Challenging neoliberalism through archaeological practice
A few months ago, we responded to a call for papers for a themed issue for Advances in Archaeological Practice entitled “Advances in Archaeological Labor Management.”…

A few months ago, we responded to a call for papers for a themed issue for Advances in Archaeological Practice entitled “Advances in Archaeological Labor Management.”…

In “Without a Roadmap: Reflections on the Emergent Methods of Community-Based Archaeology,” I examine the ways that working with community can shape and transform research design over the course of a project.…

In January, my husband and I (Sam) took our six-year-old daughter to get a flu shot at a local pharmacy. As she became increasingly bored in the waiting room, she began to offer commentary, asking the closed door, “Doctor, when are you coming out?”…

From the old ‘Cowboys of Science’ adage to swashbuckling fictional characters like Indiana Jones and Lara Croft, the perception that fieldwork, and archaeology generally, is a job for tough people pervades both the discipline and public perception.…

My name is Adrianna Wagner, and I am a third-year student at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where I study English literature with minors in marketing and anthropology.…

In our new, game-based dissemination experiment, you can enter a mysterious Stone Age world with megalithic graves where life and death are more fluent concepts than today.…

The Edom Lowland Regional Archaeology Project’s (ELRAP) new article, “As if the Pieces of the Past were in our Hands”: Non-Linear Digital Public Archaeology with 3D Models on Sketchfab, presents a bilingual, interactive collection of 3D models based on years of digital excavation data from the Faynan region of Southern Jordan.…

Enacted in 1990 and now in its fourth decade, the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) remains one of the most important legislative acts shaping the discipline of archaeology.…

“You get in, you get out, and you get the job.” That line from a recent The CRM Archaeology Podcast (Ep 315) about academia’s responsibility to CRM and vice versa stuck with me.…

Recent Coronado Expedition (1539-1542) research has produced abundant and rich evidence pointing to the surprising interpretation that the first European settlement in the American Southwest was established in southern Arizona in 1541.…

In an era of shrinking research budgets and political pressure to justify public investment, federally funded digital archives in archaeology are delivering measurable, lasting benefits to scholars, land managers, Indigenous communities, and the public.…

Research programs that are deeply engaged with, and responsive to, communities require significant investment to build and sustain. Why, then, should archaeologists — often constrained by time and resources–commit to community archaeology?…

Is it possible to protect cultural heritage during a war? And if so, how can it be done meaningfully and effectively?…

With the world facing war, climate change, pandemics, and civil unrest, it’s natural to question the importance of preserving culture. Why should we care about archaeology, monuments, traditions, art, and architecture when survival itself is threatened?…

Advances in Archaeological Practice covers are most often experienced as a tiny thumbnail shot either on the Cambridge Core website, or perhaps on social media.…

Chris Dore, our current Society for American Archaeology (SAA) president, was Advances in Archaeological Practice’s first editor, and in 2022, on the journal’s tenth anniversary he reflected on the journal’s origins.…

Plenty has been written about the dog. Slobbery, goofy, embarrassingly friendly, with… well, everyone. Dogs are prominently featured in historic accounts and paintings, loaded down with ingratiating platitudes like “man’s best friend”.…

I remember when Volume 1, Issue 1 of Advances in Archaeological Practice (AAP) was published in 2013. I was a graduate student at the time, undertaking dissertation research on the processes of inclusion and exclusion in the archaeological data collection process.…

Famed Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier once wrote “war was the hellish laboratoryin which aviation became adult and was shaped to flawless perfection.”…

As the Southeastern Archaeological Conference (SEAC) begins, I examined Southeastern-focused articles in Advances in Archaeological Practice to identify emerging trends. Southeastern methodology may best be known for the 1950s Ford-Spaulding debate; however, this review shows that Southeastern methodology is still breaking new ground in archaeology.…

After much work by the American Antiquity (AAQ) Editorial Advisory Board, a revised description and vision of American Antiquity has been drafted for the website home page.…

