Juried Links Database
Welcome to the “Current Projects” pages at sha.org. Please note that the following links will take you to pages that whose content are SHA-approved, but are not necessarily created and copy edited to conform with SHA style and format.
Historical archaeology is a diverse discipline with investigations in both terrestrial and underwater contexts. This page is dedicated to sharing information about these projects.
Other Links
Other Research Links
If you have or are developing a website featuring professional historical archaeology project(s) and wish to apply to have it posted, please email us at webmaster@sha.org
Historische Archaologie
Organization: Historische Archaologie (open-access online journal)
Region: Africa
Website's Intended Audience: : professionals
Era: : 15th Century, 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Underwater: : 1
Cultures associated: : European, European American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Battlefield, Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Leisure, Mining, Political, Plantation, Religious, Rural, Urban
Comments: "Historische Archaologie" is a german online journal presenting bilingual papers (german - english). Its time frame ranges from the 14th/15th century until today. Geographically the journal focuses on papers from German-speaking Europe and adjacent states, building bridges to eastern Central Europe and to Scandinavia.
Joint Courts Complex Archaeological Data Recovery Project
Organization: Pima County, Arizona, and Statistical Research, Inc.
Era: : 19th Century, 20th Century, Prehistoric
Cultures associated: : European American, Mesoamerican, Native American, Hispanic
Topics associated: : Commerce, Domestic, Political, Religious, Urban, Mortuary
Comments: The Joint Courts Complex website provides information about an ongoing archaeological data recovery project in downtown Tucson, Arizona. The project is being conducted for Pima County, Arizona, by Statistical Research, Inc., in advance of the construction of a joint City of Tucson/Pima County courts building. In addition to some prehistoric remains and foundations, privies, and trash deposits from late nineteenth and early twentieth century domestic and commercial use of the project area, the site includes most of the land that was used as Tucson's National Cemetery from the 1860s to the 1880s. This was the first cemetery established in Tucson after southern Arizona became a part of the United States. It consisted of a small military section from which most of the burials were removed in 1884, and a larger civilian cemetery used by the primarily Hispanic population of Tucson. It is estimated that between 1120 and 1150 individuals were buried in the cemetery. Pima County has two goals for the project: 1) the respectful removal and reburial of all human remains within the project area, and 2)the development of an important contribution to our understanding of Tucson's transformation from Native American village to modern, multicultural city. The website, which is updated monthly, includes copies of the background reports for the project, progress reports, photos, and maps.
KL Stutthof Museum
Organization: The KL Stutthof Archaeological Resources Protection and Preservation Program
Website's Intended Audience: : all
Era: : 20th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Topics associated: : Concentration Camp
Comments: The KL Stutthof Archaeological Resources Protection and Preservation Program is formed to reconstruct the past in the absence of written records and prevent archaeological site destruction caused by activities associated with natural forces, deliberate vandalism or looting, and through inadvertent and unintentional damage caused by site visitation.
Landscape Archaeology Resources and Bibliography
Organization: Landscape Archaeology Resources and Bibliography
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 15th Century, 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Prehistoric, Protohistoric, Contact Period
Terrestrial: : 1
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Battlefield, Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Leisure, Logging/Lumbering, Mining, Political, Plantation, Religious, Rural, Urban, Work Camp
Comments: Landscape archaeology and analysis resource links, bibliography and course plan.
Levi Jordan Plantation
Organization: Levi Jordan Plantation
Era: : 19th Century, 20th Century
Cultures associated: : African, African Diaspora, European American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Commerce, Leisure, Plantation, Rural
Cangdong Village Project
Organization: Stanford University - Making Ties: The Cangdong Village Project
Region: Asia
Website's Intended Audience: : professionals
Era: : 19th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Cultures associated: : Asian
Topics associated: : Domestic, Rural
Comments: This 55-minute documentary chronicles the development of the first archaeology field project to study the home villages of 19th century Chinese migrants.
