Virtually all historical archaeologists are fascinated by seemingly prosaic things like ceramics, bones, and buttons because we know that such objects provide historical stories that might otherwise pass completely unnoticed. Consequently, it is gratifying and not surprising that lots of people who are not professional archaeologists become committed and reflective avocational archaeologists or are simply fascinated by heritage and respect the complicated process of piecing together archaeological narratives.  Nearly all of us with relatively active projects have dedicated local volunteers, supportive communities, and streams of visitors who share our own fascination with archaeology and heritage, because archaeological excavations and interpretation are an exciting process of thoughtfully weaving together remarkable stories based on the most modest items.

It is not at all surprising that archaeology and material heritage would find its way into popular culture, and some television shows, magazines, and web pages have done exceptionally thoughtful presentations of archaeology.  Nevertheless, with that popularity there inevitably will be some popular interpretations of archaeology, preservation, heritage and value that archaeologists will resist because they break with our most fundamental ethics.  The most recent challenge comes from Spike TV’s American Diggers, hosted by former professional wrestler Ric Savage.  Like many professional and avocational archaeologists alike, Savage indicates that “I’ve been a history buff my whole life,” but in the hands of Spike TV that interest in history demonstrates no real respect for archaeological methods, community heritage, or preservation law, since the show’s central goal is to recover items that amateur “diggers” can sell.  In Spike’s own words, “In the US, there are millions of historical relics buried in backyards just waiting to be discovered and turned into profit.  `American Digger’ hopes to claim a piece of that pie as the series travels to a different city each week, including Detroit, MI, Brooklyn, NY, Chicago, IL and Jamestown, VA searching for high-value artifacts and relics, some of which have been untouched for centuries.”  The show proudly proclaims that “After pinpointing historical locations such as Civil War and Revolutionary War battlefields, Savage’s first task is to convince reluctant homeowners to let his team dig up their property using state-of-the-art metal detectors and heavy-duty excavation equipment.  The team will then sell any artifacts found for a substantial profit by consulting experts and scouring the antique and collectible markets, but not before negotiating a deal to divide the revenue with the property owners.”

The show has been greeted by a host of archaeological voices who recognize such work as indiscriminate looting of our collective heritage, a heritage that archaeologists professionally document so those materials and stories are preserved for all of us.  We may not transform Spike TV’s shallow interest in simply presenting profitable “larger than life character” shows, but many thoughtful people may not initially recognize the dilemmas of Savage’s ambition to excavate the “hidden treasure found in the back yards of every day Americans.”  It is those audiences who share our interest in documenting and preserving history for generations to come that we need to reach.  We need to recognize that this is a potential “teaching moment” in which we can inform more people about historical archaeology and encourage a more responsible preservation ethic among the many people who are excited by heritage and materiality.

Savage transparently caricatures historical archaeologists and paints himself as a sort of working-class self-taught scholar with whom his audience of homeowners and history buffs should identify, revealing that he does not know any archaeologists or know much about what we do.  He told the St Augustine Record that “’Diggers are looked on as the trailer trash of the archaeology community and the archaeologists are thought of as the brains, but that’s not necessarily the truth,’ Savage said. `The higher the education people get, the higher the snobbishness that goes along with it.’”  Of course many historical archaeologists have exceptional community-based excavation teams staffed by volunteers committed to their local history, and many volunteers routinely become solid scholars with a genuine understanding of and appreciation for archaeological method and interpretation.

Savage clumsily suggests that he is protecting a past that will disintegrate if we do not recover it now.  When Savage descended on St. Augustine in February he said that “diggers are able to recover relics `that are rotting in the ground and (would) never be found’ as archaeologists wait for grants or for construction to trigger an excavation.”  Of course virtually no artifacts are “rotting” in the ground, least of all the metal artifacts on which Savage focuses his excavations.  If anything, removing those artifacts from a stable soil matrix accelerates their decomposition.

Archaeologists have always rejected commercial exploitation of archaeological resources, and professionals do not seek to “convince reluctant homeowners” to excavate saleable things from their otherwise preserved property, much less encourage people to excavate on and around historic sites like Jamestown or Civil War battlefields that are legally protected.  Professional and avocational archaeologists alike have always strongly resisted commercial exploitation of archaeological sites, and selling the products of his digs are Savage’s fundamental goal.  It is unclear what other artifacts with no real commercial value—scatters of clothing snaps, broken plates, splintered marbles—were found in Savage’s digs or what happened to them, but of course those things that cannot be sold are what fill most historic archaeological collections.

