A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel
Part of: Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)
This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel," at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's mission is to provide the fullest possible accounting for our missing personnel from past conflicts to their families and the nation. We search for missing personnel from World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Cold War, the Gulf Wars, and other recent conflicts. Our research and operational missions include coordination with hundreds of countries and municipalities around the world. This symposium offers a closer look at DPAA’s mission by presenting a variety of recent, current, and future field activities. From Europe to the Pacific, at altitude to underwater, by US military personnel to university collaborators, this remarkably diverse mission is underpinned by the commonality of an inherently archaeological problem set. With more than 82,000 Americans still missing, we aim to not only discuss our past challenges and successes but to also to foster dialog over how to best shape and develop the next generation of our effort.
Other Keywords
Historic •
Forensic Archaeology •
Warfare, Violence, and Conflict •
Historical Archaeology •
Battlefield •
partnerships •
Digital Archaeology: GIS •
Public and Community Archaeology •
Aircraft Crash
Geographic Keywords
Worldwide •
United Mexican States (Country) •
Republic of El Salvador (Country) •
Cayman Islands (Country) •
Belize (Country) •
Republic of Guatemala (Country) •
Republic of Honduras (Country) •
Republic of Cuba (Country) •
Jamaica (Country) •
Republic of Nicaragua (Country)
Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-9 of 9)
- Documents (9)
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Creative Problem-Solving for Unconventional Conditions: Archaeological Recovery of a WWII Aircraft Crash Site, Ko’olau Mountain Range, Island of O’ahu, State of Hawaii, U.S.A. (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Conventional archaeological sites, with their relatively level topography and wide-open spaces to accommodate excavations, are not typically encountered by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) Archaeologist. The majority of sites encountered by DPAA field...
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Getting the Job Done: Case Resolution in the Field, from Investigation through Recovery, at Site GM-05585, a Low-Angle B-17G Crash Site in Sachsen Anhalt, Germany. (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The DPAA case resolution process involves a number of important steps that occur before a recovery team is sent into the field to excavate an incident site, and typically includes a combination of historic research, witness interviews, field investigations, and...
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History, Archaeology, and the Lost Marines of Guadalcanal (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2016 Garcia & Associates conducted forensic archaeological investigations for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) on Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands. Beginning on 7 August 1942 the Battle for Guadalcanal was the first major Allied offensive of World War II in...
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Hitting Huggins’ Roadblock: Confronting the Challenge of Recovering the Missing from a World War II Battlefield in Oro Province, Papua New Guinea (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The complexity of accounting for missing in action personnel is highly dependent on the past—and present—context of the loss. In late 1942, during the Battle of Buna-Gona in New Guinea, United States forces established a roadblock behind forward Japanese positions in an...
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"Inconceivable!": Innovation and Improvisation on a WWII-Era Aircraft Crash Site in the Swamps of Papua New Guinea (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological recovery of an aircraft crash site differs significantly from traditional archaeology in that the former often takes place in locations unsuitable for human habitation, in geographic and environmental settings beyond the scope of standard excavation...
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The Intersection of Multiple Conflicts: The Excavation of an F-4C Crash Site in the Midst of the Dien Bien Phu Battlefield (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Between 2014 and 2017, archaeologists with the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) excavated an active rice paddy in northwest Vietnam in search of two missing U.S. service members from the Vietnam War. The incident aircraft, an F-4C, was shot down on March 15,...
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Sustainable Archaeology: Accelerating DPAA's mission through technological advancement, partnerships and collaboration, and meaningful public engagement (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Fielding new capabilities and leveraging untapped resources for the acceleration of operational mission tempo has become a central imperative for the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency's (DPAA) fullest possible accounting mission. Since 2015, DPAA's Partnerships and...
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A Tale of Two Bombers: Forensic Recovery of WWII-era Aircraft Crash Sites in the Jungles of Papua New Guinea (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The successful recovery of human remains from aircraft crash sites is significantly impacted by the circumstances of loss, to include how the crash occurred, the size of the aircraft, and taphonomic factors. Two WWII aircraft crashes in the East Sepik and Madang...
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Underwater Archaeology at DPAA: Efforts to Address U.S. Military Loss Incidents (2019)
DOCUMENT Citation Only
This is an abstract from the "A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A significant portion of the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA)'s unresolved loss cases involve incidents that occurred over water, at sea, or otherwise within a body of water. In the context of underwater forensic archaeology, addressing these cases require a...