Following my participation in an extensive illustration project in 2001 of precontact decorated ceramics from the Hohokam site of Snaketown that were curated at the Arizona State Museum, I wrote an article published by AAP in 2014 called Representation and Structure Conflict in the Digital Age: Reassessing Archaeological Illustration and the Use of Cubist Techniques in Depicting Images of the Past. …

Dogs were one of the many animal companions that accompanied English settlers to Jamestown, Colony, Virginia, in the year 1607. In fact, one of the first recorded deaths at Jamestown was not a person but a dog, falling victim to a confrontation between the English and Virginia Indians days after the colony’s establishment.…

As holders and curators of artifacts and their associated documentation and data, archaeological repositories are a place to learn about past and current excavation strategies, and an excellent training ground for future archaeologists.…

In the late 1800s and early 1900s, anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States was high, as working-class laborers in the country viewed Chinese workers as a threat.…

Advances has been one of my favorite journals since the first issue appeared in my email inbox a little over 10 years ago.…

“Archaeogaming” occupies the intersection between archaeology and video games and treats these examples of contemporary material culture as artifacts, sites, and landscapes (Reinhard 2018).…

Archaeological literature offers many answers that vary in their accuracy and utility. Alice Beck Kehoe writes, “How do you become an archaeologist?…

The joy was infectious. “Happy Juneteenth” we shouted to the trucks and people parading by Fred Moore Park in Denton Texas.…

Post Excerpt Archaeological data that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (i.e. FAIR) enable all sorts of things that we can’t do with “hidden” or “siloed” data. As such, FAIR practices have clear impacts on archaeological data use and reuse.

With 2023 on the horizon, and the landscape of academic publishing in flux, Cambridge University Press spoke to the Editors of the SAA’s journals to find out what topics and questions are currently front of mind – for archaeologists, researchers and publishers alike.…

Part of a series of blog posts celebrating the 10th anniversary of the journal Advances in Archaeological Practice. It may come as somewhat of a surprise that the Digital Reviews Editor for Advances in Archaeological Practice is calling for an end to the concept of ‘Digital Archaeology’.…

It is safe to say that archaeology generally isn’t the most well funded discipline. Many of you reading this probably know this all too well.…

The acknowledgments section of the Monico Bayesian paper expresses gratitude to “Deb Nichols, John Watanabe, Sophie Nichols-Watanabe, Robert (Bob) L. Kelly, and the Dartmouth Coach for inspiring and facilitating the development of some concepts in this paper.”

In the spring semester of 2020, I developed and taught a class on archaeological data reuse and digital literacy at the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee.…

As we are both children of the 70s and 80s, the things that we were taught about the history of democracy in public school somehow does not track with what we understand about the topic today.…

For many decades, archaeologists have used the analysis of materials such as ceramics to establish, through typologies and varieties, their own qualitative characteristics, such as shapes, decorations, or surface finishes.…

In “Getting Your Feet Wet,” (out now open access in Advances in Archaeological Practice) the authors outline barriers to inclusivity writ large in underwater archaeology and provide solutions for increasing diversity in the field.…

“I found my identity because of pottery,” says Amalia, who runs an Indigenous pottery workshop in General Paz, a city in Buenos Aires province, Argentina. Amalia and her family found archaeological pottery fragments by chance. These findings encouraged them to experiment and learn based on their observations of the techniques and designs of the ancient pottery.

Archaeology in K-12 and undergraduate classrooms can be used to promote cultural awareness and sensitivity, provide a means of critical thinking, promote cultural awareness and sensitivity, create an awareness of archaeological research, as well as promoting the stewardship of the past.…

In 2016, we were privileged to edit a special section in Advances in Archaeological Practices on lidar in Mesoamerica and are delighted that the editors of AAP have invited us to provide an update to that special section in this blog. At that time, lidar acquisition was still uncommon, with only a handful of projects being fortunate enough to acquire the data that was revolutionizing settlement studies in tropical areas like Mesoamerica.