St. Augustine has been the scene of exceptional archaeological scholarship on some of the very earliest European immigrants to the New World, so it is especially distressing that some of this rare material might be lost to somebody digging haphazardly in search of the purported “gold nugget” Savage suggests he recovered in St. Augustine in February.  Kathleen Deagan provided a thoughtful response to the St. Augustine Record based on over 40 years of her own archaeological research in the city, and local avocational and professional archaeologists have responded rapidly and thoughtfully.  The city’s archaeology project has done an outstanding job documenting the city’s earliest European occupation and even earlier prehistoric settlement because St. Augustine has committed itself to preservation.

American Diggers professes to share our concern for documenting national and international heritage, but it actually appears to promote the destruction of that heritage.  It simply finds and plunders the past and fundamentally misrepresents and misunderstands archaeological research, preservation law, and the community heritage that we all aspire to protect.

I have attached SHA’s letter to Spike, which also went to its production company and the Executive and Senior Vice-Presidents in charge of original series at Spike. You may view it here.

It is common for us to feel invigorated by the annual conference, after hearing great papers, discussing innovative ideas, renewing relationships, and embracing a new resolve to do the work of making SHA a better organization that we all be proud of. Although our poster wasn’t officially sponsored by the Gender and Minority Affairs Committee (GMAC) (they helped to inspire it), Cheryl LaRoche and I presented on “Race and the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA): Steps Toward Claiming an Anti-Racist Institutional Identity.” It generated considerable interest, raised important issues, and will serve to support the board’s decision to embark on anti-racism training, for which they should be commended. The board’s commitment to doing this work is a bold step in an important direction that can truly transform our organization and make it more inclusive.

What follows is the text of our poster, a considerably condensed version of an essay we contributed to the Winter 2012 issue of the Newsletter.

Archaeology and Racial Hierarchy

Archaeologists know that racial hierarchy structures the material world, yet we have seldom considered how white privilege influences our practice.

The Whiteness of the SHA

White men created the SHA and structured it to meet their needs as members of white society. This is reflected in its personnel, programs, constituency, and mission, and the ways historical archaeologists are trained in the academy.

Racial Socialization

We all have been socialized in a racist society and consequently carry and perpetuate attitudes of either internalized racial oppression or internalized racial superiority. This socialization process serves to maintain racial hierarchy.

Transforming the Discipline

We can effectively address the racial disparities in our profession and begin to claim and put into practice an anti-racist organizational identity by examining the way we recruit students, foster their development, and inculcate academic values. In order to transform the SHA into a truly diverse and welcoming organization we must address the barriers to access that continue to maintain our organization’s white, male, heterosexual, and middle class membership and principles.

Our Collective Responsibility

The mission of seeking diversity involves all historical archaeologists and should be our collective goal as we work to transform our field and our organization in an effort to claim an anti-racist institutional identity.

For all that archaeologists and historians have learned from studying plantations in southeastern Virginia, there is a remarkable amount we still do not know. Much of this gap exists under the guise of things we think we know. Have any of us seen the archaeological footprint of a 17th-century tobacco press, corn-crib or stable? What about a dock or warehouse? Do we know where and how these buildings were built, how they “fit” within the plantation’s landscape? If we accept that plantations essentially operated as small towns, complete with systems of roads, quarters, agricultural buildings, fields, docks, and manor houses, and often complemented with mills, manufacturing enterprises, and formal gardens, how do we explain why a region so densely populated with historical archaeologists and so inherently connected with the history of colonial America has made so little progress in understanding the majority of this landscape?

Figure 1: The Manor home at Fairfield Plantation (courtesy of the Virginia Historical Society).

In 2000, we started the Fairfield Foundation, a not-for-profit dedicated to archaeological research and public outreach at Fairfield Plantation in Gloucester County on Virginia’s Middle Peninsula. Our first priority was a shovel test pit (STP) survey of nearly 60 acres of agricultural fields and forest surrounding the manor house ruins and adjacent Carters Creek, a tributary of the York River. The goal of the survey wasn’t to confront inadequacies in the study of plantation landscapes; we simply thought it was the best way to begin understanding this historic plantation that we knew nothing about. Over the subsequent 10 years of extensive sampling and focused excavations on the manor house, nearby quarters, and the spaces in between, these 1,500+ STPs remain the basis for interpreting this complex and constantly changing landscape, challenging us to rethink how we study plantations and their inhabitants. Shovel testing is not glamorous, but it is a quick and proven method for large-scale site study, looking more objectively at a landscape without preconceptions of the ‘best’ places to dig. We by no means planned to ignore the ruins of the 1694 manor house (Figure 1), an architectural enigma that had fascinated researchers since the early 20th century; we just assumed that anyone would begin with the large-scale survey if they could. But in searching for comparable, systematic plantation surveys in our region, we realized how rare it was for archaeologists to look beyond the 10 or 20 acres surrounding the manor house.

