News

Patricia Samford, Director, Maryland Archaeological Conservation Lab

You’re just home from the SHA conference in Boston and you are quite frankly, all “archaeologied-out”.  There was lots of catching up with seldom-seen colleagues, too much beer, some great papers, and recovering from the dance.  And first thing you see when you open your email once you get back in the office is a link to the Winter SHA Newsletter.  And since all of those other emails stacked up from the week away from your desk had to take precedence, I bet you didn’t read it.  So, I would like to provide you with a quick summary of what you missed, in the hopes that you will go back and spend some time with the newsletter.

Here’s what you might have missed:

• Kimberley Wooten, archaeologist with the California Department of Transportation, wrote about her adventure aboard the 73-ft. sailboat TravelEdge, on the first leg of eXXpedition’s two-year research trip that will circumnavigate the globe studying single-use microplastics in our world’s oceans. Kim raised sponsorship money to support her time aboard the vessel, where her expertise as an archaeologist made her a natural fit for this project.
• Eric Tebby and William Wadsworth at the University of Alberta updated us on work being conducted under the supervision of Dr. Kisha Supernant at Chimney Coulee, a Métis overwintering site in Saskatchewan. This project is exploring how Métis identity was expressed archaeologically at various sites in the Canadian West.
• Scott Hamilton from Lakehead University in Ontario writes about his success at using unmanned aerial vehicles to investigate fur trade posts along the Assiniboine River in Manitoba, Canada.
• In Austria, Heike Krause writes about excavations at the oldest shopping mall (1920s) at the Karlsplatz Square in Vienna.
• In Illinois, Mark Wagner of Southern Illinois University updated us on recent field school investigations at Fort Kaskaskia. Their work discovered that two forts actually existed at this location – an 18^th-century French fort and a previously undiscovered early 19^th-century American fort.
• In other fort explorations, Erika K. Hartley of the Fort St. Joseph Archaeological Project and Michael S. Nassaney of Western Michigan University hosted a field school at Fort St. Joseph in 2019. Their work this summer in a previously-unexplored area suggests that the site may be twice the size previously thought.
• Ryan Austin, at SUNY at Buffalo Archaeological Survey, reports on Phase III data recovery excavations at two lower socio-economic status European American farmsteads in Genesee County, New York.

• Megan Rhodes Victor and Laura Jones report on the first full season of field work of the Arboretum Chinese Labor Quarters Project, co-sponsored by the Stanford Archaeology Center, Stanford’s Heritage Services and the Stanford University Archaeology Collections.
• Check out the SHA YouTube page and listen to six former SHA presidents talk about the organization on its 50^th anniversary in Images of the Past. 

Please read your newsletter – it’s one of the benefits of your membership and a great way to keep current with what’s happening in the world of historical archaeology. And please note who your regional Current Research editor is (page 10), so that you can send them an update on your projects. The next submission deadline is March 1^st, 2020!

http://onlinedigeditions.com/publication/?i=645260

These are exciting times for our profession and the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) is engaging in many new challenges and initiatives. Your financial support will help the SHA achieve shared goals. The Society’s work has yielded great results on multiple fronts.

• • SHA’s public education and governmental outreach work is combating ongoing attacks that seek to dismantle federal legislation that preserves our cultural and historical resources. SHA representatives regularly advocate for the preservation of our cultural heritage and archaeological record through outreach to legislators, agencies, preservation professionals, and citizens’ groups.
  • Our professional publications, training workshops, and annual conferences advance standards of excellence within our field. The Society has supported the growth and development of historical archaeology around the world and promoted its importance in understanding the past and present.
  • The Society’s diversity initiative focuses on enhancing the inclusive nature of our practice and profession. With racism and sexual harassment continuing to impact national events, our organization has become a leader in creating a more inclusive discipline and promoting the ethics of respect within the places where we live, learn, and work.
  • SHA sponsors programs for mentoring young scholars in their professional development, including funds to help subsidize their participation in our annual conferences, prizes to recognize their achievements, and networking opportunities through conference events, such as the Past Presidents’ Reception for Students, and social media.  

All of these initiatives require funding. We need your support. Your tax-deductible contribution can be made by clicking here, You can easily make either a one-time donation or a legacy gift. Any contribution you can afford will help the Society. So, please warm your heart through your love of archaeology by giving to the Society!

Barbara Heath

President

Chris Fennell

Development Committee

Lydia Wilson Marshall

Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, DePauw University

The grim state of the academic job market in archaeology is no secret. The number of Ph.D. graduates in our discipline greatly outnumbers the number of tenure-track jobs available. Because of these poor odds, beginning an academic job search can feel bewildering. While many aspects of the job search remain out of your control, there are steps you can take to bolster your chances of landing a coveted tenure-track position. No less important is developing your ability to take care of yourself during this grueling process. Here are some tips.

