OK! How’s that shopping list coming? You getting it squared away? I’m going to say that mine’s a… work in progress. I haven’t forgotten about the SHA Conference coming up in just a few weeks (January 4, 2017) in lovely Fort Worth, Texas. While there will be all kinds of great symposia and individual talks to see and plenty of opportunities to catch up with – and learn from – colleagues, conferences like these are also a chance to experience some things that you just can’t see closer to your own homes. A chance to get out and see a new city, learn about its unique history and culture first-hand. Unless you live in Fort Worth, in which case… yeah, you might be ok to do other stuff. I remember at six years old when I lived in San Antonio, I got SO SICK of visiting the Alamo every time a relative would visit. And when I moved to DC, I never thought it could happen but you really can reach a moon-rock-touching saturation point… and don’t get me started on “the Exorcist” steps… I digress…

Let’s talk about tours! This year’s conference features four tours. All of them are scheduled for Wednesday, January 4th. They all originate from the conference hotel, the Omni. Please bear in mind that if you signed up for a workshop, you should check those times against the tours to make sure you don’t have a conflict and I’d bet you probably would.

The first tour that I wanted to talk about is T-3 – the Fort Worth Architectural Walking Tour. Fort Worth is a great city. It’s big but it doesn’t necessarily feel big. And for some reason it feels more Texan than others do (I may catch some flak for that…). I think a lot of that comes from the fact that so much of its original architecture remains intact. You can get a sense of the original city if you get out of the car and walk around and this tour is perfect for that. You’ll see the site of “Hell’s Half Acre” one of the bawdiest, most violent, and generally infamous-iest(?) Red Light Districts in the American West (and that’s quite the scale to be at the top of, I’d say). After driving all those cattle for mile after mile after mile to the stockyards, I’m sure folks were ready to let off some steam and this spot was where that happened. There’s also early “skyscrapers”, municipal buildings, and other features all tucked into the main downtown area. It’s a really nice walk and well worth a gander.

T-4 – the Fort Worth Cultural District Tour is a great chance to take in some of Fort Worth’s proudest attractions. This tour is a wonderful way to make a leisurely (or ambitious if you’d prefer) day of art and culture out of the conference’s opening. There’s the Amon Carter Museum, the Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum (“the Modern” for those in “the Know”), the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, and the National Museum of the Cowgirl and Hall of Fame. The Amon Carter Museum is a great celebration of American Art. Right now they’re featuring a limited exhibit on American Photographs that’ll be just about to wrap up when you’re there. Moving over to the Kimbell, you can take in works from Monet, Michelangelo, and Matisse and see sculpture and other arts that span centuries from across the globe. Even the building is a work of art! Go check it out! The Modern is a great place to marvel at and pretend you understand (maybe that’s just me) modern works of art by the likes of Picasso, Andy Warhol, and Susan Rothenberg. Standing next to one another, the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History and the National Museum of the Cowgirl and Hall of Fame are also on the docket. The Science Museum covers such topics as astronomy, paleontology (including dinosaurs!), energy and the Cowgirl Museum is the only such facility in the world dedicated to the women of the Wild West. The Cowgirl Museum is also the site of the next night’s social event and barbecue. So while you’re there taking in the art and history of the American West, maybe you could hang your coat over a chair and save your spot for the barbecue.

On this tour remember that museum admission is not included so if you want to go to the Modern, or the National Museum of the Cowgirl or the Fort Worth Science Museum, you’ll need to pay the admission fee. If you’re a student, bring your ID for a student discount.

You don’t have to stick to Fort Worth for the tours, though. Two of the tours take you over to Dallas. North Central Texas (and the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex in particular) boasts one of the largest and oldest African American communities in the state. Come see the history of this vibrant group with T1- Facing the Rising Sun—A View of a Late-19th- to Early-20th-Century African American Community. On this tour you will visit the Dallas African American museum where you can learn about the Freedman’s Cemetery excavation project which took place during the 1990s and early 2000s. The guides of the tour include Duane Peter, the Principal Investigator of the cemetery excavation, and Phillip Collins, a descendant of the early African American Community there and former Curator of the museum. What a great way to learn about this specific portion of Dallas’, Texas’, and the nation’s history than to hear from those who live there. You’ll also visit the Freedman’s Cemetery and from there continue on to Saint Luke Community United Methodist Church to admire the beautiful stained glass featuring 54 scenes from the community. A one-of-a-kind opportunity right there and a great tour all around!