When archaeologists and historians study these landscapes – particularly how and why they changed over time – most fill in their knowledge gaps with primary documents from later periods projected backwards, with over-used generalizations from rare contemporary documents, and, most often, with assumptions based on little historical or archaeological evidence. These interpretations aren’t necessarily wrong, but they are often based on logical suppositions of how we, in the present, think those in the past would have acted. There is limited evidence to shed light on these  under studied elements of the plantation landscape, and, as a whole, scholars have had little interest in researching them. What we have found, though, is that at Fairfield Plantation (and perhaps elsewhere) these elements reveal the physical evidence for one of the most important periods in the region’s history: the transition from tobacco monoculture to mixed grains and the dramatic and contemporary reorganization of space (See Figure 2). Unfortunately, increasing suburbanization and large-scale development are severely limiting future opportunities to look into plantation landscapes and, with some notable exceptions, few archaeologists are stepping up to the challenge.

Figure 2: STP survey at Fairfield Plantation has demonstrated a changing landscape through four phases from the 17th through 19th centuries. (Figure courtesy of Fairfield Foundation).

Despite widespread development, southeastern Virginia maintains the historical association with plantations and agriculture that defined it for much of the last four centuries. This past is marketed as an invaluable asset to the local economy, and promulgated by many interested residents and descendants. Images of plantations across the tidewater are a vital part of the region’s local identity and the face it promotes to the rest of the state and country. We know that a large 18th-century brick building and terraced garden, surrounding agricultural fields, and occasional barn or slave quarter can each give solitary testimony to our region’s storied past, but these are inherently incomplete and misleading images of plantation life. We cannot expect historic house owners, house museums, and budget-constrained localities, dependent on limited tourist revenue and mired within the prevailing paradigms of plantation interpretation, to push a program of intensive study of the development of the region’s historic landscape. But we, as archaeologists, need to do a better job to confront the wide gaps in our knowledge, to look broadly at landscapes and time, to embrace the 19th century and not just the colonial, and to deal with misconceptions, prejudices, and myths harbored by the public about plantation history. It is our responsibility to better explore the development of these landscapes to fill in the gaps that assumptions have bridged for far too long before the continued development of our region leaves us with only relatively small historic islands surrounding the manor houses of dead rich white men and their families.

Don’t get us wrong – we strongly believe that historical archaeologists have contributed significantly to a greater understanding of the development of specific elements of plantations. We’d like to think that a more comprehensive view of the larger plantation acreage, beyond the manor house, the individual quarters, and the formal gardens, has been as much an essential priority for the many archaeology-focused organizations (private and public) in Virginia as it is for researchers of sugar plantations in Barbados, coffee plantations in Jamaica, or even provisioning plantations in New York and Massachusetts. But looking at the body of research in our region, we realized that despite having seen more projects on plantations than perhaps any other part of the world, systematic plantation surveys numbered exactly two: Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, and his retreat house, Poplar Forest. Various systematic surveys were undertaken in the 1970s and 1980s (Carter’s Grove in James City County and Stratford Hall in Westmoreland County to name two), but these and a handful of others were seldom written up, the data left inaccessible due to time and funding constraints. Other surveys are still trapped in the grey literature, the scope of work and research designs limited by the priorities of clients and the Section 106 process. Some of our most recognizable plantations, including George Washington’s Mount Vernon, are already islands within a sea of development, but still look in the backyards of their neighbors to recover what they can (Pogue 1988; Pecoraro and Cole 2012). Despite recent trends focusing on plantation gardens and the yard areas around domestic spaces, there remains a very real preference by many archaeologists to focus on individual buildings and activity areas associated with abundant material culture and architectural evidence, because these permit a level of detailed interpretation that seems to pay more dividends than digging several hundred STPs or studying difficult to recognize extant landscape features. In a time of limited funding and a growing curation crisis of previously excavated materials, we’d like to think an approach that better serves preservation of cultural landscapes through their holistic (yet less obtrusive) study would appeal to the community of historical archaeologists.

We’re uncertain whether most scholars in our region will expand their gaze beyond the immediate surroundings of a plantation’s remarkable manor homes, nearby ancillary buildings, and quarters, yet we contend that this expansion is absolutely necessary. While these plantation elements are legitimate research foci, and will always provide new information, they did not exist in a vacuum. To know the manor house we must know the quarter; to understand the gardens we must investigate the fields. How can we expect to decipher how warehouses, docks, and barns functioned within the landscape without mapping the roads, fencelines, and field divisions? Do we understand the complicated interplay between plantation and town, or between manor house, court house, and house of worship? Are we satisfied assuming the public, and funding organizations, believe our time is best spent on the search for “cool things” rather than “cool ideas”? Or do we engage with modern residents and descendant communities to add depth and nuance to our research, confront misunderstandings and misrepresentations of the past, and demonstrate the full potential of the discipline to contribute to a better understanding of the past? As recent blog posts on this site have proven, historical archaeologists of other regions have succeeded in these endeavors. The realization that there is much that we do not know, concerning subjects long thought already decided or relatively unimportant, will lead to a broader challenging of the historical narrative and a greater role for historical archaeology in understanding our shared pasts.

