Archaeology's Public Compact

Most of these laws and conventions begin with statements about the importance of heritage to a healthy nation. The U.S. Congress, for example, declared in the preamble to the National Historic Preservation Act that

Under NHPA and related mandates, archaeologists in the United States have undertaken hundreds of thousands of field studies, recorded nearly a million archaeological sites, and have spent tens of billions of dollars (Altschul Reference Altschul2016a; Altschul and Patterson Reference Altschul, Patterson, Ashmore, Lippert and Mills2010). Underlying the extensive public funding of both heritage management and of academic research is a compact between archaeology and the public. Two elements of that compact are (1) that we thoroughly document those components of the archaeological record that we investigate, and (2) that we share the knowledge gained in ways that benefit society (Altschul Reference Altschul2016a:69).

Archaeologists are succeeding in accomplishing the first of those elements. One cannot look back over the last 50 years and not be impressed by what has been accomplished by those who have dedicated their professional careers to cultural resource management (CRM). Yet, today, as in the past, we face continuing challenges in maintaining a strong regulatory framework. The best defense for protecting significant archaeological resources is public outreach and education, which have long been viewed as essential pillars of historic preservation (see Lipe [Reference Lipe1974] and Sebastian and Lipe [Reference Sebastian and Lipe2010] for archaeological perspectives).

However, despite numerous, important efforts at public outreach and education, few would argue that archaeologists have been as successful in providing the public with the benefits of our research as thoroughly and effectively as we should. Of course, to provide this benefit presupposes we know the answers to two basic questions: What does the public want from archaeology? And, what can archaeology offer the public?

In answering these questions we recognize that there is not a unitary “public” (Lowenthal Reference Lowenthal2015). Nonetheless, we suggest that a key component of what the public wants from us is what Patty Jo Watson once described at an SAA annual meeting as the real story of the past–not just any narrative, but a rigorous, evidentially-based account of the past. This is not just any narrative of the past, but rigorous, evidentially based accounts of the past. We suspect that most archaeologists would agree that archaeology is capable of providing such stories, and further, that doing so is a central responsibility of our discipline.

But what about the second question—what can archaeology offer the public? Archaeologists have recognized that there are many ways to answer this question (Little Reference Little2007; Sabloff Reference Sabloff2008). Archaeology offers a way to bring to light the lives, struggles, and strengths of disenfranchised individuals, groups, and communities. One such example is the archaeology of slavery and captives (e.g., Agbe-Davies Reference Agbe-Davies2017; Cameron Reference Cameron2016; Marshall Reference Marshall2014). To many, it can help answer questions of who they are and where they come from, including research on migrations and diasporas (e.g., Singleton Reference Singleton, Olaniyan and Sweet2010). And for still others, it is about protection of shared heritage (e.g., Parcak Reference Parcak2015; Stein Reference Stein2015; Stone Reference Stone2015).

Archaeology can offer perspective, indeed possible solutions, to many problems confronting society today (Hegmon Reference Hegmon2016; Kintigh et al. Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Beaudry, Drennan, Kinzig, Kohler, Fredrick Limp, Maschner, Michener, Pauketat, Peregrine, Sabloff, Wilkinson, Wright and Zeder2014a, Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Beaudry, Drennan, Kinzig, Kohler, Fredrick Limp, Maschner, Michener, Pauketat, Peregrine, Sabloff, Wilkinson, Wright and Zeder2014b; Martin and Gregory Reference Martin, Gregory, Martin and Plog1973). We contend, as do many other archaeologists, that archaeology's long-term perspective offers the potential of producing knowledge about human societies that is relevant to addressing contemporary problems such as environmental change (e.g., Guedes et al. Reference Guedes, Crabtree, Bocinsky and Kohler2016; Sandweiss and Kelley Reference Sandweiss and Kelley2012; Spielmann et al. Reference Spielmann, Peeples, Glowacki and Dugmore2016; Streeter et al. Reference Streeter, Dugmore, Lawson, Erlendsson and Edwards2015; van de Noort Reference van de Noort2014; van der Leeuw and Redman Reference van der Leeuw and Redman2002), catastrophic human and natural disasters (e.g., Cooper and Sheets Reference Cooper and Sheets2012; Grattan and Torrence Reference Grattan and Torrence2010; Peregrine Reference Peregrine2017), and overpopulation (e.g., Smith Reference Smith2010). It is this goal of providing relevant insight into contemporary issues that has attracted the attention of organizations such as IHOPE (Integrated History and Future of People on Earth; Costanza et al. Reference Costanza, van der Leeuw, Hibbard, Aulenbach, Brewer, Burek, Cornell, Crumley, Dearing, Folke, Graumlich, Hegmon, Heckbert, Jackson, Kubiszewski, Scarborough, Sinclair, Sörlin and Steffen2012), the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center (2017), and the Center for Archaeology and Society at Arizona State University (Arizona State University 2017), among others.