Documentary: https://cangdong.stanford.edu/documentary-film
Teaching Guide: https://cangdong.stanford.edu/sites/g/files/sbiybj11666/f/making_ties_teaching_guide.pdf
The Cangdong Village Project is a transnational and interdisciplinary research collaboration undertaken to better understand how daily life in China’s Pearl River Delta region was transformed by 19th century migration. Through footage collected over the entire five-year project, filmmaker Barre Fong has composed a start-to-finish account of the research process and outcomes. The open-access documentary and accompanying teaching guide stress themes of migration, diaspora, transnational communities, material practice, and the importance of interdisciplinary methodologies to study previously neglected histories.
Unlike many commercially-distributed heritage films, Making Ties is unscripted and unstaged, spotlighting the experiences of actual students, faculty, specialists, and village residents as they work together towards shared research goals. The transnational research team includes members of diverse ages, genders, nationalities, racial/ethnic identities, and personalities. The film includes particularly strong representations of Asian American archaeologists, a group that is often omitted from popular depictions of the field.
Making Ties supports public engagement with Asian American heritage. Streaming and downloading the documentary is free. It can be screened in group settings at organization events, or viewed individually by your members and affiliates. Viewers can select closed-captions in English or Chinese (simplified). A detailed teaching guide includes discussion topics, class activities, and a sample curriculum. The project’s website (https://cangdong.stanford.edu/ - also bilingual) includes a gallery of artifact images and links to project publications.
Mount Lowe Archaeology Project - Stanford University
Organization: Mount Lowe Archaeology Project
Region: United States
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 19th Century, 20th Century
Topics associated: : Industrial, Leisure, Political, Urban, Work Camp
Comments: The Mount Lowe Archaeology Project is a collaborative effort between Stanford University and Angeles National Forest dedicated to the study of Mount Lowe Resort and Railway, one of the most popular tourist sites in late 19th and early 20th century America. Stanford University doctoral candidate, Stacey Lynn Camp, is director and Co-Principal Investigator of the project. This project is currently investigating the material remnants of an early 20th century railway workers' camp located at the historic resort. Please see the website for more information on the project's progress and history.
Panamá Viejo
Organization: Panamá Viejo Historical Monument Complex
Region: Central America
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 17th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Cultures associated: : European
Comments: The Panama Viejo Historical Monument Complex, designated as such by Law 91 of December 1976 and also known as the Panama Viejo Archaeological Site or as Panama La Vieja, is located within the modern city of Panama, between the mouths of the rivers Algarrobo and Abajo, in front of the Pacific Ocean, at the narrowest part of the Isthmus.
The site includes the ruins of the first European settlement on the Pacific Coast of the Americas, as well as traces of the first inhabitants of the Isthmus. Panama City was founded by Pedrarias Dávila on August 15th 1519, and reached 10,000 inhabitants in the XVII century
Plymouth Colony Archive Project
Organization: Plymouth Colony Archive Project
Era: : 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century
Cultures associated: : African Diaspora, European American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Leisure, Logging/Lumbering, Political, Religious, Rural, Urban
Comments: This Plymouth Colony Archive presents a collection of fully searchable texts, including: court records, colony laws, seventeenth century journals and memoirs, probate inventories, wills, town plans, maps, and fort plans; research and seminar analyses of numerous topics; biographical profiles of selected colonists; and architectural, archaeological and material culture studies. Among other works, published here for the first time are a "Glossary and Notes on Plymouth Colony," "Seventeenth Century Timber Framing," and "Vernacular House Forms in Seventeenth Century Plymouth Colony: An Analysis of Evidence from the Plymouth Colony Room-by-Room Probate Inventories 1633-1685," by Patricia Scott Deetz and James Deetz. We also present studies focusing on broader regional and temporal scales, including Jim Deetz's analysis of changes over time in Anglo-American gravestone styles in New England, and discussion of the Parting Ways site and archaeological evidence found there of architectural forms and mortuary practices consistent with elements of African-American heritage. In addition, we present a number of tributes concerning the works of Prof. Deetz (1930-2000) in historical archaeology.
