Advances has been one of my favorite journals since the first issue appeared in my email inbox a little over 10 years ago. This is in no small part due to the format of the journal as a fully online publication that embraces all of the benefits of born-digital content including color imagery, publication of data and code, and additional online resources to supplement article content. I also very much appreciate the journal’s focus on practice which encompasses a broad range of topics, but importantly to me has facilitated the publication of very useful “nuts and bolts” articles that are both excellent primers for research and invaluable resources for teaching at many levels. In this brief post I wanted to share several examples of resources I’ve found particularly useful in my own teaching. Associated articles are listed at the end.

One of my favorite features of Advances is the frequently published How to Series articles which cover methods, techniques, and practical problems in detail with an eye toward teaching. These are EXCELLENT resources for teaching methods at both the undergraduate and graduate level. First-off, any article that sends me to the hardware store is a winner in my book. For example, Porter and colleagues (2016) article on building a low-cost photogrammetry setup along with an article by Douglass and others (2015) on the use of photogrammetry in the field together formed the basis of a series of workshops. Instructors and students worked together to build our own photogrammetry rigs and worked through these articles together to experiment with 3D modelling.

There are many excellent articles in Advances on collections care (see Volume 7, special issue 3) and a couple that I have started requiring all students to read before coming on any fieldwork with me include the excellent “Care of Archaeological Materials Begins in the Field” by Nielsen-Grimm and Haynie (2019) and Meister’s (2019) “A Gude to the Preventative Care of Archaeological Collections.” Both of these help students get in the mindset of curation before going into the field which I find promotes better understandings of the information that can be lost without care and preparation.

Advances is full of great resources for teaching quantitative and computational methods in archaeology including a great series of three articles covering the uses and benefits of agent-based models (Romanowska et al. 2019; Davies et al. 2019; Crabtree et al. 2019). Marwick and colleagues (2019) provide a very useful article arguing for the use of replication assignments, where students download data and repeat the analysis presented in a publication, for teaching archaeology and I agree wholeheartedly with their suggestions. Indeed, Advances is full of great examples of articles published with code that allow for such replication projects (e.g., Davis et al. 2020; Gantley et al. 2018; Lulewicz 2017) across a range of software packages and skill levels.

Another important trend I’ve followed in Advances in recent years is the publication of several important articles focused on critical problems in the field including discussions of barriers that have made the discipline less than welcoming for many. For example, Heath-Stout and Hannigan (2020) cover the affordability (or lack thereof) of archaeological field schools and suggest strategies that students and educators can employ to help the next generation gain experience and advance their careers. Waston and colleagues (2022) recently published an article covering the importance of “respectful terminology” in archaeological work in particular in the context of tribal collaboration which is a topic of great importance which has rarely been formally discussed in the literature. Both of these prompt great and important conversations.

Meyers and colleagues (2018) covered “The Context and Consequences of Sexual Harassment in Southeastern Archaeology” in an article that brought many important and difficult conversations in the field to the fore. Colaninno and colleagues have also published a pair of important articles about issues of harassment in the context of archaeological work and what we can do to create safer field and lab experiences for everyone (e.g.  Colaninno et al. 2020; Colaninno et al. 2021). I’ve started assigning and discussing these and similar articles from Advances in my undergraduate and graduate field teaching as I’ve found that they provide a productive pathway into what can be tough subjects to broach. Having such detailed and thoughtful coverage of such issues helps to communicate the high expectations we have for students and for ourselves as educators both in the field and in the classroom.

I could go on and on. Advances also has terrific series on landscape scale preservation strategies and creative mitigation and so many other topics of practical significance to the future careers of many students. I’ve generally found it hard to find use-oriented and practical articles to assign for teaching but Advances has largely filled that void in the literature. If you’re an educator, I’d suggest checking out what the journal has to offer.

3D photogrammetric model of a petroglyph panel at the Deer Valley Petroglyph Preserve generated by ASU honors students in the Ancient Peoples of the Southwest course.

Advances was one of the first archaeological journals to use tools to allow readers to explore and reanalyze data right in the internet browser version of the article as this CodeOcean capsule from Gantley et al. 2018 illustrates.

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Colaninno, Carol E., Emily L. Beahm, Carl G. Drexler, Shawn P. Lambert, Clark H. Sturdevant. 2021. “The Field School Syllabus: Examining the Intersection of Best Practices and Practices That Support Student Safety and Inclusivity.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 9(4): 366–78.

Colaninno, Carol E., Shawn P. Lambert, Emily L. Beahm, and Carl G. Drexler. 2020. “Creating and Supporting a Harassment- and Assault-Free Field School.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 8(2): 111–22.

Crabtree, Stefani A., Kathryn Harris, Benjamin Davies, and Iza Romanowska. 2019. “Outreach in Archaeology with Agent-Based Modeling: Part 3 of 3.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(2): 194–202.

Davies, Benjamin, Iza Romanowska, Kathryn Harris, and Stefani A. Crabtree. 2019. “Combining Geographic Information Systems and Agent-Based Models in Archaeology: Part 2 of 3.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(2): 185–93.

Davis, Dylan S., Robert J. DiNapoli, Matthew C. Sanger, and Carl P. Lipo. 2020. “The Integration of Lidar and Legacy Datasets Provides Improved Explanations for the Spatial Patterning of Shell Rings in the American Southeast.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 8(4): 361–75.

Douglass, Matthew, Sam Lin, and Michael Chodoronek. 2015. “The Application of 3D Photogrammetry for In-Field Documentation of Archaeological Features.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 3(2): 136–52.

Gantley, Michael, Harvey Whitehouse, and Amy Bogaard. 2018. “Material Correlates Analysis (MCA): An Innovative Way of Examining Questions in Archaeology Using Ethnographic Data.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 6(4): 328–41.

Heath-Stout, Laura E., and Elizabeth M. Hannigan. 2020. “Affording Archaeology: How Field School Costs Promote Exclusivity.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 8(2): 123–33.

Lulewicz, Jacob. 2018. “Radiocarbon Data, Bayesian Modeling, and Alternative Historical Frameworks: A Case Study From the US Southeast*.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 6(1): 58–71.

Marwick, Ben, Li-Ying Wang, Ryan Robinson, and Hope Loiselle. 2020. “How to Use Replication Assignments for Teaching Integrity in Empirical Archaeology.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 8(1): 78–86.

Meister, Nicolette B. 2019. “A Guide to the Preventive Care of Archaeological Collections.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(3): 267–73.

Meyers, Maureen S. et al. 2018. “The Context and Consequences of Sexual Harassment in Southeastern Archaeology.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 6(4): 275–87.

Nielsen-Grimm, Glenna, and Robyn Haynie. 2019. “Care of Archaeological Materials Begins in the Field.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(3): 284–91.

Porter, Samantha Thi, Morgan Roussel, and Marie Soressi. 2016. “A Simple Photogrammetry Rig for the Reliable Creation of 3D Artifact Models in the Field: Lithic Examples from the Early Upper Paleolithic Sequence of Les Cottés (France).” Advances in Archaeological Practice 4(1): 71–86.

Romanowska, Iza, Stefani A. Crabtree, Kathryn Harris, and Benjamin Davies. 2019. “Agent-Based Modeling for Archaeologists: Part 1 of 3.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 7(2): 178–84. Watson, James T. et al. 2022. “Respectful Terminology in Archaeological Compliance.” Advances in Archaeological Practice 10(2): 140–48.