Update 2/27/2012

We are encouraged by the response to the blog we posted on February 22nd and are happy to report that, because of this post, we have been contacted regarding additional plantation surveys in our region beyond those we listed. These include the 500-acres surrounding Mount Vernon, the National Park Service’s acreage at George Washington’s Birthplace National Monument, the Lee family plantation at Stratford Hall, and the plantations on Jamestown Island. Many of these are used as internal planning documents, influencing excavation strategies and site development.  Others, by necessity, remain out of public access due to concerns over site preservation. This is not to say that the authors are not encouraging of their use in research by those studying and interpreting plantation landscapes, and many would be happy to share this data.  Ultimately, increased interest in looking beyond the plantation’s core will lead to the greater exchange of archaeological data in addition to refocusing the priorities of plantation studies. If you know of other plantation surveys, please do not hesitate to share them in the comment field or contact us separately.

References Cited

• Pogue, Dennis J.
  • 1988 Archaeology at George Washington’s Mount Vernon 1931 – 1987, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association Archaeology Department, File Report #1.
• Pecoraro, Luke and Bill Cole
  • 2012 Reanalysis of Two Features at the Potomac Overlook Site, 44FX885, Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association Archaeology Department.

A full English breakfast

Following on from our guide for delegates travelling to the SHA conference in Leicester in January 2013, we have put together some information about the city’s accommodation options, which is now available to download on the conference webpage.

Leicester boasts a range of accommodation to suit all pockets, from lavish hotels to cosy Bed & Breakfasts. The Conference Committee has negotiated special rates with four major hotels in central Leicester, all within walking distance of the main conference venue, the University of Leicester. Bookings should be made directly with the hotel, quoting the booking reference listed in the accommodation guide. The four hotels with negotiated rates are:

The Mercure Leicester City Hotel in Granby Street in the city centre. This will also be the venue for the Conference Dinner and Awards, round-table luncheons, and committee meetings. The Mercure opened in 1898 as the Grand Hotel, and is a grade II listed building.

The Belmont Hotel in De Montfort Street is a boutique-style hotel located in a grand Victorian terrace adjacent to the historic New Walk, and only a few minutes walk from the University.

The Holiday Inn at St Nicholas Circle in the city centre is close to the River Soar and the Jewry Wall and Newarke Houses Museums.

The Premier Inn at St Georges Way in the city centre is a two-minute walk from the railway station. Premier Inn regularly has special deals for a limited number of cheap rooms (cheaper than the negotiated rate) which can be booked via its website, so please check there before contacting the hotel to make your booking.

The accommodation options above can be found on this map. There are many other hotels and budget ‘Bed & Breakfast’ options in Leicester, and the Go! Leicestershire website gives a great introduction to the city and the surrounding countryside. Addresses with postcodes beginning ‘LE1’ are in the city centre, whereas those beginning ‘LE2’ are located within a large area covering the southern side of the city, to the south of the University of Leicester, and includes the neighbourhoods of Clarendon Park, Stoneygate, and Oadby.

A limited amount of free floorspace will be available to students; further information will be available on this blog later in the year.

Based on initial feedback, we have made some alterations to the travel guide, so that it’s even more useful! You’ll find the updated version on the conference webpage. We have also started to put together a map with information about our favourite places to eat and drink in Leicester.

And finally, in case you’re not sure about the pronunciation of ‘Leicester’, it’s like this.

The literature surrounding the use of LiDAR, light detection and ranging, imagery can often be disjointed, vague, and impractical for its application in archaeological investigation.  Wanting to utilize the available data, I became frustrated with the lack of literature that described a basic methodological approach to using LiDAR.  The most common usage for LiDAR in archaeological contexts continues to be identification of sites and associated features.  Recent interest in LiDAR’s ability to aid in the monitoring of conditions on archaeological sites offers another opportunity to employ the available datasets (Challis et al. 2008).

LiDAR, light detection and ranging, is the constant transmittal of high-resolution laser light to the ground surface, with the time differential of each pulse recorded at the receiving station attached to a low-altitude aircraft (Fennell 2010:6-7).  The accuracy of the method varies dependent on location and how the data was gathered; essentially, a micro-topographic map of the bare surface of the site and surrounding lands can be produced for archaeological analysis.  LiDAR has been used in multiple case studies including both prehistoric and historic archaeological surveys with and without vegetation cover (Fennell 2010; Harmon et al. 2006; Petzold et al. 1999).

