced my decisions about projects and graduate school. I think it is important for anyone considering going into a Ph.D. program to first take some time off and work in the real world on a number of CRM projects. Everything I learned about managing a site, designing paperwork, all the basic management skills you do not get in a field school I got from CRM. I was hired as a staff member for the Feltville Archaeology Field School run by Matt Tomaso in Union, New Jersey and got to see the other side of a field school before taking on all the responsibility of its management myself. He really emphasized teaching skills students would need for CRM and involving all staff and students in all levels of the project. I do not think I could have gone out and excavated the sites I did and manage a local crew as well as field schools students in The Gambia without this experience. It is the kind of learning you cannot get in graduate school, but should have before starting your own project.

The other important thing to know early on is if you even need to excavate to answer your research question. There are so many collections housed in facilities in the US and abroad that could provide some really interesting information. I have a number of friends that have gone this route, and their projects are just as exciting and relevant as those that undertake excavation. I think there is a misconception that everyone has to find “their” site in order to be successful, but that is not the case anymore. What you really need is experience on a range of sites.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the research process, and especially writing the actual dissertation. I had a supportive and engaged advisor that made the process flow more smoothly. In graduate school your relationship with and advisor and the faculty is crucial. In addition to this, having a strong cohort or group of graduate students at the same stage of the program with you is important. No one I know finished their dissertation at the exact time they planned or had a field experience that exactly matched their proposal. Things happen, and you often end up going to Plan C. If you have friends to help you figure things out who are going through the same thing, the process is a bit more bearable and even enjoyable.

What are current or future plans for your work?

I began working at a trading site on the south bank of the river in 2010 in order to gain a broader understanding of the trade on the river outside the formal commercial center. I am also working in the Gambian capital Banjul to help prepare for the city’s 200th anniversary in 2016.

What impacts do you foresee or hope for?

One of my goals is to assist the Gambian National Center for Arts and Culture to develop archaeological protocol and to find and train Gambians to implement this. As of now there are no Gambian archaeologists.

For my research, I hope that this works adds to our understanding of the Atlantic experience in West Africa. I consider my research to be part of African Atlantic studies and Atlantic studies more broadly, not just focused one West Africa or The Gambia. I hope this work proves useful for those working with Diaspora communities as well.

Is there anyone who you did not get a chance to thank who you would like to now?

I have had a really great transition from graduate school into a tenure-track position that would not have been possible without the continued help of my advisors, and the support of my new colleagues.

Fattatenda trading site adjacent to the Gambia River (Photo by Liza Gijanto).

Dr. Gijanto is a faculty member at St. Mary’s College of Maryland. Non-student members of the SHA may nominate members who have defended their dissertations and received their PhDs within approximately three years of the award. Recent winners of the dissertation award include Gerard Chouin (2011), Meredith Lynn (2010), and Neil L. Norman (2009). To learn more, visit the SHA home page.

The preliminary Call for Papers for the SHA 2013 conference in Leicester, UK only opened a couple of weeks ago – and already session proposals are being planned.You’ll find some of the first proposed sessions below; if you would like to participate in any of them, please get in touch with the session organisers.

Advertising your session proposal widely is the best way to attract a diverse line-up. You are very welcome to advertise your session on this blog, on the conference event page on Facebook, and sending a tweet with the hashtag #SHA2013 will earn you a retweet from SHA to its more than 1,300 followers on Twitter. Do feel free to make use of email lists too; the Histarch and CHAT (Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory) lists are the obvious ones, but do consider others, such as the World Archaeological Congress for a global audience, or Britarch, if you would like to attract local speakers. The Council for British Archaeology maintains a register of many (mostly European-centred) email lists – you’re bound to know others specific to your specialism.

Here are some proposed sessions:

Archaeology of Reform/Archaeology as Reform

Megan Springate, University of Maryland

Loosely defined, reform sites are places associated with the main purpose of reforming or bettering those they serve, or society at large. They include schools, churches, protest sites, women’s holiday houses, homes of reformers, etc. This session explores similarities and differences across various types of reform sites and through time and discusses the various ways that reform processes and experiences manifest in the archaeological record. This session also explores how the archaeology of reform sites can itself be considered reformative in the context of today’s society.