Addressing questions of social justice, social identity, human adaptation, migration, warfare, urbanism, and so forth requires that we both produce relevant knowledge and actively work to have it inform public policy. To better accomplish these objectives, we need to move beyond the who, what, where, and when of the past and improve our ability to answer the how and the why of the past—to transform our extensive and detailed descriptions of the archaeological record into a deeper, explanatory knowledge about the past. We must also come to terms with the transformational changes that are and will continue to affect the archaeological record, our access to it, and our ability to use archaeological data to address questions that will affect our future. Archaeology's potential is great, but we need to do more to realize this potential.

The Data Deluge

With the explosion in the numbers of archaeological investigations around the globe in the last 50 years and the concomitant advances in how we collect and analyze data, archaeology is confronted by a deluge of data (Bevan Reference Bevan2015). The Secretary of the Interior's Report to Congress on the Federal Archaeology Program, for example, documents more than 850,000 field studies, 140,000,000 acres surveyed, 880,000 sites recorded, 35,000 excavations, and 900,000,000 curated items in just the 28 years from 1985 to 2012 (National Park Service Archeology Program 2017). And these numbers actually underestimate the amount of archaeology in the United States because not all federal agencies report (or fully report) all their activities, and the secretary's report does not include projects sponsored by nonfederal agencies at the state, tribal, or municipal level.

An explosion in the volume and complexity of archaeological data provides enormous potential to expand our knowledge of the past. Still, this same volume and complexity make the process substantially more challenging. The number of archaeologists in the United States has grown tenfold with the advent of CRM (Altschul Reference Altschul2016a). Increasing numbers of archaeologists and institutions doing archaeology has led to proliferation of types and means of recording data. Moreover, analyses and interpretations of individual projects have tended to focus on smaller and smaller areas and increasingly restricted time periods.

The Need for Synthesis

For present purposes we can think of “data” as our primary observations; “information” as our relatively direct inferences (e.g., of who, what, where, and when); and “knowledge” as explanatory, answering how and why questions. Given that hierarchy, archaeologists are pretty good at recording data and transforming it into information, and they are prolific in writing it down. Advances in computational analysis and visualization have mediated many of the data-to-information challenges posed by the data deluge, contributing to our successes—so far as they go.

But to fulfill our public compact, archaeologists cannot be content to stop with documentation of the archaeological record. (Kelly [Reference Kelly2015] provides a poignant treatment of this issue.) Archaeologists bemoan Diamond's (e.g., Reference Diamond2006) cherry-picking of archaeological data in making his arguments but nonetheless envy his ability to engage the public in his answers to what should be our why questions. We often struggle with the transformation of information into knowledge, and we admire its genuine achievement.

As a field we must expand our efforts to answer these important why and how questions (e.g., Armstrong et al. Reference Armstrong, Shoemaker, McKechnie, Ekblom, Szabó, Lane, McAlvay, Boles, Walshaw, Petek, Gibbons, Morales, Anderson, Ibragimow, Podruczny, Vamosi, Marks-Block, LeCompte, Awâsis, Nabess, Sinclair and Crumley2017; Kintigh et al. Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Beaudry, Drennan, Kinzig, Kohler, Fredrick Limp, Maschner, Michener, Pauketat, Peregrine, Sabloff, Wilkinson, Wright and Zeder2014a, Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Beaudry, Drennan, Kinzig, Kohler, Fredrick Limp, Maschner, Michener, Pauketat, Peregrine, Sabloff, Wilkinson, Wright and Zeder2014b), and one of the most effective ways to accomplish this is through synthetic archaeological research and broad-scale analyses. Happily, the needed synthetic and comparative research (Smith Reference Smith2011) requires only a fraction of the money already expended on data collection and reporting and does not further disturb the archaeological record.

Audiences for the kind of syntheses promoted here extend far beyond practicing archaeologists in the academy and heritage management. These audiences include scientists in other fields, journalists, avocational archaeologists, students, members of descendant communities, the public, and policy makers. Synthetic research can showcase archaeology's unique ability to use information about the deep past to improve understandings of our human experience and to assist in addressing the concerns of modern society in the United States and globally.