While the usage of LiDAR in archaeological contexts remains limited, the ways in which it is manipulated and more thoroughly realized continue to expand (Challis et al. 2008; Chase et al. 2011; Devereux et al. 2005; Devereux et al. 2008; Fennell 2010; Harmon et al. 2006; Rowlands and Sarris 2007).  The various techniques to extrapolate information include, among others, the application of hill-shading algorithms, the manipulation of illumination sources by direction and elevation, the alteration of contour intervals through arbitrary and relational settings, the creation of local relief models, the application of statistics in analysis to include nearest neighbor, quadrat, and chi-square, the variance of resolution between micro and macro glimpses of the landscape, and even the use of multiple color gradients (Challis et al. 2008; Chase et al. 2011; Devereux et al. 2005; Devereux et al. 2008; Fennell 2010; Harmon et al. 2006; Jaillet 2011; Rowlands and Sarris 2007).

Of course, where there is potential…there is also pitfall.  Some of the more common issues with LiDAR that deter it from a more widespread usage include the potential for data overload, inconsistency in its interpretive value, human error or unfamiliarity with LiDAR, present surface imagery’s inability to cope with temporal and/or cultural association, and resolution issues (Harmon et al. 2006; Jaillet 2011).  Another point worth noting is that while it is without doubt a useful tool in the archaeological toolbox, it continues to be a method that works best in conjunction with other archaeological methods to include other remote sensing techniques, historic documentation and field investigation (Fennell 2010; Harmon et al. 2006; Jaillet 2011; Kvamme et al. 2006).

At this point, we come to the crux of the matter: what are we doing with LiDAR?  In order to get at this question, we could go back to the algorithm.  The algorithm most commonly discussed in the literature of LiDAR deals with the language of computers and programming.  The meaning, in most instances, is in reference to the computer science behind its analysis and the GIS, geographic information systems, functions used to analyze it.  While a great deal has been learned and a great deal more will be learned using this standard definition, I would ask that we apply the most basic ideas behind mathematical induction and recursive relations to our methodological approach to LiDAR analysis.

One solution would be to apply a back-to-the-basics approach involving the basic recursive algorithm of Divide-and-Conquer.  Using the Divide and Conquer Algorithm, one would break the larger problem down into two more manageable questions.  What can we do with LiDAR, in addition to we have already done?  How do we go about doing it, in the most basic sense?  It is the second question that appears to be the one plaguing the archaeological community most, as we have excellent examples worldwide of what can be done with LiDAR and archaeologists are continuing to apply it in innovative ways.

We need to come to a consensus on the variables that we are trying to measure using the LiDAR dataset.  One way to go about this would be quantification of the variables using archaeological signatures that essentially typify features common to historic and prehistoric site types.

Essential to the idea of the Divide-and-Conquer algorithm is its parallelism, its ability to be used for multiple purposes, just as we know LiDAR can be.  The same set of variables can be combined in differing ways to represent the different archaeological signatures expected of different archaeological resources.  For example, a historic agricultural settlement might include linear features such as field lines, roadways, and waterways, as well as, polygon features such as structures and specific forms of vegetation.  A prehistoric quarry site might include polygon features such as borrow pits and distinctive topographic features advantageous to the process of quarrying for lithic resources.  The limits to the use of this technology are as of yet unmapped.

Essentially, what we need is a solution that is both mathematical and manual, a more efficient way to standardize LiDAR analysis.  One potential solution would be to compute a coding system to manage the variables and allow for the ability to analyze LiDAR datasets with reference to the individual and combined variables, which would, in turn, limit the number of possible outcomes to a manageable number that could be reviewed and manually analyzed by the archaeologist.

In closing, I ask the archaeological community to rethink the algorithm in LiDAR and continue to expand upon the ways in which we use this valuable tool.  Where to from here then… continue to push the bounds of this technology or begin to utilize what we have effectively?  Must we make this choice or can we begin to apply consistent methodological standards to our use of LiDAR, while pushing the bounds of possibility?