Finally, it’s pretty well known that John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas as he waved to the crowd from his motorcade on a warm November afternoon in 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald, after firing from the schoolbook depository escaped to a movie theater where he was eventually apprehended and ultimately killed in front of live news cameras as he was transferred out of the Dallas Police Headquarters. One of the Nation’s darkest and most talked about moments in history unfolded right downtown. And as someone who’s passed by all the landmarks many times, they are still amazing to see. With T-2 – John F. Kennedy Assassination Tour, you’ll see it all. Starting from the Hotel Texas in Fort Worth, where Kennedy spent his last night, you’ll head by bus to Dealey Plaza in Dallas to see the spot where the President was shot and visit the Sixth Floor Museum to learn about the event. You’ll visit the famed “Grassy Knoll” and see Zapruder’s (of the famed Zapruder Film) offices and head on to Oswald’s residence in Oak Cliff where the infamous photograph was taken. There are many other stops along the way but you’ll eventually make your way back to Fort Worth where you’ll see Oswald’s grave site and conclude at the Ozzie Rabbit (Oswald’s USMC nickname) bar. Led by the tour organizer, Joseph Murphey, historical architect with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Fort Worth District, anyone will find this tour interesting and sobering (except for the bar part, I guess). I’ve taken a similar tour to this one and it really is one of those permanent memories in my mind that I’m so glad I took part in. So much history that’s still there just as it was and all in one place.

Anyway, that’s it! Your tours! Get in there and sign up folks, or at the least sign up when you arrive on January 4th.

Until next time.

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Dear SHA Members,

As you may know, the Gender and Minority Affairs Committee (GMAC) of the SHA is sponsoring two Anti-Racism (A-R) Training Workshops at the upcoming meeting in Fort Worth. An introductory workshop is scheduled for Saturday morning (January 7, 2017) and a Second-Steps workshop is scheduled for Sunday morning (January 8). I am writing to invite you to participate in this important work.

I twice attended a 2.5-day A-R workshop in Kalamazoo, Michigan, offered by Crossroads trainers, the same folks who we have been working with since the Seattle meeting. The workshops showed me that institutional racism was not of my making. It nevertheless harms people of color, provides white people with unearned privileges, and generally dehumanizes us all. In short, the work has been life affirming. I emerged from the workshops with a new resolve to try to change the institutions with which I associate, including the SHA. I feel responsible to help expose how the impacts of structural racism in the SHA make us a less inclusive organization.

I can guarantee that you will find the workshops worthwhile and strongly urge you to register before the Monday, December 19 deadline. You will gain a powerful analysis of racial relations and be on the right side of history as SHA enters our next half century. Help us create a mandate to examine how we can interrupt institutional racism in our Society and our discipline. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the workshop or our intent.

In community,

Michael S. Nassaney
Chair, A-R subcommittee of the GMAC
Former SHA Secretary, 2006-2011
SHA Conference Co-chair, 2016

Howdy folks!

I hope that you’re surviving the crazy holiday season and looking forward to the SHA’s annual conference. This year, the conference mozies on down to Fort Worth, Texas where there will certainly be a lot to talk about, to see, and to do. Over the next few weeks, I wanted to use this space to dig a little bit into the SHA Program and provide my thoughts on those items that piqued my interest. The preliminary program is available now for your own review, but here are some of the highlights that I saw in reviewing it. There are some neat topics, tours, and workshops there that get me looking forward to the meeting!

For today, I’m going to focus on some of the Workshops that struck a particular chord with me. There are several to choose from. My mentioning specific ones below should not discourage you from checking out all of them. As the preliminary agenda says, all of these will be held on Wednesday, January 4th with the exception of the GMAC Anti-Racism Training Workshops, which will be held on Saturday and Sunday, January 7th and 8th.