How Archaeologists Have Done Synthesis

The task of synthesis is, and has always been, essential to the practice of professional archaeology. Professional societies have repeatedly recommended synthesis as a critical component of archaeological practice (for example, the final report of the Society for American Archaeology's Task Force on Renewing Our National Archaeological Program [Lipe Reference Lipe2000:14–15]). What is entailed by synthesis and how we do it has changed over time as data have become more accessible and as the tools to analyze data have become more sophisticated.

Synthesis in archaeology has taken a number of forms. Individuals such as Alfred V. Kidder (Reference Kidder2000 [1924]), Gordon R. Willey (Reference Willey1966), and V. Gordon Childe (Reference Childe1936, Reference Childe1942) single-handedly and effectively synthesized large geographical and temporal swaths of prehistory. Institutions such as the School of American Research (now the School for Advanced Research) have, for decades, sponsored in-depth seminars that bring together scholars working on a specific topic for collaborative interactions resulting in high-impact, edited publications (e.g., Crown and Judge Reference Crown and Judge1991; Culbert Reference Culbert1991; Feinman and Marcus Reference Feinman and Marcus1998; Gumerman Reference Gumerman1994; Longacre Reference Longacre1970). Some federal agencies and states have developed archaeological “historic contexts” that survey the literature and assemble information on particular topics for specific areas and time periods to guide the direction and research focus of future government-mandated archaeological investigations (e.g., Lipe et al. Reference Lipe, Varien and Wilshusen1999). Individual scholars and graduate students have devoted enormous energy to scouring the literature and have produced important syntheses on specific topics of archaeological interest (e.g., Crown Reference Crown2016; Lekson Reference Lekson1984) as well as on topics with broad social science appeal (Flannery and Marcus Reference Flannery and Marcus2012). In some cases groups of scholars have worked to synthesize large amounts of primary data (e.g., Arbuckle et al. Reference Arbuckle, Kansa, Kansa, Orton, Çakırlar, Gourichon, Atici, Galik, Marciniak, Mulville, Buitenhuis, Carruthers, De Cupere, Demirergi, Frame, Helmer, Martin, Peters, Pöllath, Pawłowska, Russell, Twiss and Würtenberger2014; Smiarowski et al. Reference Smiarowski, Harrison, Brewington, Hicks, Feeley, Dupont-Hébert, Prehal, Hambrecht, Woollett, McGovern, Albarella, Rizzetto, Russ, Vickers and Viner-Daniels2017).

Over the last dozen years, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has—through cross-disciplinary competitions—funded several intensive, multiyear, multi-investigator, regionally focused, synthetic projects that relied heavily on primary data from multiple sources (e.g., Kohler and Varien Reference Kohler and Varien2012; Mills et al. Reference Mills, Clark, Peeples, Haas, Roberts, Hill, Huntley, Borck, Breiger, Clauset and Shackley2013; Nelson et al. Reference Nelson, Ingram, Dugmore, Streeter, Peeples, McGovern, Hegmon, Arneborg, Kintigh, Brewington, Spielmann, Simpson, Strawhacker, Comeau, Torvinen, Madsen, Hambrecht and Smiarowski2016). Similarly, the European Research Council has funded Nexus1492, which synthesizes vast amounts of academic and CRM-generated data to create new understandings of the past in ways to influence locally inspired heritage management systems throughout the Caribbean (Hofman Reference Hofman, van den Dris, van der Linde and Strecker2015). In all these cases success in synthesis was associated with including researchers from different fields, large amounts of time meeting together (face-to-face and virtually), energetic graduate student collaborators, and the integration of large volumes of CRM data.

These synthetic projects serve as a foundation for the discipline's next steps in synthetic archaeological research that will use data from multiple cultures and at multiple spatial and temporal scales to address important social issues and problems. This collaborative, cross-cultural, and cross-historical research involves the direct analysis of empirical data from these multiple, wide-ranging sources. Regularities in patterns can be discerned as well as deviations from patterns contingent on cultural histories and trajectories. This collaborative synthetic research is performed by groups of individuals with diverse skills, experiences, and perspectives—individuals who may have not worked together before, resulting in new, innovative synergies. This collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to synthesis considers “what we know and generates new knowledge from novel combinations of existing information” (Carpenter et al. Reference Carpenter, Virginia Armbrust, Arzberger, Stuart Chapin, Elser, Hackett, Ives, Kareiva, Leibold, Lundberg, Mangel, Merchant, Murdoch, Palmer, Peters, Pickett, Smith, Wall and Zimmerman2009:699).

A New Mode of Synthesis

The mode of problem-oriented synthesis we propose to institutionalize relies on the integration of primary data from multiple sources and perspectives to yield emergent explanations that would be impossible to achieve through studying a single case or from a single perspective. The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), established by NSF in 1995, pioneered a new model for synthetic research. That model has been so successful that it has been adopted by over a dozen research organizations around the world across a wide range of disciplines (e.g., the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis; see also the international Synthesis Consortium).