1. Prepare. No amount of smarts during the job search will make up for a lack of preparation as a graduate student. To be a strong candidate, you need to demonstrate your ability to do the job advertised. You want search committee members to view you not as an excellent student but as a colleague with a high potential for scholarly productivity, exceptional teaching, and effective service. By the time you graduate with your Ph.D., you should have presented your dissertation research in academic conferences and published aspects of it in peer-reviewed journals. Applications to teaching-focused schools will be pretty well sunk by a lack of teaching experience so take advantage of opportunities you have as a graduate student to design and teach courses as the primary instructor. Have a mentor observe your class so that he or she can speak to your teaching in a recommendation letter. Volunteer for service at your school or join a committee in the Society for Historical Archaeology. Remember, you want to present yourself as a proven commodity. Hiring a new tenure-track professor represents a potentially multi-decade commitment on the part of the department and the institution. The process is stressful for search committees too, and you want to be able to convince committee members that hiring you is a sure thing, not a risk.
2. Shift your perspective. The academic job market in no way represents a meritocracy. To get a job offer, you don’t need to be “the best” by any universal or objective measure. Rather, you need to be “the best” at convincing a search committee that you will solve their problems. Every job search represents a problem or set of problems that a department or institution is trying to address. The job search could be an attempt to replace the course offerings of someone who is retiring, expand the curriculum in new ways, attract and retain new majors, provide relief for other faculty in the rotation of core courses, strengthen the graduate program, or improve the department’s research profile, for example. After reviewing the job ad, research the institution via its website. This research will give you a better understanding of the institution’s specific mission and what problems the job search is attempting to address. Then, consider, how can you best convince search committee members that you are their solution? Faculty serving on the search committee are likely to be harried and busy; and the search, of course, represents only a small fraction of their total professional responsibilities. You need to strategically adjust your cover letter and other application materials to make the connections between your expertise and abilities and their needs as clear as possible. Remember, search committees not in the business of deciding who is the “best” scholar or teacher; rather, they are simply trying to solve a problem that they have.
3. Accept the winding road. Following Ph.D. graduation, many archaeologists work in postdocs or term teaching positions prior to transitioning to a tenure-track job. These non-permanent positions can make you a stronger candidate for a later tenure-track search, so try to view them as learning opportunities rather than consolation prizes.
4. Follow the rules. Academic CVs, cover letters, and other application materials follow certain conventions in their organization and presentation. Make sure to use job search resources at your institution to learn and follow these conventions in order to demonstrate your competence to search committee members. Also, make sure to submit exactly the materials requested in the job ad. Not following an advertisement’s directions communicates a lack of care to search committee members. Applicant pools for tenure-track positions in archaeology often include more than one hundred candidates, so you need to communicate as much care as possible in your materials.
5. Consider audience. I teach in a liberal arts institution as the only archaeologist in a combined sociology and anthropology department. Thus, the search committee that hired me as a tenure-track assistant professor included no archaeologists. Even in larger institutions, cultural anthropologists and a couple of faculty members appointed from outside the department are likely to be on the search committee. Write your application materials with this diverse audience in mind and avoid jargon. You should also tailor job materials to the kind of institution to which you are applying. For example, you must do more to show that you take pedagogy seriously when applying to teaching-focused schools.
6. Be a colleague. If you are selected for a phone, Skype, or campus interview, remember that search committee members are not seeking a great student but instead are seeking a great colleague. While you should be interpersonally pleasant, avoid being overly deferential. You also need to project confidence in how you carry yourself and answer questions. Try to answer questions thoughtfully and honestly. Do not simply acquiesce or give the answers you assume are wanted. Be prepared for challenging questions, particularly following the job talk. Even if a question seems purposefully antagonistic, remain unflappable, try to engage with it, and avoid a defensive response. Remember, the “interview” often extends to informal interactions with search committee members, including meals and rides to the airport, so be thoughtful and purposeful in how you craft and navigate these interactions.
7. Feel them out. Phone, Skype, and campus interviews are a chance for you to get to know an institution better. Most such interviews will end with a chance for you to ask the search committee questions. Be prepared and thoughtful in the questions you ask. Some of the more revealing questions I posed during my campus interview include “What do you like about teaching here?” and “How would you describe the student body?” Do not ask basic questions about the institution that a simple Google search can answer, such as student body size, as that, again, implies lack of care and research on your part. The campus visit also offers rare insight into your working conditions should you receive the job. Use the visit to assess whether you actually would be happy in a position there.
8.  Negotiate. If you are fortunate enough to receive a tenure-track job offer (often via phone), it may be difficult to resist the temptation to immediately accept. However, you must not. All future raises will be based on your starting salary, so even a thousand dollars’ difference in salary for your first year many mean tens of thousands more pay over the course of your career. Instead of immediately accepting the job offer, express your pleasure and assure the administrator or chair that you will look over the offer and respond. Ask about a timeline for when a response is needed. Then, prepare to make a higher salary request by gathering comparative pay data (for example, from public universities that have their salary data freely available online). You also will need to prepare a request for research start-up funds. To make a feasible start-up request, you should talk to mentors, peers who have been recently hired at similar schools, and the search committee chair to get a sense of scale for the institution. Above all, you should make reasonable requests that show you understand the school. For example, if you are joining a teaching-focused institution, don’t ask for an immediate year of research leave before joining the faculty as this request implies that you don’t understand or want to support the school’s teaching mission.
9. Consider new paths. The dearth of available tenure-track teaching positions in archaeology means that some truly exceptional scholars and teachers won’t be hired even after several years on the market. Given the years and effort that archaeology Ph.D. graduates have put into their chosen profession, deep grief is entirely warranted should you find yourself in this situation. It may be little comfort, but it’s still worth noting that a host of external issues have contributed to the anemic market, including broad public divestment in higher education and the ensuing “adjuctification” of the professorate. To move forward professionally, cast a wide net. Many archaeologists have successful and fulfilling careers in historic sites, museums, cultural resource management, and federal or state agencies. If the university environment is particularly stimulating for you, consider if a career in administration could work—for example, in academic policy, grant writing, or international student services. The odds of securing a tenure-track position are low, so you should consider and prepare for some of these other job possibilities while still in graduate school.