Being someone who has a keen interest in digital media and has dabbled (albeit ham-fistedly – I figured out how to make a somewhat convincing martini glass once!) in the world of 3D Graphics, the first workshop that jumped out at me was WKS-06: Digital Heritage for Historical Archaeology: A Practicum in 3-D Modeling. I have always wanted to find better ways to give non-archaeologists new avenues to understand an excavation and 2D drawings, though great, often come up short. I have seen 3D graphics as a great tool to make excavations and artifacts ‘come alive’ (as the saying probably way too often goes) but have not been able to figure out the software by teaching myself; the the programs are just too different, I suppose. This course, directed by Edward González-Tennant of Digital Heritage Interactive, LLC, could be just the ticket to getting someone like myself over that seemingly steep initial learning curve and into “smooth sailing” territory. Then I could start viewing, analyzing, and presenting field data in a new way!

The company that I work for conducts surveys on occasion on military training areas and ordnance is always a concern. That’s where a course like WKS-01: Ordnance Identification and Threat Assessment (Instructor: Tom Gersbeck from Oklahoma State University) comes in. In some instances on field projects, training is pretty basic prior to going out to do a survey. Having a practical, beginner’s guide to identifying ordnance in the field taught by a person there in the room with you (versus on an online video) could be fantastic! The subject ties loosely with WKS-07: Battlefield Workshop for Contractors and Grant Applicants taught by Kristen McMasters of the National Park Service’s American Battlefield Protection Program, too. In this workshop, the NPS will provide some great guidance on American battlefield preservation initiatives and associated grant programs. Being honest, I wasn’t aware of the ABPP before I read this program. What a great job they are doing and I welcome them to Texas to inform others of how they can help us all out in our work on these historic sites.

The Underwater Cultural Awareness Workshop (WKS-04; taught by Amy Mitchell-Cook from the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology) would also be very handy in helping to better understand how to explain underwater cultural resources to non-underwater archaeologists. Though I have my master’s in nautical archaeology, I could see a lot of benefit in viewing these resources from a non-practitioner’s point of view to find ways to better convey findings. It’s also always good to have a brush-up on international legislation.

Also, most of us are at least familiar with GIS; maybe not in direct practice, but we’re pretty aware of its capabilities. GIS is THE TOOL for geographic data collection and interpretation and learning to use even the basics of it can be very helpful for the experienced veteran and the new student coming up. If you’re interested, consider enrolling in Kyle Walker’s (Texas Christian University) WKS-02: Geographic Information Systems. As an added bonus, this class being held offsite at TCU’s campus there in downtown Fort Worth (travel is included). It is a beautiful campus (and that’s saying a lot coming from this University of Texas Longhorn) so I encourage you to go check it out.    

Needless to say, race and racism have been a bit of a theme of late on the national stage here in the United States. I have considered archaeology to be a profession and science in which that topic really doesn’t come up very often. That’s quite possibly the result of me simply being unaware, though. That certainly doesn’t mean that it isn’t there and it isn’t worth discussion. Shoot, the fact that there’s a Gender and Minority Affairs Committee (GMAC) suggests as much. Accordingly, I am more than a little curious about WKS-08: GMAC Introduction to Systemic Racism Workshop and WKS-09: GMAC Second-Steps Antiracist Workshop: Becoming an Antiracist Multicultural Institution, both hosted by Flordeliz T. Bugarin (Howard University), Michael S. Nassaney (Western Michigan University), and Crossroads Antiracism Organizing & Training. Split over two days, this course will provide attendees with an opportunity to speak about their own perspectives and see the viewpoints of others on this difficult topic. It will be particularly eye-opening to learn others’ findings on the racialization of our discipline.

In my 15+ years as a professional archaeologist, I haven’t worked with human remains very much until fairly recently. I don’t know if that makes me an anomaly or not, but a couple recent projects and all of a sudden WKS-05: Practical Aspects of Bioarchaeology and Human Skeletal Analysis (Chairs: Thomas Crist, Utica College, and Kimberly Morrell, AECOM) is speaking to me. In the few instances where I have worked with burials and human remains, I’m keenly aware of how much more there is for me to learn about the identification and analysis of burials and how best to effectively engage descendant groups and get the public interested in these sites. This seems like a fantastic place to start.