Megan Springate is a Doctoral student in the Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland. Email mes@umd.edu

Reconsidering Archaeologies of Creativity

Timothy Scarlett, Michigan Technological University

Human creativity is fundamental to understanding the transformations brought about by both globalization and immigration, the dual themes of the 2012 conference. People act and react creatively to these processes, in mundane and grand ways, individually and collectively. Thus, creativity intertwines and entangles its processes with all human interactions. The process and contexts of creative action, as well as the concept of creativity itself, can be understood from psychological, behavioral, social, humanistic, and philosophical perspectives. Individual persons and groups derive creativity from the cultural improvisations of social interactions surrounding economic, religious, technological, recreational, and familial activities; movement through spaces and among places; rituals; and the shifting practices of daily life. While archaeologists have produced numerous studies of human’s creative responses, we have given less attention to creativity itself, particularly in those archaeologies of the modern world. Scholars in the sciences and humanities have been able to describe some of the processes and contexts of creative action in the human experience, but those insights have not lead to creativity’s rationalization or “corporate domestication.”

I welcome archaeological studies that critically explore creativity from different perspectives, including:

– the social construction of creative process

– contexts of creative action, like work and play

– archaeological perspectives on creativity and the brain

– creativity and social change

– creativity and adaptation

– improvisation and creativity

– creativity and behavior

– creativity, capitalism, and entrepreneurial culture

– prehistory vs. history in understanding creativity

– detailed case studies of creative action, as critiques or assessment of creativity

Please contact Timothy Scarlett by May 1st, 2012 to express interest.

Timothy Scarlett is Associate Professor of Archaeology at Michigan Technological University; Timothy’s contact details are here.

The completed exhibit for Washington County on display at the Newcomer House at Antietam Battlefield.Participants in a Native American Lifeways program held at the Lexington Park Branch of the St. Mary’s County Library get a hands-on experience in making fire. The students also learned to make cordage and pottery, as well as about Native Maryland agriculture and hunting.

The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) currently curates eight million artifacts from every county in the state.  While these artifacts are available for research, education and exhibit purposes, only a fraction of them are accessible through public display.  In order to make the collections more widely accessible and to connect local communities with their past through archaeology, the Maryland Historical Trust (MHT) and the MAC Lab have embarked on a project to place small traveling exhibits throughout the state. These exhibits will promote a more public discussion of the importance of archaeology both locally and state-wide, particularly within the context of a series of public lectures and workshops held in conjunction with the exhibits.

In the spring of 2010, we received funding from the National Park Service’s Preserve America program to undertake a pilot exhibit project in two Maryland counties. St. Mary’s County in southern Maryland and Washington County in western Maryland were chosen as the two locations for this pilot project. In St. Mary’s County, we partnered with the St. Mary’s County Public Library and in Washington County, partners included the Washington County Historical Society and the Hagerstown-Washington County Convention and Visitors Bureau. In both counties, local chapters of the Archeological Society of Maryland (ASM) partnered with us. The ASM is a statewide organization of lay and professional archaeologists devoted to the study and conservation of Maryland archaeology.

Curator Sara Rivers-Cofield preparing the artifact drawers. Artifacts were cut flush into a thick sheet of ethafoam, as well as being secured with fishing line. The ethafoam block was inserted into a drawer and covered with plexiglass to protect the artifacts.

Working in consultation with the local partners, MHT staff chose three previously excavated archaeological sites from each county that formed the basis of the exhibit and accompanying programming.  Exhibit design and fabrication took place at Jefferson Patterson Park & Museum, where the MAC Lab and the collections are located. The exhibit furniture was designed to be sturdy and secure, but easy to transport and set up. Seven foot banners and a lighted exhibit case were visually appealing and beckoned visitors to explore the three drawers filled with artifacts and text about the sites.

The first of the two exhibits opened at St. Mary’s County’s Lexington Park Branch Library in February 2011 and remained on display for six months. From there, it has moved to the two other branch libraries in the county. The Washington County exhibit, opened in June, 2011 was a key element of the Washington County Historical Society’s centennial celebration. This exhibit is currently in its third of four locations in the county and will return to the lab in late 2012. As a part of the grant project, public programs were created around the exhibits with the assistance of representatives of the Archeological Society of Maryland and the Council for Maryland Archaeology. The St. Mary’s County Library requested programming for children, while the Washington County programming will focus on adult audiences.

Kirsten Buchner, a professional museum evaluator with Insight Evaluation Services (IES), conducted a formal evaluation of the pilot exhibit project.  This evaluation determined:

• the audience’s reaction to the proposed exhibit design and content
• what the audiences took away from their experience with the exhibit
• the reactions of archaeologists from the local avocational archaeology groups
• the reactions of staff at the host venues

Artifact drawer for the Fort Frederick Site, created as part of the Washington County exhibit.