The hard truth is that you can be an absolutely excellent archaeologist and never land a permanent tenure-track teaching job. The good news is that there many ways of having a fulfilling career, even as an archaeologist, outside the college classroom. I wish you good luck finding your way.

Sarah Jane Chesney, PhD

Texans like to boast that “everything is bigger in Texas,” and they’re not far off: measuring 268,581 square miles with a population of close to 29 million spread across 254 counties, 10 climate regions, 14 soil regions, 11 ecological regions, and spanning two time zones, Texas is second in size only to Alaska and in population only to California. It has been home to human populations for over 12,000 years. That’s a huge amount of variation for one state, and it’s one of the reasons why Texas defies easy categorization: a little bit southern, a little bit southwestern, and a whole lot of state pride.

As wonderful as this diversity is, it is daunting from an archaeological perspective. How can one state agency or SHPO possibly oversee all the known archaeological sites in Texas – not to mention, field all the reports of new sites, or looting/destruction? It’s an impossible task, and one that Texas archaeologists have been combating since before the passage of the Antiquities Code of Texas (inspired in part by the National Historic Preservation Act) in 1969.

In 1984, a plan was conceived: faced with increasing demands from across the state for the administration and preservation of archaeological sites, the State Archaeologist for Texas, Robert Mallouf, United States Army Corps of Engineers Southwestern Division Archaeologist Larry Banks, and Texas Archaeological Society (TAS) members Jim Word and Bill Richmond created the Texas Archaeological Stewards Network (TASN), a group of dedicated, highly trained avocational archaeologists whose mission was to aid the archaeologists of the Texas Historical Commission (the state historic preservation agency) in preserving and recording archaeological sites.

Beginning with ten Stewards (as TASN members are called), there are now over 130 across the state, including several Marine Stewards who specialize in recording marine sites and shipwrecks in state waters. Stewards are involved in every aspect of archaeological work across Texas: they record and excavate sites, catalog and preserve collections, perform lab and artifact analyses, publish technical papers, give presentations to schools and community groups on the importance of archaeological site preservation, and even advocate for archaeological heritage with state lawmakers. Working in partnership with the professional archaeologists of the THC and other state agencies, TASN members perform vital research and community outreach across the state. The TASN program, now entering its 36^th year, has been recognized as a model program for preservation and partnership between professional and avocational archaeologists.

Archeologist Doug Boyd presents TASN member Bryan Jameson with the Texas Archeological Society’s C. K. Chandler Award for most archeological sites recorded by an avocational archeologist (2019). Photo by Susan Everett.

Simply put, without the dedicated volunteers of the Texas Archaeological Stewards Network, archaeological preservation in Texas would be impossible. The future of archaeology in Texas lies in this partnership between professional and avocational archaeologists and in their continuing dedication to preserving the past for future generations.

Special thanks to: Becky Shelton, THC archaeologist and current coordinator of the TASN and Linda Gorski, TASN member and president of the Houston Archaeological Society, for their help with this blog post.