With the course being offered almost every year since (We’re Gonna Party Like It’s) 1999, it is clear that WKS-03: Archaeological Illustration (Instructor: Jack Scott from Jack Scott Creative) is a tried and true winner! Like the 3D course, this is one that I would bet an illustration novice could walk in saying to him/herself, “I’ll never be able to do something like that…” and then walk out saying, “Hey! Look what I learned how to do!” And if you aren’t much for traditional pen-and-ink illustration techniques, I bet you could pick up a wealth of guidance on common illustration conventions, printing concerns, and more for direct application in digital media as well. To commemorate its long run, I wonder if Mr. Scott will play “Believe” by Cher (the top song from 1999 according to Billboard) for a little concentration music. Maybe some Smashmouth? Anyway…   

There, I went and did it.  I was only going to talk about the ones that really jumped out at me and I wound up talking about all of them.  I guess that means I have a bit of a decision ahead of me, don’t I? While I mull this over, you check out the program and get yourself registered! Talk to you soon!

U.S. government has a wonderful ability to reinvent itself every four years with the Presidential election. That ability can be disconcerting when the election results in a sharp change in philosophy and policy. The transition from Barack Obama to Donald Trump will be the most dramatic sea change in the history of the American presidency. For many of us, Obama was a champion who celebrated America’s intellectual vigor and diversity. Hillary Clinton was a champion of women’s rights. Trump is none of the above.

However, we do not need to look at Trump’s election with fear and trepidation; rather, we need it to serve as a catalyst to us to serve the communities that need our assistance, to serve as a voice for the disenfranchised and all of America – male and female, gay and straight, black, white, red, yellow and shades in between – and to do our work as efficiently and effectively as possible.

It is difficult to forecast what a Trump Presidency will be like; that comes with the territory of having elected a man who has never served in public office and who has no legislative record. We know he will challenge immigrants and immigration; we know the United States is a nation of immigrants and we can help tell their story. We know he will deny climate change and the Paris accord; we know that climate change has already left its record on our landscape and can remind the nation of places already lost as well as those we will be losing. We know he will emphasize the importance and place of male white Americans; we know that America was crafted by the hands and voices of women and men of many races and we can bring their voices to life. We know that he believes the U.S. should stand in isolation; and we know that the U.S. is a hub of a global world, that the global world and economy was set in motion by European exploration of the 15th century, and that it cannot be undone by one man in four years.

My colleagues in the cultural resource industry ask what a Trump Presidency and Republican Congress will mean to historic preservation. Trump speaks against environmental regulation; however, many of the initiatives he will challenge and overturn are Executive Orders from President Obama that will not affect us. He calls for streamlining environmental review; I support that call, and the CRM industry has made great strides in the past decade. This is an area where we can all apply our acumen; I have no qualms with doing our work better and faster. I do not believe that the Trump administration will challenge the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) itself; a colleague expressed her concern today that a Republican President and Congress would attack the NHPA. I informed her that that had already passed, in 2010 when Representative Pombo and the newly elected Republican Congress under second term President Bush attacked the NHPA. Their efforts were soundly defeated by the voices of many Americans – archaeologists, historians, citizens, middle Americans, city-dwellers – all of whom who understood and made it clear that our history is what defines us as a nation. I will gladly defend the territory of American history, and that is a non-partisan tract that cannot be overrun. Pombo, by the way, was not re-elected, and the Republican leadership told their Congressional members to leave the NHPA alone.

I am an eternal optimist, which is, I think, a characteristic of the American spirit. We are a nation of expansion and opportunity. So as I reviewed President-Elect Trump’s platform today, something I had not done before the election, I found myself agreeing with some of the things he calls for. I would be glad to see term limits on Congress. I fully agree that our government could and should work more efficiently. And I believe that our Veterans deserve far better treatment and service than they are being given. As a citizen of the U.S., I will be glad to work with President Trump where we agree. And I will also be glad to oppose him if needed.

All of us have an obligation that did not come with this election; it comes with the territory we occupy. We are stewards of the past; we are the caretakers of unwritten history. We have a job to do. Use your sites and projects to inform the public, remind people that their feet were not the first to tread the lands they are visiting, illustrate all of the people who made the U.S. the great nation that it is, and make certain that our elected representatives understand that our heritage is the greatest currency we have. Our history, all of our history, is what makes the United States what it is, is what makes us Americans, is what makes us great. Not Again. Then, Now, and Forever.