Overall, the public, in both the library and the visitor center, had a very positive response to the exhibits.  They found them visually appealing, well designed, and easily accessible.  They felt the exhibits clearly explained what archaeology is and what an archaeologist does, as well as teach about the lives of the past peoples who had once lived in their communities.  The archaeologists and staff interviewed also had a positive response to the design and content of the exhibit. They felt the project provided an excellent opportunity to engage members of the local archaeological and museum community.

MHT and the MAC Lab hope that this pilot project will inform a larger statewide initiative to place exhibits in all 23 counties throughout the State of Maryland.  In the Fall 2012, MHT will apply for a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Sciences’ (IMLS) Museums for America Program, in its Engaging Communities category. This program supports projects that represent a broad range of educational activities by which museums share collections, content, and knowledge to support learning.

Have you used travelling exhibits as a means of engaging the public? Have you had success with them? What sorts of challenges did such a program include? Share with us in the comments!

In March 2012, 12 metal detectorists were invited to James Madison’s Montpelier to attend a week-long metal detecting program to learn how archaeologists and the metal detector community can work together to more proactively to preserve sites. In the past, archaeologists and metal detectorists have worked together to make discoveries at battlefields and other historic sites such as the work conducted by Doug Scott at the Little Bighorn and at Manassas National Battlefield under my direction. We entered into this program with a full understanding of how metal detectorists can be employed for archaeological research on historic sites. The goal for this public-outreach program was to establish a rigorous curriculum in which the goals of site sustainability were laid out and metal detectorists were actively engaged and educated about this process. As such, we taught metal detectorists much more than just how metal detectors can be carefully used to recover artifacts at sites, but the why behind the rigorous methodology employed in this process. At the end of the week, we had a dozen metal detectorists who not only understood how site integrity can be attained through the use of metal detectors, but they were devising new techniques for how this process could be improved. In short, they gained an appreciation for archaeology, and the discipline of archaeology gained a new set of allies for what archaeology can offer in regard to discovering history.

An important aspect of this program was all 12 participants were metal detector dealers. As dealers, all participants are respected leaders from across the country who are linked into a network of metal detectorists. Bringing them to a better understanding of the shared goals and values between archaeologists and metal detectorists secures a foothold into the much larger hobby community. What discussions with these dealers revealed was that interest in metal detecting is growing, not shrinking. They all agreed that designing programs that give detectorists an entry into archaeology was essential for a more productive interaction between the two groups. As such, we designed this week-long program as a pilot project to see how this interaction could take place. Instrumental in organizing this group of dealers was Minelab Americas, a leading developer of metal detector technology. Minelab has been involved in several organized efforts to join archaeologists with the metal detector community for public outreach and education.

Participant Ron DeGhetto scans the ground for metal artifacts while staff archaeologist Matt Greer records historic artifacts uncovered in the woods survey.

During this week-long program, metal detector enthusiasts worked side-by-side with archaeologists in discovering sites and recovering information to aid in the interpretation of sites. All the while, detectorists were trained through lectures, readings, and practical exercises on how the systematic use of metal detectors can aide in site preservation. Lectures were carefully tailored to reinforce concepts that metal detectorists would encounter during the hands-on exercises in the field. The evidence for metal detectorists engaging with archaeological concepts was evident in field exercises—metal detector participants used the utmost caution in excavating hits and quickly understood the concept of using a grid to record metal detector finds. In turn, archaeologists experienced how to work with detectorists in a team environment that fostered learning, preservation, and the thrill of discovery. The fieldwork was where these seasoned detectorists saw archaeology providing a whole new approach towards the discovery of historic artifacts.

Metal detector participant Ransom Hundley marking metal detector hits while staff archaeologists Kira Runkle records number of hits per square at the quarter for field slaves.