To learn more about the Texas Archaeological Stewards Network: www.thc.texas.gov/preserve/projects-and-programs/texas-archeological-stewards

To contact the author: sarah.chesney@thc.texas.gov

William B. Lees, PhD, RPA
Executive Director, Florida Public Archaeology Network (fpan.us)

King tides in Miami and St. Augustine, Category 5 Hurricane Michael on the Gulf Coast, and almost daily stories of the risk to coastal infrastructure due to sea level rise have awoken Floridians to our climate crisis and climate future. Florida archaeologists know they have more at risk than other southeastern states due to simple geologic reality. Anderson et al. have estimated that about 4,000 coastal sites are at risk in Florida from a one meter or less rise in sea level, which does not consider sites yet undiscovered (including submerged historic and prehistoric resources such as the recently discovered and rapidly eroding Manasota Key site) and threat from storms that encroach well beyond the one-meter mark (Anderson et al. 2017, DHR ND). The Florida Public Archaeology Network launched a site monitoring program in 2016 (Heritage Monitoring Scouts [HMS] Florida) in response to heritage at risk from the climate crisis, and a coalition from the academy, agencies, and private sector have formed a working group (Coastal Heritage at Risk Taskforce [CHART]) to ask how we go beyond monitoring to prioritize and salvage sites facing imminent loss. But as we move towards confronting our new existential threat from climate change, we also necessarily confront our own legacy of site protection, exclusivity, and standards that define and inform how historic preservation looks and works at the national, state, and local levels.

In the United States, this legacy historic preservation program essentially seeks to prevent human actions from destroying significant archaeological remains on public land (and other land under limited circumstances), wherein the gold standard has always been the avoidance of impact (site protection by avoidance). This notion is also embedded in models of ethical archaeology developed in the late 20th century, whereby only limited excavation essential to solve legitimate research question is acceptable; as much as possible must be left unexcavated, and “protected,” for the future. The process surrounding this is a system of permits and project review at various and often overlapping levels of government, all encoded in Federal, State, and local statute, policy, and rule. This process is intended to guard sites from human actions generally hunkering under the concept of “development,” where developers pay for actions required for site protection.

Our preservation programs, as least as regards archaeology, are also exclusive. Site are recorded in public databases covered by freedom of information exemptions to protect site locations from a public who is perceived as a threat (looting, vandalism). We require archaeological work on public lands to be done under permit only by professional archaeologists with demonstrated expertise and a valid research question, and who agree to carry out the various steps of the research and reporting process to completion according to established standards. The protections and high standards that derive from this exclusivity have been and remain important but are part of the historic preservation status quo operandi that we need to navigate as we address heritage in the face of accelerating climate change, and the prospect of rapid and widespread loss.

A simple fact is that we face a clear and imminent crisis that this status quo does not address; I and many others believe we must rethink some of our time-honored processes if we are to remain relevant in the face of the climate crisis. We currently have a system based on the premise that site preservation/protection/conservation is possible. What we have learned from numerous site monitoring programs in Florida and around the world and from studies such as that by Anderson et al., is that in-place preservation is no longer something that can be taken for granted as a viable goal no matter how attractive it remains. Our current federal and state systems also focus on protection of sites from human actions, most notably development. Tropical storms, king tides, rising sea levels, and thousand-year floods do not require permits or Section 106 review, and provide no funding for staff or action. Although development remains a bad actor, climate joins alongside but is less predictable, less forgiving, and moving at an astonishing pace to destroy coastal and inland heritage.

Unless we recognize that a sea change is needed in our approach to heritage action (preservation may no longer be an operable term) in the 21st century we position ourselves to, with our proverbial head in the fast eroding sand, loose the fight for our coastal and inland heritage to climate change. Why? Because there are not enough professionals to do the work, and because we regulate archaeology as if our resources will be there for us in the future; our mantra has always been that in situ preservation is our goal and our savior. The loss that we face from climate falls neatly outside of our regulatory framework: there is no permit to review, no project impact, no agency or developer to pay for survey, testing, and mitigation. The loss we face from climate is thus similar to that we have effectively ignored on private land. Here, we seem as simple bystanders to a preservation battle not joined, at least with regards to archaeology and in particular historical archaeology. Add to these factors the fact becoming more evident every day that we are fast running out of time to act on many, many resources.

We have no time to spare in rethinking heritage preservation to add a robust program to address imminent loss of coastal and inland heritage. Our existing procedures, no matter how sound a response they may have been to development, are not suited for our climate crisis because climate does not ask permission and offers us no resources. We must find ways to focus attention on the problem, find approaches to save information before it is lost forever, and we must find a way to let the public into the fight for our archaeological heritage. Rethinking our approaches to field work and reporting to be more efficient is essential if we are to make the best use of the professionals, advanced undergraduates, and graduate students available for the work. Involving the public in truly meaningful ways is absolutely essential to leverage the work of professionals in their work and to reach sites that professionals simply cannot. While there are certainly risks that will be identified in such a sea change, we must think of the balance sheet at the end of the day: we know that climate is coming for our heritage. Hide behind our status quo and our legacy is clear. Take the risk to do things differently, and especially to let the public in as meaningful partners, and our legacy will be, at least, that we did all that we could.