We take an archaeothanatological approach to the study of burial disturbances in northeastern and central-eastern Brazil from 12,000 years BP to 200 years BP.…

Research at Spirit Eye Cave did not take the course I envisioned. In the 1950s and 1960s, this cave, located on a private ranch in West Texas, was a pay-to-dig site. It was extensively dug, all too common with the vast tracts of private land that typify Texas. Initially, the goal of my research was to salvage any information about when the cave was occupied, and to examine the perishable collections.

Happy birthday! Advances in Archaeological Practice: A Journal of the Society for American Archaeology turns ten this year. You might not think that the birth of a journal is that big of a deal and certainly doesn’t warrant recognition a decade later.…

Until 5 years ago, if asked my profession, I’d have said I’m a scientist engaged in basic biomedical research to combat viral diseases.…

Authors Benjamin Carter, Jeff Blackadar and Weston Conner joined each other in conversation for this new blog post for Advances in Archaeological Practice.…

Archaeology has long contributed new perspectives to past events, transcending written records through the interpretation of material culture. Applied to the present, archaeology has the potential to disrupt and nuance the memorialization of contemporary occurrences as they are inscribed.…

Janvier, Alberta | 2019 It was a cold October morning in northeastern Alberta. I had been invited by the Chipewyan Prairie First Nation (CPFN) to conduct a small ground-penetrating radar (GPR) survey of a historic burial ground on one of their reserves.…

In mid-March 2020, I stood in my lab and slowly scanned the shelves. The tables were covered in ongoing projects. We had just been told that the University of Florida campus was closing to non-essential personnel and to plan on working from home for at least two weeks (which turned into months).…

Teotihuacan is well known within Latin American archaeology and is critical to our understanding of the Classic period in Mesoamerica, when it was the largest city in the Americas and most influential polity within the culture area (ca.…

For decades, the dominant paradigm has been that the first Americans were descendants of populations that migrated from northeast Asia to North America by crossing the now-submerged Bering Land Bridge around 13,000 years ago.…

Those of you who were born in the late 80s/early 90s may remember the movie “The Princess Diaries.” Remember the scene where Mia has a rough day, wants to cry, gets in her Mustang, the top won’t go up, and then it starts pouring while she sits drenched and dejected in her open convertible? Let me tell you the archaeology version.

Several times each year, I learn of another case. Sometimes, I see a post on social media. More often, it is through a private email or a phone request for an in-person meeting. The details differ, but the substance is the same: another early-career archaeologist has been harassed or assaulted in the course of their education and research.

One of the many things I love about the field of archaeology is how collaborations come together. A few years ago, a listserv delivered a survey to my inbox on the theme of field crew safety.…

This is a transcribed conversation between two of the four authors of a new article in Advances in Archaeological Practice on why and how to revise introductory archaeology courses to better shape the discipline.…

New digital technologies have been a boon to archaeological field recording as attested by the growing literature on the use of mobile devices, GIS, satellite imagery, and other digital tools.…

It’s hard to find a positive contribution from Covid-19, isn’t it? I’ll suggest one. It has re-situated our appreciation for the importance of disease in past populations.…

As 2020—finally—comes to a close, the new year stretches out in front of us, full of possibilities. The long tradition of New Year’s resolutions offers each of us an opportunity to commit ourselves to learning more about curation, collections management, and the lifecycle of the collections we create through our work.…

Sarah Herr, Co-editor of Cambridge journal Advances in Archaeological Practice, reflects on how being in her role has helped her to form a remarkable connection to the people who are part of her publishing world.…

In issue 9(1) of Advances in Archaeological Practice we will transition our Digital Reviews editorship from Dr. Sara Perry (Museum of London Archaeology) to Dr.…

COVID-19 related travel restrictions and social distancing protocols have precluded many archaeological field projects in the past six months. And while conferences and meetings can be taken to the virtual realm, the challenges facing those of us whose work is founded on field-based research are becoming readily apparent.…

It was the summer of 2017 and we had just discovered a partial Clovis point at the La Prele Mammoth site in a test unit 20 meters from the mammoth.…

“Since the establishment of Grand Canyon National Park in 1919, some stories have been silenced and absented; the many Native American voices that express the sacredness and cultural importance of this place from time immemorial prior to the arrival of Anglo-Americans.”…