J.W. Joseph
President

Chris Matthews

With the upcoming 50^th anniversary celebration of the founding of the Society for Historical Archaeology, you can expect a lot of memory work and commemorations at the Ft. Worth conference and for the rest of 2017. The latest thematic issue of Historical Archaeology was put together with this in mind. The issue, however, is looking ahead rather than behind. To put the issue together, I asked authors to take this coming of age moment to consider where they think the field is heading in the next few decades. As you will see their responses and discussions suggest we are in store for an array of productive and interesting directions.

As the papers came together, I saw two major themes that stood out. One is ‘motion and networks’. With articles that consider frontiers, GIS, global connections, and the need to approach our subjects through more complicated frames, most authors call for an appreciation for how people in the recent past have been on the move and tied into far-reaching networks. The upshot here is that historical archaeologists will need to be more aware of how the sites, material culture, and people we study are much less stable and fixed in place than we have typically considered.

The second theme of the paper is the relationship between historical archaeology and time. Just as space will likely be seen as the paths that people move to and through, many authors predict that time will also become a more complicated and nuanced aspect of research in historical archaeology. For one, archaeologists will have to consider more the questions of modernity and being modern at the global scale. The idea of multiple, competing modernities challenges some of the linear frameworks and settings such as capitalism and colonialism that many in the field examine. Similarly, it is predicted that historical archaeology will become more articulated with the emergent field of contemporary archaeology, whose purpose, in part, is to unsettle the normative temporalities associated with archaeology.

“Historical Archaeology in Next Decades” should be arriving in your mailbox soon. A full list of the articles is copied below.

• Historical Archaeology in the Next Decades: An Introduction, Christopher N. Matthews
• Marks from the Past, Signs of the Future—the Dikenga of Historical Archaeology, W. Joseph
• Recent Directions and Future Developments in Geographic Information Systems for Historical Archaeology, Edward González-Tennant
• Fifty Years On: History’s Handmaiden? A Plea for Capital H History, Lynette Russell
• Categories in Motion: Emerging Perspectives in the Archaeology of Postcolumbian Indigenous Communities, Kurt A. Jordan
• Capitalism in Motion, LouAnnWurst and Stephen A. Mrozowski
• Historical Archaeology Outlook: A Latin American Perspective, Pedro Paulo A. Funari and Lúcio Menezes Ferreira
• Transatlantic Currents: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Global Historical Archaeology, Audrey Horning
• Horizons beyond the Perimeter Wall: Relational Materiality, Institutional Confinement, and the Archaeology of Being Global, Eleanor Conlin Casella
• Archaeology and the Time of Modernity, Alfredo González-Ruibal
• Archaeologies of Present and Emergent Futures, Rodney Harrison

 

Image: Convict ‘love token,’ modified copper penny, obverse and reverse faces. Powerhouse Museum of Sydney (photographs by Eleanor Casella, October 2005).

by Joe Joseph & Chris Matthews

As you already know, the SHA has entered an agreement with Springer to publish Historical Archaeology. This agreement builds on our already existing partnership with Springer, who co-publish two of the society’s book series: “When the Land Meets the Sea” and “Springer Briefs in Underwater Archaeology.” We, as the SHA President and Journal Editor, are extremely excited about this new relationship, as are the other SHA Editors and Board. Springer provides us with a number of resources and technologies that will advance Historical Archaeology as a leading publication in the field, as well as greater exposure and marketing which will increase and diversify the SHA’s membership.

Our agreement with Springer provides the SHA with following advantages:

1. Expanded journal content

The print journal will now include Technical Briefs articles and Book Reviews in addition to original articles, awards essays and memorials.

2. Online submission and review system

Springer’s Editorial Manger provides an on-line system for paper submittal, review, and publication portals. This will streamline and expedite the editorial process, a benefit to the editorial staff and authors alike.

