Adaptation and Alteration: The New Realities of Archaeology during a Pandemic

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Adaptation and Alteration: The New Realities of Archaeology during a Pandemic," at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the last few months of 2019, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) began its inexorable march across the globe. Many cultural resource organizations and institutions temporarily closed or transitioned to working-at-home to reduce the risk of COVID-19’s spread. While archaeological fieldwork, lab work, research, teaching, and public outreach are generally ongoing in this time of social and physical distancing, the methods and means for doing that work have dramatically changed. This symposium seeks to bring together experiences from varying perspectives to document and share the implications of this most recent global pandemic on the practice of archaeology. Papers will touch on the challenges of team-based work, practical and theoretical impacts on organizational objectives, the viability of working at home, and the transition to virtual platforms for task completion. The experiences collected during this symposium will also serve as a means to inspire creative solutions to the new reality of archaeological practice.