We are happy to announce the next issue of Historical Archaeology will be arriving in your mailboxes soon! Here’s a preview of some of the content from the guest editor of the thematic collection on Rethinking the Archaeology of Capitalism, Guido Pezzarossi.

What if capitalism were not an entire system of economy or a macrostructure or a mode of production but simply one form of exploitation among many? (Gibson-Graham 2006:260)

This special issue takes a different approach to the archaeology of capitalism by foregrounding the inherent role of violence, coercion and inequality in the process of accumulation. We highlight how disparities in power and the ever-present potential for violence produced and intensified inequality through a variety of exploitative, coerced unequal exchanges of time, labor, materials, goods, and space. The papers in this issue look to these diverse practices and processes that produced the effects attributed to and defining of capitalism in the present. Rather than relying on a single defining trait of capitalism, be it a mode of production, “free” markets or an ideology, Our goal is to reorient analyses of capitalism away from orthodox models and definitions, and towards the diverse “unfree” and violent processes that are generative of capitalisms.

From this theoretical framing, this special issue provides a number of case studies -from diverse times and places- that blur analytical boundaries between capitalist and precapitalist contexts. These contributions latch on to common threads that transgress these divides by identifying how unequal power (of the state, of colonists or other power-wielding private actors) were instrumental in forming unequal exchanges and exploitation that served to spur accumulation for the benefit of a few and the detriment of many. Colonial contexts loom large in this collection of papers, troubling distinctions between “primitive” and capitalist accumulation and feudal and capitalist regimes that purify overt violence from “modern” economic systems.

Articles:

Rethinking the Archaeology of Capitalism: Coercion, Violence, and the Frictions of Accumulation by Guido Pezzarossi

Capitalism and the Shift to Sugar and Slavery in Mid-Seventeenth Century Barbados by Douglas V. Armstrong

Violence and Dispossession at the intersection of Colonialism and Capitalist Accumulation by Stephen Mrozowski

Ruins, Resources, and Archaeology: Valuing People and Spaces in Baltimore by Adam Fraccia

Cacao and Violence: Consequences of Money in Colonial Guatemala by Kathryn E. Sampeck

Deeper Histories of Dispossession: The Genealogy of “Proletarian” Relations in Iceland by Eric Johnson and Douglas Bolender

Western Activism and the Veiling of Primitive Accumulation in the East African Ivory Trade by Alexandra Celia Kelly

Framings of Capitalism and the Archaeology of Sugar in the Islamic Mediterranean by Ian R. Simpson

Peanuts, Pangool, and Places: Constellations of Colonial Capitalism in Rural Senegal by François Richard

‘The Destructive Character’: The Recapitalization of a Shantytown into a Suburb (After a Brief Emancipation) by Michael P. Roller

Assemblages of Production: Capitalist Colonial Labor Regimes and Other Economic Practices in Highland Guatemala by Guido Pezzarossi and Jonathan Ryan Kennedy

How can there be no History? by Mark P. Leone, Tracy Jenkins, Stefan Woehlke, Kathryn Deeley, Brittany Hutchinson, Elizabeth Pruitt, Benjamin Skolnik

Agents of Coloniality: Capitalism, the Market, and My Crisis with Archaeology by Marguerite L. De Loney

Cover  image: The 1646 John Hapcott map: “Estate Plan of 300 Acres of Land near Holetown, Barbados” 

This is a post submitted by Terry Klein, Executive Director of the SRI Foundation about an upcoming forum at the Society for Historical Archaeology’s annual conference in Boston, Massachusetts titled: “A Forum on Archaeological Synthesis: Building Arguments for Contemporary Relevance” sponsored by Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis

Chair: Terry Klein, Organizer: Sarah Miller

Forum Panel: Evan Larson, Cheryl La Roche, Marcy Rockman, Jillian Galle, Julian Richards, Joe Joseph, Jeffrey Altschul

Collaborative synthetic research has proven to be a powerful driver of advancement in fields from ecology to mathematics. By leveraging the large research potential accumulated over the last 50 years, largely as a result of cultural resources management (CRM), archaeology stands ready to join its sister disciplines with a new synthesis initiative – the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis (CfAS) – dedicated to understanding long-term social processes. The SHA was one of the founding partners of CfAS.

While the public remains generally supportive of historical archaeology, that support is largely predicated on satisfying people’s curiosity about the past and on to their support for the conservation of imperiled heritage resources.  It has been much harder to convince our public constituencies of the practical, contemporary relevance of our work.  In this CfAS-sponsored forum we seek to explore, with the audience, how we can build more persuasive arguments for the relevance of our knowledge of the past for understanding the present and how that knowledge, through archaeological syntheses and collaboration with other disciplines, might bring unique insights that can genuinely benefit public policy.  We hope that those attending this forum will share strong cases from their own experiences that can both serve as compelling examples and inform more general arguments concerning the contemporary relevance of our research.

