Archaeology and the Community
Over the past two years, I have been responsible for creating a wide variety of educational outreach programs for the Exploring Joara Foundation, a small public archaeology organization in western…
engagement
Critical Heritage, African Diaspora Archaeology and the Moment When My Eyes Were Opened.
I am a blogger. Blogging has become an extension of how I process complex thoughts and ideas. Composing a blog entry is like creating a work of art, allowing me…
Connecting Communities with Their Past: Maryland’s County Archaeological Exhibit Project
The Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory (MAC Lab) currently curates eight million artifacts from every county in the state. While these artifacts are available for research, education and exhibit purposes, only…
The Montpelier/Minelab Experiment: An Archaeological Metal Detector Training Course
In March 2012, 12 metal detectorists were invited to James Madison’s Montpelier to attend a week-long metal detecting program to learn how archaeologists and the metal detector community can work…
Making Historical Archaeology Visible: Community Outreach and Education
If there’s one thing that the controversies surrounding the Diggers and American Digger reality shows have taught us, it’s that the general American public still does not know how to…
Digging our own graves? A suggested focus for introducing archaeology to new audiences
As an Outreach Coordinator for the Florida Public Archaeology Network, I often get to work with elementary school students, bringing archaeology activities and presentations into classrooms all over northeast Florida. …
Contemporary Archaeologies
A week ago Quentin Lewis’ blog post on the November 2011 “Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory” conference (CHAT) in Boston asked the question “What is contemporary archaeology?” Quentin reaches the conclusion…
Considering Public Archaeology in the Long Run: Capacity Building, Sustainability, and (sometimes) Closing Things Down
The last decade has seen a huge growth in writing about public archaeology – of all sorts. Happily, much of the recent writing has moved beyond the very descriptive, somewhat…