Synthesis centers produce knowledge by employing NCEAS's distinctive mode of collaboration—synthesis working groups. In this model a researcher develops a proposal to convene experts from different disciplines, institutions, and professions into a temporary working group of between eight and 15 members to focus on a particular research topic. The proposal then is vetted by the center's steering committee. If successful, the center funds the group to meet for three to four in-person working group sessions, each lasting between five and 10 days during a period of two to three years. Working group members collaborate intensively during the face-to-face working group sessions. In between these face-to-face meetings, e-mail, data-sharing platforms, and videoconferencing facilitate computer-mediated cooperation. Synthesis centers support these working groups by providing funding for travel to the center, conference facilities, expert guidance in the collaborative process, and analytical and computational support. They explicitly do not fund the collection of additional field or laboratory data.

NCEAS and other synthesis centers modeled after it have had demonstrable success in creating new and influential forms of scientific knowledge (Carpenter et al. Reference Carpenter, Virginia Armbrust, Arzberger, Stuart Chapin, Elser, Hackett, Ives, Kareiva, Leibold, Lundberg, Mangel, Merchant, Murdoch, Palmer, Peters, Pickett, Smith, Wall and Zimmerman2009; Lynch et al. Reference Lynch, Thackway, Specht, Beggs, Brisbane, Burns, Byrne, Capon, Casanova, Clarke, Davies, Dovers, Dwyer, Ens, Fisher, Flanigan, Garnier, Guru, Kilminster, Locke, Nally, McMahon, Mitchell, Pierson, Rodgers, Russell-Smith, Udy and Waycott2015; Rodrigo et al. Reference Rodrigo, Alberts, Cranston, Kingsolver, Lapp, McClain, Smith, Vision, Weintraub and Wiegmann2013). For instance, working groups reliably produce high-impact, highly cited science, and participation in working groups has been demonstrated to have enduring career benefits for both junior and senior scientists (Hampton and Parker Reference Hampton and Parker2011). Research conducted by working groups has also contributed to the development of evidence-based policy and practice (Specht et al. Reference Specht, Gordon, Groves, Lambers and Phinn2015) and increases substantially the probability of serendipitous discoveries and transformative research (Hackett et al. Reference Hackett, Parker, Conz, Rhoten, Parker, Olson, Zimmerman and Bos2008). Moreover, the deeply immersive and engaging interactions within working groups significantly increase the velocity at which new ideas are generated, evaluated, and vetted (Hackett and Parker Reference Hackett, Parker, Heinz and Münch2016). Finally, synthesis centers act as infrastructures that support the incubation of new specialties and research communities and have the potential to transform scientific disciplines (Baron et al. Reference Baron, Specht, Garnier, Bishop, Campbell, Davis, Fady, Fields, Gross, Guru, Hampton, McClain, Parker, Price, Rawson, Rodrigo, Sheble and Winter2017).

Research also has illuminated the characteristics of the more successful working groups. Briefly, the most effective working groups benefit from incorporating members across multiple institutions, from having a mixture of junior and senior scientists, and from ensuring that all members have the chance to contribute their distinctive forms of knowledge. The successful working groups also undergo group processes that foster high levels of trust and group solidarity. Trust is what enables members to cooperate effectively, to develop an operational division of labor, and to constructively criticize each other without undue offense (Hackett and Parker Reference Hackett, Parker, Heinz and Münch2016; Hackett et al. Reference Hackett, Parker, Conz, Rhoten, Parker, Olson, Zimmerman and Bos2008; Hampton and Parker Reference Hampton and Parker2011).

Establishing a synthesis center for archaeology has been identified previously as having the potential to catalyze important research. In 2004 NSF funded a workshop in which the 31 participants assessed archaeology's needs for cyberinfrastructure, formulated a vision, and developed recommendations toward realizing that vision. Its report, endorsed by the Society for American Archaeology, the Society for Historical Archaeology, and the American Association of Physical Anthropologists, recommended creation of a synthesis center modeled on NCEAS (Kintigh Reference Kintigh2006:577–578).