Pottery Communities of Edgefield, South Carolina
Organization: Pottery Communities of Edgefield, South Carolina Pottery Communities
Region: North America
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Cultures associated: : African Diaspora, European American
Topics associated: : Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Plantation, Rural
Comments: The first innovation and development of alkaline-glazed stoneware pottery in America occurred in the Edgefield District of South Carolina in the early 1800s. It remains an enduring mystery as to how these new ceramic methods were developed in that place and time, and how the techniques of clay choice, temper, and glaze developed over the following century. These potteries employed enslaved and free African-American laborers in the 19th century, and the stoneware forms also show evidence of likely African cultural influence on stylistic designs. Edgefield potteries thus present fascinating research questions of understanding technological innovations and investigating the impacts of African cultural knowledge and racial ideologies on a craft specialization during the historic period in America. This project entails an interdisciplinary, collaborative, and archaeological study of the first development in America of alkaline-glazed stoneware pottery forms, the development of that South Carolina industry over time, and the impacts of racism and African cultural influences on those processes.
St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research
Organization: SECAR-The St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research
Region: North America
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Prehistoric, Contact Period
Cultures associated: : African Diaspora, Asian, European, European American, Native American, South American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Battlefield, Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Political, Plantation, Religious, Rural, Urban
Comments: St. Eustatius (or Statia) was the primary trans-shipment center between Europe, the West Indies and the Americas between 1760 and 1800. For much of the American Revolution, Holland and France supplied US forces with much needed arms and ammunition through this port. Finally, the existence of the United States was first recognized by a foreign power here in November 1776 when a salute was fired to the USS Andrew Doria.
Although the island is only 7 km by 5 km (5 miles by 2 miles), there are over 90 documented plantation sites, 600 warehouse ruins, six church sites, numerous urban domestic and commercial structures (houses, taverns, brothels, stores, printing presses etc), 20+ fortifications, and an estimated 200+ shipwrecks located on and around the island. As a result, the island is considered to have the densest concentration of colonial period artifacts and sites for any location of comparable size anywhere in the world. Also, pre-historic sites are some of the best preserved in the Caribbean. A wide range of archaeological projects have been undertaken since 1979 by the College of William and Mary (USA), Leiden University (The Netherlands), and the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (UK). The St. Eustatius Center for Archaeological Research (SECAR) has been established on the island as a permanent research facility designed to permit a continuous excavation program during the entire year. Many US and UK universities allow academic credit to be earned through participation in SECAR projects.
We are currently working on the possible site of Free Black Village just on the outskirts of Oranjestad. Recent projects have included discovery of a colonial Jewish Ceremonial Bath or Mikveh at Synagogue Honen Dalim (one of the oldest in the New World) and a Pottery Production site on Oranje Bay, and the first paleopathological study of a leper asylum anywhere in the New World. Similar projects are ongoing. Underwater archaeological programs may be under way as well.
Teaching Ludlow CO
Organization: Teaching Ludlow CO, An Archaeological Teaching Tool
Region: North America
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 20th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Topics associated: : Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Mining, Political, Rural, Work Camp
Texas Beyond History (Texas Archeological Research Laboratory, University of Texas-Austin)
Organization: Texas Beyond History
Era: : 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Prehistoric, Protohistoric, Contact Period
Cultures associated: : African, European American, Native American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Battlefield, Domestic, Logging/Lumbering, Mining, Plantation, Rural, Urban, Mission
Comments: Texas Beyond History is a virtual museum covering 13,500 years of human history, from Clovis hunter-gatherers to Spanish Colonial missionaries, frontier soldiers, and 20th-century Mexican-American cotton farmers. More than 7,500 images and interactive graphics illustrate nearly 100 online "exhibits" on significant archeological sites as well as broad, thematic presentations, such as "Nineteenth-Century Forts and the Clash of Cultures on the Texas Frontier." There are also correlated resources for K-12 students, curricula for teachers, illustrated glossaries, and FAQ's for learning about the discipline of archeology. Created at the Texas Archeological Research Laboratory (University of Texas at Austin) in collaboration with dozens of experts in archeology, history, and related fields from across the state, the website is designed to share the meaningful results of research with the citizens of Texas and the world.
The Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis
Organization: The Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis
Region: North America
Website's Intended Audience: : professionals
Comments: (CfAS) promotes and funds innovative, collaborative synthetic research that rapidly advances our understanding of the past in ways that contribute to solutions to contemporary problems, for the benefit of society in all its diversity. This is accomplished through the analysis and synthesis of existing archaeological and associated data from multiple cultures, at multiple spatial and temporal scales. See newsletter
The Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Organization: The Museum of Underwater Archaeology
Region: United States
Era: : 15th Century, 16th Century, 17th Century, 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century, Prehistoric, Protohistoric, Contact Period
Cultures associated: : African, African Diaspora, Asian, Asian American, Australian Asian American, European, European American, Mesoamerican, Native American, South American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Battlefield, Commerce, Domestic, Industrial, Rural, Urban
Comments: The Museum of Underwater Archaeology is dedicated to encouraging and assisting professional, student, and avocational underwater archaeologists to publish their research online.
The Society of Black Archaeologists
Organization: The Society of Black Archaeologists
Region: North America
Website's Intended Audience: : all
Comments: Headquartered in Washington D.C. with members throughout the world, the Society of Black Archaeologists works to increase the number of professionally trained archaeologists of African descent through the promotion of social responsibility, academic excellence and the creation of spaces that foster the SBA’s goals and activities.
The SBA promotes the proper treatment of African and African diaspora material culture, promotes community engagement and collaborations within the field, raises and addresses concerns related to African peoples worldwide, and highlights past and present achievements and contributions people of African descent have made to the field of archaeology.
Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest
Organization: Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest
Region: Africa
Website's Intended Audience: : all
Era: : 18th Century, 19th Century, 20th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Cultures associated: : African Diaspora, European American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Domestic, Plantation, Rural
Comments: This website provides a comprehensive introduction to the archaeology of Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest, including information on current research; past projects; student internships; technical reports; volunteer opportunities; and the annual Summer Field School in Historical Archaeology run through the University of Virginia. Website visitors are able to learn about Jefferson's retreat home as well as the broader landscape and plantation communities of Poplar Forest by selecting from a wide variety of online applications, which include descriptive imagery and text; interactive exhibits; podcasts; and video updates.
University of Denver, Department of Anthropology
Organization: The Archaeology of Japanese American Internment at Amache, Colorado
Region: United States
Website's Intended Audience: : all
Era: : 20th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Cultures associated: : Asian American, European American
Topics associated: : Agriculture, Domestic, Political, Internment
Comments: The Granada Relocation Center was home to over 10,000 individuals of Japanese descent during World War II. Better known as Amache, the site contains remarkably intact evidence of life in the internment camp, with building foundations, surface artifacts, and internee-created landscaping. Since 2005, the University of Denver (DU), Department of Anthropology has led a community-based heritage project at Amache and the associated Amache museum in Granada, Colorado. Grounded in community collaboration, the DU Amache Project provides needed expertise while creating a forum for training students in historical archaeology, museum studies, and engaged anthropology. The project website provides information to Amache stakeholders, the general public, and the academic community, including results of past research and opportunities to join in future work.
University of Nebraska Library Center for Digital Research in the Humanities
Organization: Cuban Battlefields of the Spanish-Cuban-American War
Region: North America
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Era: : 19th Century
Terrestrial: : 1
Underwater: : 1
Cultures associated: : European American
Topics associated: : Battlefield
Comments: Cuban battlefields presents an overview of the Spanish-Cuban-American War of 1898. Modern and historic maps and photographs are used to illustrate continuity and change of the battlefields around Santiago de Cuba. Field visits in 2005 are the basis of modern evaluation of the sites and battlefields of the 1898 war.
Latin American magazine of archeology and history of the cities .s
Organization: Urbania
Region: South America
Website's Intended Audience: : lay public
Terrestrial: : 1
Comments: Urbania is an annual scientific journal, with reference, whose main objective is the publication of research by undergraduate students and professionals in archeology, history, anthropology, or other related disciplines, dealing with the theme of urbanity in past societies. . At the same time, we incorporate sections aimed at scientific communication in general, such as notes, reports, interviews, etc. The magazine currently integrates the Latindex Catalog (Folio 3117, 2015) , meeting the required editorial quality criteria.