References Cited

• Challis, Keith and Ziga Kokalj, Mark Kincey, Derek Moscrop, Andy J. Howard
• 2008. “Airborne lidar and historic environment records.” In Antiquity. Vol. 82. 1055-1064.
• Chase, Arlen F. and Diane Z. Chase, John F. Weishampel, Jason B. Drake, Ramesh L. Shrestha, K. Clint Slatton, Jaime J. Awe, William E. Carter
• 2011. “Airborne LiDAR, archaeology and the ancient Maya landscape at Caracol, Belize.” In Journal of Archaeological Science. Vol. 38. 387-398.
• Devereux, B.J. and G.S. Amable, P. Crow
• 2008. “Visualisation of LiDAR terrain models for archaeological feature detection.”  In Antiquity. Vol. 82. 470-479.
• Devereux, B.J. and G.S. Amable, P. Crow, A.D. Cliff
• 2005. “The potential of airborne lidar for detection of archaeological features under woodland canopies.” In Antiquity. Vol. 79. 648-660.
• Fennell, Christopher
• 2010. “Archaeological Investigations and LiDAR Aerial Survey in Edgefield, South Carolina.” In African Diaspora Archaeology Network Newsletter.  December.
• Harmon, James and Mark Leone, Stephen Prince, Marcia Snyder.
• 2006. “LiDAR for Archaeological Landscape Analysis: A Case Study of Two Eighteenth-Century Maryland Plantation Sites.” In American Antiquity. Vol. 71(4).  649-670.
• Hunter, William A.
• 1960. Forts on the Pennsylvania Frontier (1753-1758).  Pennsylvania Historic and Museum Commission.
• Jaillet, Angela S.
• 2011. The People of Pandenarium: The Living Landscape of a Freed African American Settlement.”  Masters Thesis.  Indiana University of Pennsylvania.  Indiana, PA.
• Kvamme, Kenneth L. and Jay K. Johnson, Bryan S. Haley.
• 2006. Multiple Methods Surveys: Case Studies.  In Remote Sensing in Archaeology: An Explicitly North American Perspective.  Ed. by Jay K. Johnson.  251-268. University of Alabama Press.  Tuscaloosa, AL.
• Rowlands, Aled and Apostolos Sarris
• 2007. “Detection of exposed and subsurface archaeological remains using multi-sensor remote sensing.” In Journal of Archaeological Science. Vol. 34. 795-803.

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) was awarded Department of Defense (DoD) Legacy funding for a three-dimensional (3D) artifact scanning project in 2011, which was developed in partnership with John Haynes, then archaeologist for Marine Corps Base Quantico (MCBQ).  The DoD Legacy program is designed to foster innovative approaches to the study, preservation, and stewardship of cultural remains—including archaeological objects—recovered on DoD facilities across the globe.

Our project involves 3D scanning of archaeological objects using a NextEngine Desktop 3D scanner in order to test and demonstrate the capabilities of this technology for its potential employment in ensuring DoD compliance with historic preservation laws.  Archaeological collections from DoD installations in Virginia, Maryland, and other regional repositories are the subject of the study. The Virtual Curation Unit for Recording Archaeological Materials Systematically (V.C.U.-R.A.M.S) consists of faculty member Dr. Bernard K. Means and several undergraduate students enrolled at VCU.

Virtual artifact curation has the potential for addressing a number of issues important to archaeologists. One issue is access to collections. The virtual curation project will enable researchers to access digital data files that allow full 3D observation and manipulation of an image and accurate measurement without requiring scholars to travel to a repository. Digital scanning of objects can save time for both researchers and for staff at curation facilities, while maximizing scholars’ access to collections.  Objects and entire collections that are now physically dispersed in more than one repository can be united through 3D digital scanning into a single virtual repository.

Visitors watch as Clinton King scans an artifact in the field at the Huntsberry Farm Civil War site outside Winchester, Virginia.

The NextEngine Desktop 3D scanner is designed to be portable and, as part of the Virtual Artifact Curation project, the potentials and capabilities of the scanner have been tested at several non-lab locations. We can go to places that are culturally and historically important to our country, scan objects at these locations, and make them accessible to a wider audience. We have been fortunate to scan archaeological materials from Virginia institutions such as Colonial Williamsburg, Jamestown Rediscovery, George Washington’s Ferry Farm, and Flowerdew Hundred, and at The State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Archaeological materials from these significant locations are certainly too fragile to be passed around among scholars and in classroom settings, but can be shared digitally.

With 3D scanning technology, important cultural items that belong to and must be returned to private landowners could be recorded and made available to scholars through virtual curation.  While owners of archaeological collections in private hands may not be willing to donate the physical objects located on their properties—perhaps identified through a compliance investigation—they may agree to “donate” the information inherent in their collections and make their items virtually accessible to a wider audience of scholars and others who might be interested. Virtual curation may also prove useful for cultural objects that are designated for eventual repatriation, if descendent groups agree to the scans of these items.

Courtney Bowles holds a bone tambour hook prior to scanning at George Washington’s Ferry Farm, Fredericksburg, Virginia.

Virtual curation of artifacts will prove critical for fragile objects by minimizing handling and “preserving” them digitally, especially when conservation funding is limited. Repeated digital scanning sessions can help conservators ascertain whether conservation treatments are working as intended—through highly accurate digital models taken of the same object at set intervals. This will enable the conservator to closely monitor whether there is continuing degradation of an object.