3. Global marketing

Springer is a global publisher of scientific research with offices and outreach worldwide. They are well versed in promoting their publications to diverse communities, many of whom will be new to Historical Archaeology and the SHA. Springer will specifically market Historical Archaeology through the Springer website and at all of the archaeological, anthropological and historical conferences where they exhibit. Springer also provides secure electronic subscriptions to institutions and individuals, which has the potential of further reach for the journal, especially to international universities.

4. Revenue to SHA

The agreement includes annual payments to SHA to offset editorial costs as well as loss of revenue from institutional membership dues, who will now subscribe through Springer. Journal subscriptions will also be tied to SHA membership, increasing the member base of the society. In all, the agreement shifts the costs to the SHA of the producing the journal from being a net loss to a net gain.

5. Citations

Springer will assign each article in the HA catalog a Digital Object Identifier (DOI), which allow electronic documents such as our journal articles to be tracked and identified in other sources. Moreover, as a press that has an extremely high level of visibility, Springer provides greater exposure to our author’s work and enhance our journal’s place as one of the premier publications in the field.

6. “Online First” publications

Springer provides a program called “Online First” that electronically publishes articles as they are accepted and composed, speeding up the on-line publication of articles, which will no longer need to wait until the full journal issue is ready for press to be published.

7. Back Catalog Access

Springer will provide access to the full back catalog of journals for members, enhancing benefits to current and new members, while removing access to back issues for non-members, meaning that access to the journal will only be available to members as of 2017 as well as through JSTOR.

The SHA Subcommittee did an excellent job in negotiating the Springer contract, which also offers the SHA slight financial advantages over our in-house publication effort, so we feel that the SHA and its members are getting the best of all worlds, and we encourage you to join us in welcoming Springer as a partner to the SHA.

To get started you can visit the SHA page on Springer’s website: http://www.springer.com/social+sciences/anthropology+%26+archaeology/journal/41636. This page will be updated regularly as new content for the journal is produced, including the option to submit articles for publication, which goes “live” on Oct 31, 2016!

by M. Jay Stottman

It is the oldest and most basic form of public archaeology, but we tend to pay little attention to how archaeologists speak to the public.   Whether it is giving a public presentation or telling someone about your dig, talking to the public is not something that we are trained for.  It is something that each archaeologist typically learns through experience and lots of trial and error.  When we do seek out training in the art of public speaking, we might take a workshop with professional interpreters.  While the techniques we learn help us more effectively communicate our message, we don’t often connect with the public.  Is it good enough to just tell people what we are doing, how we do it, and how important that it is?  Is there more than just answering the questions people ask and delivering our research and ethics messages?  We all have our spiel that we give and canned responses prepared for the inevitable questions we are asked.  Can we go beyond that and use them as opportunities to learn about our publics and as entry points to connect with them? 

            In order to connect with the public we have to do more than improve our strategies and techniques, we have to also think about our approach.  We have to move beyond just being information providers to being facilitators of conversations.  The key is to find points of entry or intersections in the information we present with the questions the public asks.   Learning what the public wants to know about and what they are interested in should help dictate what to talk about and how far the conversation can go.  Some may call them teachable moments, I call them teaching opportunities; either way, I am looking to make the people I talk to more invested in our interaction.  For example, I used a question in response to my spiel on outbuildings to learn that someone is interested in what happened to the buildings.  The conversation then can go from talking about how we know about the outbuildings to how changes in transportation changed the outbuilding landscape and how it affects change in the present.  Questions like, “what is the most important or valuable artifact you have found?” can lead to a conversation about how enslaved African Americans coped with slavery and actively created a community in the oppressive environment of slavery.  We can then inform and challenge our publics to connect such information to present day issues of social justice if we are seeking opportunities to do so. 

            We have to go beyond talking to the public and start communicating with the public in order to have a more meaningful interaction with them.  Rather than beating them over the head with our rhetoric, we should be facilitating conversations and connections with the public.  We have to think about our interactions with the public as a two-way street and seek those opportunities to share knowledge with each other.  Being a good communicator means we have to be able to listen as well as talk.  Certainly many of us have learned to do this and learned it the hard way, but communication goes beyond technique and strategies. It starts with how we conceptualize our relationship with the public.  Are we willing to give up some of our control as the expert to engage in more meaningful public interactions or should we even have to?