In the course of the week’s program, the detectorists were exposed to two very different use of metal detectors—the first for site discovery and the second for defining a site. Site discovery took place in wooded portions of the property that had never been systematically surveyed. By gridding the woods into 20 meter squares, each area was carefully scanned with detectors and artifacts sampled. Metal targets were excavated based on protocols such as depth, density, and signal strength. In this survey, archaeologists depended on detectorists’ expertise on reading signals while detectorists communicated the characteristics of the hits to allow archaeologists to determine how to sample. This process allowed some 20 acres to be surveyed in two days, and three sites (two early 19th century slave quarters and one barn/work area) were discovered. In addition, archaeologists and detectorists were able to determine which areas were potentially plowed in the early 19th century based on horse shoes and plow parts.
In the second portion of the program, a known site in an open field was gridded off into 10 foot squares and all signals in each square were marked with skewer sticks. Densities across the site were plotted in this manner and then selective squares were sampled to determine the historic context for the concentrations. In the process, three clusters of hits were deciphered across a  300 ft x 300 ft area that suggested the presence of several house areas within this early 19th century slave settlement. In this exercise, as in the woods, metal detectorists were quick to understand the value of the machine as both a non-invasive remote sensing device and as a tool to quickly locate and define hits that could be sampled without disturbing deep stratigraphy.

Participant Van Boone showing off a t-headed wrought nail found during woods survey.

Throughout the week, both detectorists and archaeologists attended lectures geared towards demystifying the rationale behind field techniques employed during the week’s surveys. Topics such as recovery of information from features was combined with how signal depth could be used to avoid damage to features during survey and how recovery of a wide array of artifacts (including the ubiquitous nail) could aid in the interpretation of sites. Throughout the lectures, emphasis was placed on how metal detecting can actually enhance archaeologists’ ability to preserve site integrity. Participants walked away with not only a better understanding of how particular archaeological methods can benefit from metal detector surveys of a site, but also how care in recovery during metal detecting could enhance the enjoyment of the hobby. Both groups exchanged information on sets of artifacts that were important to each others’ discipline—archaeologists learned more about specific functions of diagnostic metal items in our collection, and metal detectorists came away with a better understanding of the variety and range of nails found at sites. Throughout the process, open dialogue was the main means of sharing information between the two groups—something that does not often happen between archaeologists and metal detectorists. This dialogue allowed us to share with participants how our methods led to data preservation both during survey and excavation of sites.

In the end, the goal of the program was to foster a mutual respect between the staff archaeologists and the metal detector participants. This goal was met through camaraderie built from shared discoveries, learning, and hard work. Metal detectorists left the program with the prospect of seeing how their hobby could be extended into the realm of archaeology, and archaeologists left with an understanding of how the knowledge base and skills held within the metal detecting community could be used for site survey. Telling were the exchanges of gifts between the groups—archaeologists providing metal detectorists with trowels, and metal detectorists bestowing pin pointers (electronic devices used to pinpoint the location of metallic objects in a small hole). The exchange of information, techniques, technology, and skills allowed for open discussion of views that each held of the other and a better sense of common ground between the two groups.

Proof for the success of this outreach program came both during and in the days following the program. Discussion forums featured detectorists writing in about the program, twitter pages were active with questions regarding the program, and several blogs featured the highlights of the expedition. In the days following the program, several dealers featured the highlights of their interaction on their company webpages, with one even donating a percentage of his monthly profits to furthering the preservation of archaeological sites at Montpelier, a donation that will be matched by Minelab Americas. Metal detector participants were encouraged to use the program as an entry point for contacting local archaeologists in their region to offer their services for identification and definition of sites. By learning a common language that archaeologists would understand (gridded systematic survey, sampling, mapping) we hope that these participants will be better able to make contact with archaeologists to offer their services. We hope that this exchange can continue and foster more discussions concerning our common goals to preserve sites and discover information about the past.

Have you, as an archaeologist, used metal detector technology in your survey work? Have you worked with metal detector enthusiasts in conducting these surveys? If so, what types of engagement have you used? What were some of the challenges you faced in establishing such programs, or what hurdles are keeping you from establishing one now?

Interested in developing your own training course? Dr. Reeves has made the Information Packet from his project available online. You can also see the video below that discusses Montpelier’s longtime relationship with metal detector technician, Lance Crosby.

For some time, the SHA has been working to develop a LinkedIn resource that can be used by members as both a forum for discussion of research and a place to post job announcements and other Society-oriented content. To achieve that, we have developed a new group for SHA members only that will be focused on providing a forum for membership to post jobs, contact potential employers, and establish professional connections. Additionally, the original group, which was started years ago independent of the Society, will remain open and available for members and non-members to discuss historical archaeology and other archaeologically related content. Special thanks to Tim Scarlett building and maintaining this page over the past few years.

The new group will be open to members only, and will therefore be yet another benefit of joining the SHA. We encourage you to visit and request access to the page. Please visit the group by clicking here.