While digital scanning is an important tool for documenting the potential degradation of an object, the initial stages should precede any conservation treatments when possible. If an object is scanned prior to conservation treatments, a pretreatment scan of the object may be the “truest” image of the object that we will ever have. Conservation does not always produce an object, however stable, that represents its original state.

Sharing of data is certainly one of the strong points of the movement toward digital archaeological media. The ability to manipulate and move objects in three dimensions benefits researchers more greatly than static images ever can. Public and scholarly interaction with digital models can certainly foster a more reflexive archaeology. This would allow diverse observers to move virtual objects or travel through virtual worlds, creating a dialectical relationship between past and present—and, open interpretation and reflection up to a wider audience.

The scanning team in the Virtual Curation Laboratory at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia. Left to Right: Clinton King, Bernard K. Means, Victoria Valentine, and Courtney Bowles.

Where do we go from here? How will 3D digital images of objects and artifacts alter people’s perceptions of what is “real” and what is “virtual”? This is something we plan to explore in greater detail in the coming months. Our project team maintains our own blog that regularly details and updates our progress with the scanning project: http://vcuarchaeology3d.wordpress.com.  Here, you can find more information about our successes and challenges with the virtual curation of artifacts from historic and prehistoric sites. We welcome your comments as well.

For students, the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual conference is a fantastic place to meet people – it is a “society” after all. You can explore interests and network with other archaeologists including academics, professionals and peers. However, from one year to the next these connections can be forgotten. Building lasting networks out of conference conversations requires one key activity – follow up. Turning a great conversation into something more can be tricky, however. Here are a few tips.

We all think we will remember the details of conversations had with archaeologists whose work truly interests us, but three days, a rolling sea of faces and names, and a drop of beer can taint even the most amazing memories. Take the time to write down details of your conversations at the conference. Include not only the things you would like to remember but also those things you would like the other person to remember about you. Read over your notes and make any additions that would clarify them. For example, it turns out that the person you met day one was a student of someone you met day three. That connection may help future conversations flow.

It is no surprise that many conference attendees arrive home with new work and some backlog, not to mention our personal lives. Follow-ups should occur soon but not too soon after the conference. Waiting a few weeks allows for everyone to recover while reducing the chance that your efforts are met with a quizzical response; “Who is this again?”

Maintaining the new lines of your network isn’t all timing. Your follow up should include some idea for a next step. Give some thought to a transition from the conference to some clear and reasonable goals. Otherwise, you are just reminding someone that you met. Perhaps you can use the time since you last spoke to chew over the next stage of your dialog. Set a few reasonable first step goals for the exchange. If these truly elude you, you may ask why are you contacting this person.

If you are asking your new connection for something, especially time, you should have some idea of what you have to offer in return. Often those attending conferences serve on one or several of the many committees that it takes to run the SHA. Volunteering to help can be a way to connect with a new contact, explore the workings and current issues of the society, and help keep the SHA going strong. Make sure offers you make are ones you can keep, as few things are worse than overextending yourself.

Social media is providing new tools that can help you foster connections from a distance whether you are following or participating in the creation of dialog. More and more archaeologists are joining sites like Facebook or Twitter and Academia.edu or LinkedIn. All can provide either streams or tidbits of current event information from your network or by you. Keep in mind that you are building professional relationships and think about the content you plan to jettison into the digital world.

Not all contacts have futures. Sometimes a great conversation is just that – savor it, think about it, and be open to another at next year’s conference. However, it never hurts to say thanks. Dropping a brief note with a detail or two to remind someone where you two met is a great means to demonstrate you were not raised in a cave by wolves. It also increases the chance they will remember you next year.

How do you maintain your connections with people you’ve met at conferences? What are some communities that are good places to network and meet people? What are some of your fears about networking? Non-students, do you have any tips for students?

This post was co-authored by Jennifer Coplin and Mary Petrich-Guy.

Leicester Railway Station, 1908

For all those who are starting to plan for their attendance at SHA 2013, a guide to travelling to Leicester is now available to download from the conference webpage.

The travel guide contains information and links to many useful websites, including:

– The UK Border Agency, for those who might need to arrange a travel visa or other supporting documentation in order to travel to the UK (not usually needed by visitors from the US or EU, but please do check);

– Airports serving Leicester and the southern part of the UK (East Midlands and Birmingham Airports are closest, with a wider range of international flights serving London’s Heathrow, Luton, Gatwick and Stansted Airports);

– Train companies serving Leicester Railway Station, as well as the BritRail and Eurail passes, for delegates looking to extend their visit and plan a continental adventure;

– Long-distance travel from the airport by taxi.

Maps of the University of Leicester and surrounding area, as well as further information about travelling to the city by road, rail or air, can also be found on the University of Leicester website, here.