 

 

Lori Stahlgren discusses ideas about an artifact with kids during a field trip at Riverside, The Farnsley-Moremen Landing.

SHA Member Sarah Miller visits Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL)

 

On June 24 and 25, the Society for Historical Archaeology visited several members of Congress and their staffers to urge them to support reauthorization of the Historic Preservation Fund. President Joe Joseph, President-Elect Mark Warner, and member Sarah Miller made approximately 10 visits to the House and Senate. They also met with the Bureau of Land Management to discuss new planning guidance, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation and the National Park Service to discuss SHA’s development of an initiative to identify, preserve, and protect historic African-American burial grounds. These visits are critical to developing relationships and advancing SHA’s priorities in Washington.

By Sarah Johnson

Archaeology in a densely populated urban environment is an entirely different animal from doing some quiet shovel test pits in the woods. Throw in the element of working along a main tourist thoroughfare that attracts millions of visitors each year, and you’ve got yourself a real logistical challenge. How do we as archaeologists engage that volume of visitors while maintaining a safe, well-paced work environment? What follows are some of my thoughts on these issues, based on my experience on urban archaeology projects along Boston’s Freedom Trail, at the home of Malcolm X in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and on Burial Hill in Plymouth.

The first and most important rule of urban public archaeology, as with Boy Scouts, is to be prepared. Really think through your strategy beforehand and keep in mind that there will be challenges that you might not be used to facing.

• Safety: If you are in a setting where visitors will be able to walk right up to your excavation units, how will you keep them (and your crew) safe? Some sort of barrier may be in order, but also keep in mind that anything that keeps people from being able to see what you’re doing will be a turn-off. In my experience, a row of traffic cones usually does the job. Also consider how you’ll protect the site at night. Sand bags filled with backdirt are a great asset to have – you can use them to hold down the plywood or whatever else you use to cover your units, and you can also use them to line the bottom of your units to deter anyone who manages to get your covering off.

• Interpretation: If your crew is large enough, it helps to have people whose job it is to just interpret the site for visitors. This allows excavation to continue more or less unimpeded while also insuring that the public is engaged. In any crew, there will likely be a few people who really take to this role, saving those who are less outgoing from anything they find unpleasant. At the start of the project, lay out some talking points that you want the interpreters to be sure to hit and then let people find their own voice. You will find that you get the same few questions over and over again (“Have you found anything yet?” “What’s the coolest thing you’ve found so far?” “Found any gold?”), so it won’t be long before you start to hit your stride.  If possible, set up your screens in a space where the public can watch. That way, they can see the entirety of the fieldwork process at once. You can even take it one step further by setting up a public lab space. This is obviously not feasible for many projects, but it can be a really great way to highlight the scientific nature of archaeology and give visitors a sense of the true scope of our work, not just the digging. For the project I worked on in Plymouth, we set up a lab in the visitors’ center at Plimoth Plantation where members of the crew could wash and sort artifacts from the field and talk with visitors. Even just a small washing station on site can go a long way to expanding people’s ideas of what archaeology is.

• Follow-up: How will you continue to engage your visitors after they leave the site? The turnaround on urban public digs can be very fast, as people stop by for a few minutes as part of a tour or while they’re on the way to their next planned stop. It’s important to make a connection in the few moments you have and give them a way to continue to follow your work. Signage is a big part of this, so you should create some bright, eye-catching signs to place around the site that give a brief idea of who you are and what you are doing. That way, even if the visitor doesn’t get a chance to talk with anyone, they still have an idea of what they’re looking at. Going back to Joe Bagley’s blog post earlier this month, social media is a great way to engage people beyond the site itself. Prominently display your Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/etc. links on your signs, and include any hashtags that you’ve come up with for your project. The hashtag encourages people to not only follow along but also post about their experiences at the site in a way that others can find. Make sure that you post about your progress often so that there is some encouragement to keep following.

Above all, be flexible and maintain a sense of humor. Public archaeology on this scale can be overwhelming and exhausting, but it is also incredibly rewarding. You have the opportunity to bring your work to literally millions of people, and with just a little effort and planning on your part, you can leave them with an unforgettable experience. What message do you want to tell the world about archaeology? This is your chance to share it. Good luck and have fun!