The forum will begin with ten-minute presentations by each panelist:

• Evan Larson will discuss the CfAS-funded project: The People, Fire, and Pines in the Border Lakes Region of North America. This project weaves tree-ring records and traditional knowledge to retell a story of the relationships between people and the land that is expressed in the past fire regimes and current vegetation patterns of the modern wilderness areas of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Quetico Provincial Park. The conversations emerging from this synthesis project are helping to recognize the historical trauma caused by attempts to severe connections between people and the land and are advancing the process of healing through the centering power of fire as an ecological and cultural process. Larson’s presentation will highlight some of the outcomes of this work to date to help showcase how archaeological evidence, in the form of tree rings and artifacts, has provided a common language that is bringing people together to discuss stewardship of the land.
• The Underground Railroad is only one form that escape from slavery took in the United States and international destinations such as Canada and Mexico also were affected. Furthermore, escape from slavery—sometimes called marronage– was a Diasporic response that could be associated but unrecognized across a wide range of archaeological sites. Synthesizing archaeological data could contribute valuable comparable resources. Cheryl La Roche’s presentation ranges from very specific examples to broad discussion of the ways in which archaeologists can begin to think about how a clandestine activity can be made visible through archaeology. 
• There are two essential connections of climate change with archaeology (and the same holds true for the broader category of cultural heritage of which archaeology is a part): archaeological sites are being and will be affected by the impacts of climate change, and both methods and findings of archaeology hold unique data and insights for climate change response. Marcy Rockman will discuss how historical archaeology covers the trends that have led to the modern phenomena of climate change, including capitalism and colonialism. As such, historical archaeology and historical archaeologists should be deeply integrated into efforts to address climate change. Rockman will present here is a brief overview of current efforts to get all of cultural heritage more fully into global climate response, and some ideas specifically about how to make historical archaeology a strong part of this. Key points will include attention to what questions historical archaeology asks and how they are answered, and framing what we know and how we know it for policy makers.
• Jillian Galle will discuss the Digital Archaeological Archive of Comparative Slavery (DAACS), which since 2004, has provided large, standardized archaeological datasets from sites of slavery excavated across North America and the Caribbean.  Freely accessible to scholars and the public alike, these assemblages are giving historians, archaeologists and material culture scholars the ability to explore a range of fine-grained questions about slave societies, especially those related to the complex social and economic relationships between enslaved people, free people of color and enslavers. DAACS allows scholars to work, first hand, with material signatures left by millions of enslaved people who did not leave a written word in the archives, and to compare these “signatures” across time and space.
• Julian Richards will be talking about research using archaeological Big Data to study migration, settlement and economy in England. He will introduce how access is now being provided to similar data at an international scale through the ARIADNE research infrastructure. Although Julian’s example is drawn from the early medieval period it’s clear that similar approaches would be equally valid for the later historic period, and much of the data are already available.
• W. Joseph will discuss SHA actions that support the development of syntheses as well as the importance of synthesis in the form of historic contexts for cultural resource management consulting. 
• Using the panelist’s presentations, Jeff Altschul will highlight the importance of collaborative synthetic research to archaeology. He will then use the recent European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) – Society for American Archaeology (SAA) design workshop on human migration as an example of CfAS’ approach to applying the results of archaeological synthesis to contemporary problems.

After the panel presentations, the forum will be opened up for a facilitated Q&A and dialogue among the audience and the panel on making historical archaeology relevant in the context of contemporary social issues, and the role of synthesis in addressing these issues.

This is a post by Allyson Ropp, Archaeologist at the St. Augustine Lighthouse and Maritime Museum

The St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum houses an extensive maritime archaeology program, known as the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP). The program focuses on identifying and documenting the submerged maritime heritage of St. Augustine. Through site investigation, limited excavation, and conservation, the program works in conjunction with the Lighthouse to bring these discoveries to the public through a number of programs.

Field School student navigating through obstacle in black-out obstacle course (courtesy of LAMP 2019).

The flagship outreach program is the annual underwater archaeology field school that has occurred every summer since 2007. The field school brings in students from around the country (with the occasional international student) to learn the principles and methodologies of underwater archaeology. The students partake in a week-long scientific diver training program to get them accustomed to working in limited visibility environments, conducting scientific endeavors, and using underwater archaeology methodology. The remainder of the field school provides the students with the opportunity to put their newly acquired skills to use while working on an 18^th-century shipwreck site. Not only does this program provide an opportunity for students to learn about archaeology through a classroom setting, it also offers a hands-on real-world learning environment in which they participate in on-going research. You can learn more about this underwater archaeology field school by clicking here.

Field School students practicing mapping within a grid square (courtesy of LAMP 2019).