In a 2013 workshop held at NSF, a group of 15 participants developed recommendations for infrastructure investments for archaeology that would allow NSF to more effectively support work that answers the field's big questions, such as the “grand challenges” (Kintigh et al. Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Beaudry, Drennan, Kinzig, Kohler, Fredrick Limp, Maschner, Michener, Pauketat, Peregrine, Sabloff, Wilkinson, Wright and Zeder2014a, Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Beaudry, Drennan, Kinzig, Kohler, Fredrick Limp, Maschner, Michener, Pauketat, Peregrine, Sabloff, Wilkinson, Wright and Zeder2014b). The report on that workshop (Kintigh et al. Reference Kintigh, Altschul, Kinzig, Limp, Michener, Sabloff, Hackett, Kohler, Ludäscher and Lynch2015) identified five major impediments to synthetic research and, among other things, recommended the establishment of an archeological synthesis center modeled on NCEAS.

Advancing Synthesis in Archaeology

The stage is set for archaeology to make important advances through collaborative research:

NCEAS and other NSF-supported synthesis centers have established a proven model for accomplishing a new kind of synthesis that is applicable to archaeology. Archaeology faces similar challenges in facing a deluge of data, in professional hyperspecialization, and in recognizing the value of incorporating diverse perspectives in solving intellectual and practical problems. And we can productively leverage the lessons learned in these other synthesis centers (e.g., Baron et al. Reference Baron, Specht, Garnier, Bishop, Campbell, Davis, Fady, Fields, Gross, Guru, Hampton, McClain, Parker, Price, Rawson, Rodrigo, Sheble and Winter2017; Hackett et al. Reference Hackett, Parker, Conz, Rhoten, Parker, Olson, Zimmerman and Bos2008; Hampton and Parker Reference Hampton and Parker2011).

Some essential and expensive computational infrastructure needed to support synthesis is now in place. The robust, disciplinary digital repositories or data publishing platforms established over the last 20 years, notably the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) and Open Context in the United States (McManamon et al. Reference McManamon, Kintigh, Ellison and Brin2017) and the Archaeology Data Service (ADS) in the United Kingdom (Richards Reference Richards2002, Reference Richards2017), provide key infrastructure for data discovery, access, integration, and preservation that need not be duplicated. Other needed types of computational infrastructure can build on the foundation formed by these existing components. The statistical, visualization, and computing resources needed for all but the most demanding kinds of archaeological analysis are now ubiquitous. Methods of remote communication that can support collaboration between face-to-face meetings are also now widely available. An ever-increasing amount of our data are also born digital or available digitally.

In order for archaeology use collaborative, synthetic research to make the important advances of which we are capable:

Archaeology must develop an institutionalized infrastructure for transformative synthetic research that enables our unique, long-term, large-scale, and comparative perspective to contribute to answering compelling questions facing society. The infrastructure must be inclusive so that it empowers a broad range of archaeologists to participate with researchers from related fields in achieving productive synthesis. It should democratize data and access to synthesis processes and tools and foster collaborative modes of research. The synthesis infrastructure should leverage existing physical, computational, outreach, educational, and social infrastructures.

It is imperative that archaeology incorporates the mode of synthesis pioneered by NCEAS now. In the current political and economic environment, archaeology and other sciences must demonstrate their value to policy makers and to the public who fund the majority of the archaeological investigations conducted in the United States and around the world. In addition, the societal problems that we can help address continue to grow.

We must develop institutionalized ways of communicating the results of archaeological synthesis in ways that can influence policies on important social issues and provide benefits to the publics that we serve, including descendant communities. At its best, archaeology can help right injustices of the past, identify forms of organization and structure to minimize social inequality, inform debates about sustainable futures, and inspire disenfranchised communities, genders, and ethnic groups. Honing our message in ways that resonate with policy makers, publics, and affected communities is as essential as improving the scientific process. In this vein the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research's sapiens.org initiative provides an instructive example and potential partner.

We must instill the aspiration to contribute to collaborative synthesis throughout the profession and infuse archaeological and bureaucratic workflows with processes that produce research syntheses. This would entail providing professional training in methods for comparative and synthetic research and on digital data management throughout a research project life cycle. This could happen, for example, through university on-campus training (perhaps certificate) programs and by providing online seminars through available professional education initiatives including those of the American Cultural Resources Association, the Society for American Archaeology, the Register of Professional Archaeologists, and the American Anthropological Association. Further, we should work with professional organizations to pursue changes in the how cultural heritage monies are allocated in ways that can systematically direct funding to synthesis through alternative mitigation, landscape-level resource management, long-range planning, and related means (Advisory Council on Historic Preservation 2009; Altschul Reference Altschul2016b; U.S. Department of the Interior 2016).

Finally, we must work on the right questions. We began this discussion by asking what the public wants from archaeology and what archaeology could offer the public. If collaboration means anything, it must be that the public(s) interested in archaeology and its results are part of the process of selecting those synthetic efforts that move forward, ensuring that the results resonate with their objectives and thus that they are mobilized to act on the results in pursuing public policies and public actions.