Archaeologists have used maps for quite a long while, and with good reason. People, their communities, and their things are situated in places.…

When Kathryn Clancy and colleagues published the results of their SAFE survey, many of us who conduct field research were not surprised by the numbers.…

“In this blog (my first!), I share the backstory to the Advances in Archaeological Practice article I prepared with my co-author, Meng Ying, in which we examine safeguard policies used by private-sector banks to protect and manage cultural heritage.”…

Behind every “grand challenge” there are 1000 “micro challenges” that need to be solved first. Digital technologies and services have become a normal part of everyday archaeological practice.…

Cahokia, the massive Mississippian community outside of St. Louis, Missouri, is perhaps best known for its many monumental mounds and its population history, which traditionally ends in abandonment at A.D.…

My recent research along the relic shorelines of Lake Cahuilla has been somewhat of a tangent for me. I’ve spent most, if not all, of my professional career investigating archaeological shell middens along Pacific coastlines and offshore islands.…

In our article, we argue that the future of ‘dates as data’ approaches for paleo demographic research requires precise spatial data, which depends on the development of new heritage management policies concerning the accessibility of archaeological data.

A few years ago, I opted to take on the overwhelming task of organizing and digitizing the records associated with the legacy collections at the Natural History Museum of Utah.…

It’s no surprise to any internet user that the way we communicate is rapidly changing. For example, in the distant past, we learned the news of the world by reading a few paragraphs of tiny text in hard copies of newspapers.…

Incised stones have long attracted my attention because of the large assemblage (more than 400) that we excavated at Gatecliff Shelter. My interest was recently re-awakened after learning of Southern Paiute oral histories about the use of incised stones as prayerstones, and I reached out to indigenous colleagues in the Great Basin...

We’ve entered a golden age in which digital methods and computational approaches have opened exciting new avenues for research, management, documentation, preservation, access, and public engagement in archaeology and heritage.…

In the 19th century, more than 2.5 million Chinese left the Pearl River Delta to venture abroad, travelling in search of work and economic opportunity.…

There are some things that we take for granted, but for those of us who own dogs, our pets aren’t one of them.…

Imagine you are a new field tech, right out of college. You decided to major in anthropology, specifically archaeology, against your parent’s wishes.…

The Paper of the Month from the Society of American Archaeology is “WHY DO FEWER WOMEN THAN MEN APPLY FOR GRANTS AFTER THEIR PHDS” from the journal American Antiquity and is free to access until the end of October 2018 Why conduct a study about gender disparities in archaeological grant submissions? …

If you’re new to the field of archaeology, still learning the basics of the discipline, the chances are that your experiences of archaeological interpretation are relatively limited.…

Imagine a group of people playing a sport together on a hot day. Although it’s a friendly match, they play vigorously and at the end of their game they’re hot and thirsty.…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for June comes from American Antiquity and is entitled: ‘Drinking Performance and Politics in Pueblo Bonito, Chaco Canyon’.…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for May comes from Advances in Archaeological Practice and is entitled: ‘Teaching Open Science: Published Data and Digital Literacy in Archaeology Classrooms‘.…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for May comes from Advances in Archaeological Practice and is entitled: ‘The Future of American Archaeology: Engage the Voting Public or Kiss Your Research Goodbye!‘…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for April comes from Latin American Antiquity and is entitled: ‘Estrategias Humanas, Estabilidad Y Cambio en la Frontera Agricola Sur Americana’.…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for April comes from Latin American Antiquity and is entitled: ‘Es Complicado: 1.260 Años de Tumbas de Tiro y Cámara en el Noroeste de Jalisco, México’.…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for March comes from American Antiquity and is entitled: ‘Choosing a Path to the Ancient World in a Modern Market: The Reality of Faculty Jobs in Archaeology’.…

The Society for American Archaeology’s paper of the month for February comes from Advances in Archaeological Practice and is entitled: ‘Strategies for International Travel with “High-Tech” Archaeological Field Equipment’.…

The editors of Advances in Archaeological Practice are delighted to share with you the first issue in the journal’s sixth volume year.…