The program also supports additional outreach programs to support the Lighthouse itself. The Lighthouse, with support of LAMP, offers daily archaeology demonstrations that discuss the methods of underwater archaeology from remote sensing to excavation and identifying objects underwater to artifact conservation. These demos include hands-on components and visual aids that bring these different steps to life and inspire visitors, young and old alike, to use critical thinking and observation to participate in the process. Furthermore, for school groups, we offer a Shipwreck CSI program. This program offers students a chance to become maritime archaeologist through the identification of artifacts in concretions from a 1782 Loyalist vessel discovered off St. Augustine. Groups are given a concretion with corresponding x-ray to determine the contents. Once they have a guess, they match the objects inside with corresponding images of such objects to narrow a time, function, and nationality of the vessel. Using each group’s findings, the class tells the story of the shipwreck site.

Volunteer sharing archaeology through a demo (courtesy of St. Augustine Lighthouse 2019).

The St. Augustine Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program and its partner the St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum offer a multitude of ways for visitors and students to engage with maritime archaeology. To learn more about these programs and the Lighthouse itself, please visit http://www.staugustinelighthouse.org/. Applications for the upcoming underwater archaeology field school will be available in the near future.

The author’s son at archaeology field project in Boise, Idaho (2015)

By William White

University of California, Berkeley

Last winter, during ski week school closure in California, several anthropology undergraduate students brought their young children with them to class. I am a professor who never minds this. I completely understand how fragile childcare arrangements can be for archaeology college students. I started my PhD when my son was two-years-old and my daughter was about six-months-old. My PhD revolved around meeting academic and parental obligations. I tried to make graduate student cocktail mixers leaving early enough to help put kids to sleep. As a grad student with children, I found that I had more in common with some of my professors who also had childcare woes than other PhD students.

Childcare is essential to being able to conduct fieldwork and research as parenting children, regardless of their age, and being out in the field does not always mix. I had my children after I had already completed my Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, so worrying about what I was going to do with my child while I took a field school wasn’t a concern. But, the presence of elementary school-aged faces in my college lecture got me thinking: What do students who are parents do when they need to go to archaeological field school? What would a single-parent professor or cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists do when they needed to go into the field?

Attending an archaeological field school is central to becoming a professional archaeologist. Many cultural resources companies refuse to hire archaeological field technicians who have not taken a field school. Most professional archaeologists get their start as field techs. Being flexible for those early career field projects is also important for launching an archaeologist’s career in cultural resources. Having kids adds another dynamic to the decision to take a field school or the ability to be flexible in your early career.

Finding someone to take care of your kid for happy hour cocktails or a late seminar is much easier than locating someone who will watch your kid full-time while you are out of town for six weeks. Based on personal experience, I know how important both extracurricular student bonding activities and field projects are for an archaeologist’s career. I also know how I managed to meet some of those obligations without leaving my kids in a parked car at the field site (Hint: My wife watched the kids so I could do archaeological fieldwork). In fact, most of the archaeologists I know have spouses, friends, or family members who will watch their kids so they can go out into the field. I know of very few field projects where children are welcomed. Liability issues make them virtually prohibited from CRM fieldwork. In addition to figuring out how students navigate childcare and fieldwork, I also wanted to know if archaeology is conducive to parenting. Are we working in an industry that makes it easier or more difficult to be a parent?

Parenting from the Field

The expectations of a field-based career does influence an academician’s decision to become a parent. Unsurprisingly, it is women who report delaying pregnancy to pursue their career; however, having a child effects the careers of both parents in positions that require fieldwork. Lack of work-life balance is cited as a major source of stress for parents in the academy (Lynn, 2018). Academicians are frequently able to bring their children with them in the field. Fieldwork with a baby is not easy but it can be done. Collecting quality field data and taking care of a baby are not mutually exclusive (MacDonald and Sullivan 2008). Women in academia, including archaeologists, conduct substantial fieldwork while pregnant that makes significant contributions to their field (Carter 2017). As long as health risks are mitigated, pregnancy should not prevent women from conducting productive fieldwork (Sohn 2018). Accompanying parents to field projects can become an enlightening experience for children old enough to remember their experiences. While they recall being bored, tired, and hot, children of academicians recall traveling abroad on field projects with their parents had a positive impact on their lives (Barton 2014). Debates around being a mother and field researcher are an “evergreen” topic for companies, universities, students, and scholars. The particulars of being a mother and doing fieldwork are the focus of an upcoming book from Rutgers University Press titled “Mothering from the Field: The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research” (Muhammad and Neully, editors; 2019).

Archaeologists are already having intense conversations about parenting and fieldwork online. On Facebook archaeology groups and CRM Archaeology Podcast Episode 158 you can find lengthy discussions about how parents handled children for fieldwork. Episode 158 unearthed deeper revelations about how having kids can affect a parent’s career. Fieldwork oftentimes delays an archaeologist’s decision to start a family. The constant childcare dance prevents some from even entering the field and drives others out of it. Parenting only gets more complicated as older children have emotional and psychological needs younger kids do not. It is important to be present for an older child’s activities and be there to help them thorough the dilemmas of being a teenager. Advice and presence becomes more important as a child gets older.

