A Multidimensional Mission: Crossing Conflicts, Synthesizing Sites, and Adapting Approaches to Find Missing Personnel

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.