There is now a myriad of online travel agents, competing with each other to deliver the cheapest deal on your flight, and so you might find a comparison website such as Skyscanner of use. Students and younger delegates might find the services of STA Travel useful, especially as they have a branch in the centre of Leicester. Other travel providers are available!

Later in the year we will provide a guide to travelling within Leicester. If you have any questions about travelling to the SHA 2013 conference that the travel guide is unable to answer, please leave them in the comments box below. We will try our best to answer them, and update the travel guide accordingly.

Image: [CC-BY-SA-3.0 or GFDL], via Wikimedia Commons

A week ago Quentin Lewis’ blog post on the November 2011 “Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory” conference (CHAT) in Boston asked the question “What is contemporary archaeology?”  Quentin reaches the conclusion that for the most part the CHAT conference looked a lot like an SHA conference and he was somewhat hard-pressed to see any especially profound distinctions between contemporary archaeology and historical archaeology.  His blog raises a couple of issues that should be important to North American historical archaeologists, questions that narrowly revolve around what contemporary archaeology is in the context of North American historical archaeology, but in a bigger picture they illuminate specifically what we want historical archaeology to be at all.

As Quentin recognized, contemporary archaeology has a firmer footing in the UK and Europe than it does in North America, or at least it is not an especially recognizable scholarly niche quite yet in the US.  The work of scholars in the UK and Europe has turned to some materiality that is admittedly distinctive if not unique, such as the extensive scholarship of the landscapes of 20^th century warfare (for instance, English Heritage’s ambitious Cold War Monuments project, Gabriel Moshenska’s work on British air raid shelters and children’s homefront experiences of World War II, Heinrich Natho’s study of Norwegian World War II coastal defenses, and Alfredo Gonzalez-Ruibal’s analysis of Spanish Civil War Monuments); Laura McAtackney’s work on “peace walls” in northern Ireland; Anna Badcock and Robert Johnston’s study of protest camp sites in Derbyshire; and contemporary graffiti (John Schofield has cleverly captivated many journalists and questioned what archaeologists value with his assessment of Sex Pistols graffiti).  Yet for all these distinctive dimensions of British and European heritage we could certainly point to just as many equally interesting material experiences in every corner of North America.  Some of the visibility of contemporary archaeology is inevitably linked to a British and European willingness to conduct material analysis that does not require excavation.  Outside North America a vast number of scholars call themselves archaeologists while studying space, the built environment, and a broad range of material things without necessarily wielding a trowel.  In the US historical archaeology has fashioned a particularly productive niche by focusing on field excavation and everyday materiality, and much of our training is devoted to field methods and analysis of a distinctive range of commodities like ceramics, glass, and faunal remains that are routinely recovered from excavation contexts on nearly any historic period site.

There clearly are plenty of archaeologists who have done creative and challenging work outside the confines of an excavation unit and looking at goods beyond the most commonplace things.  Americans routinely point to William Rathje’s Garbage Project as an example of the profoundly consequential political insights provided by contemporary material analysis done within a relatively familiar archaeological methodology, and certainly some American archaeologists have done challenging if not truly activist work on contemporary materiality.  For instance, my colleague Larry Zimmerman has conducted archaeology of homeless camps in Indianapolis, Indiana that aspires to transform how communities serve homeless residents (work paralleling the UK scholarship of Rachel Kiddey and John Schofield on homeless materiality) and Jason De Leon’s study of undocumented migration.  Nevertheless, these projects are exceptionally rare in their public political implications, disciplinary impact, and perhaps even in their status as a scholar’s research focus.  Certainly lots of professors incorporate some contemporary materiality in their standard historical archaeology courses; still, relatively few of us have stand-alone courses on contemporary material culture that are conceptualized as appropriate training for historical archaeologists, who likely will spend their careers conducting conventional field excavations.  The vibrancy of contemporary archaeology beyond American shores may reflect the influence of international heritage studies in which archaeology, materiality, and history are defined very broadly and tend not to be separated disciplines.  Perhaps a more critical issue that slows the growth of North American contemporary archaeology, as Quentin indicated in his blog posting, is that there are virtually no job announcements in the US that are explicitly seeking scholars of contemporary materiality.

Yet the boundary between an archaeology of contemporary materiality and a historical archaeology somehow set in the past is increasingly blurred in North America, as it is in most of the world.  North American historical archaeologists have long embraced engaged archaeologies with conscious community ties if not activist implications, and the SHA conference and journal include increasingly more papers on 20^th century contexts and projects that revolve around contemporary community scholarship.  Our broadly held commitment to an archaeology that is focused on everyday materiality and field excavation is not likely to shift radically, but the distance between contemporary archaeology and historical archaeology is probably not that great at all.