While professors and academic researchers have the freedom to bring their children to the field, this is rarely possible for CRM archaeologists or students. Liability issues on CRM projects prevent children from being present on most CRM projects. Typically, only principal investigators and company owners have told me they brought their kids to the field. Students may not even know they can ask to bring their kids with them to the field. (FYI: Do not be afraid to ask if you can bring the child with you to a field school. The worst they can say is ‘no’. Also, the response of your supervisor and co-workers will give you an excellent idea of how conducive this workplace is going to be for parenting.)

For an archaeologist, a strong network of family and friends are paramount to making fieldwork happen. Having a supportive spouse makes it easier for archaeology students to get their field training when a field school is not amenable to children. Supportive family or close friends can also fill the childcare void while also providing a nurturing environment for children while parent(s) are away. This is even more important for archaeologists who are single parents. The economics of childcare are also an ever-present consideration for any archaeologist who has to go into the field. Can you afford the kind of aftercare or preschool that will allow you to get back to town from the field? Can you compensate folks for taking care of your kid while you are in the field? Most archaeologists are not able to afford this kind of childcare, which is something companies and field school directors need to start taking into account as childcare problems undoubtedly drives away many talented archaeology parents.

What do I tell students?

Raising children is not easy. Doing archaeological fieldwork as a parent is even more difficult. But, archaeology is full of parents who have managed to get an education (including field school), forge a career, and raise their children. Without children, there would be no archaeology. However, we live in a world where archaeology is not conducive to being a parent. I feel more can be done to make it easier for students to bring their children with them to the field. I understand that not all projects will be able to accommodate children, but professors and anthropology departments can do a better job of creating local field opportunities where children can be present.

I do not believe CRM will be able to provide opportunities for archaeologists to bring their children with them to the field as it would violate too many liability clauses and occupational hygiene ordinances. The companies I’ve worked for do a pretty good job of letting management bring their kids to the office, but I think they could do more to help up-and-coming field technicians who are parents. The best thing they could do is hire some of these folks as permanent employees, which would remove some of the precarity of having to be ready to do fieldwork at the drop of the hat. This means creating opportunities for field techs to do office work (i.e. activities normally handled by archaeologists with graduate degrees). It will not create opportunities for all field technician parents but it would help many.

It may not always be possible, but a workplace’s willingness to allow children depends on the flexibility of management, especially those with children. Parents in management have the most power to make archaeological fieldwork more amenable to children. It is within the power of supervisors who are parents to make archaeology more realistic for co-workers who are parents.

Children are always welcome in my class, which means I need to keep doing what I can to create field schools where children are welcome. Safe, local, low-cost, public projects like public archaeology projects in Boise, Idaho through University of Idaho. On these public archaeology/field schools, children work alongside parents. Projects like these are too few, but I feel like there is space for there to be more of them in the future. We have a chance and an obligation to make sure parents can bring their children with them to field school.

A field archaeologist’s career success depends on the social networks. Archaeologists are not the only ones who travel for work. Archaeology families have to work together to help make fieldwork possible. The parents among us also need to remain mindful of the ways archaeology is not supporting parents and to remedy the mechanisms that keep parents out of the field. Those without children may not be aware that they are hindering an archaeology parent’s progress. It is also up to archaeology as a profession to do whatever it can to help make parenting and archaeological fieldwork possible. We can follow the lead of field scholars in academia to make it easier for parents to be with their children in the field.

References

Barton, Erin

2014  Innocents abroad: Fieldwork with family. Arizona State University (https://research.asu./stories/read/innocents-abroad-fieldwork-family) Accessed August 28, 2019.

Carter, Imogene

2017  Pregnant in the field: have trowel, will travel. The Guardian, July 1. (https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jul/01/pregnant-in-the-field-blog-photography-have-trowel-will-travel). Accessed August 28, 2019.

Lynn, Christopher D., Micaela E. Howells, and Max J. Stein

2018  Family and the field: Expectations of a field-based research career affect researcher family planning decisions. PLOS One, 13(9). (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6128561/). Accessed August 28, 2019.

MacDonald, Joan Ramage and Maura E. Sullivan

2008  Mothers in the Field. Chronicle of Higher Education, October 24. (https://www.chronicle.com/article/Mothers-in-the-Field/45801). Accessed August 28, 2019.

Muhammad, Bahiyyah M. and Melanie-Angela Nuelly, editors

2019  Mothering from the Field: The Impact of Motherhood on Site-Based Research. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick.

Sohn, Emily

2018  A guide to juggling fieldwork and pregnancy. Nature: International Journal of Science, February 14. (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-01851-3). Accessed August 28, 2018.