Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological data have much to offer in learning about the past, preserving heritage, contributing to cross-disciplinary scientific studies, and informing on public policy. Cultural resource management (CRM) efforts are producing an ever-increasing volume of archaeological data. Yet, once data are collected and reported on for individual projects, they typically remain dormant and largely untapped. Current CRM data collection and management methods are not often designed to cumulatively and longitudinally address major research topics within archaeology and other disciplines, and their accuracy and reliability are rarely tested. Additional problems are that CRM data are often difficult to access, inter-operationalize, and reuse, and are challenging to synthesize at a broad scale. Moreover, there have been few incentives in CRM to explore multiple methods and data models that can refine or augment standard approaches. Papers in this session will explore methods, mechanisms, and requirements for refining data collection and management in CRM that will enable archaeological data to be more broadly accessible and useful to multiple disciplines and constituencies.

Other Keywords
Cultural Resource Management • Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Survey • Ancestral Pueblo • Lithic Analysis • Cultural Landscape • Indigenous • digital archaeology • Australia • Hunter-Gatherers/Foragers

Geographic Keywords
United States of America (Country) • North America (Continent) • Arizona (State / Territory) • Utah (State / Territory) • Nevada (State / Territory) • California (State / Territory) • USA (Country) • North America • New Mexico (State / Territory) • Oklahoma (State / Territory)

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  • Documents (13)
Documents
  • Archaeological Synthesis and CRM: An Odd Couple? (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jeffrey Altschul.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. According to the SRI Foundation, CRM accounted for 93% of the $367 million total expenditures on archaeological research in the US in FY 2020. While the percentage varies by country, I suspect that this trend holds worldwide. CRM research emphasizes field...

  • Assessing the Quality of CRM Data for Field Planning, “Big Data” Analyses, and Heritage Decisions: The Role of Sweep Widths (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Edward Banning.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Sweep width is a basic measure of survey effectiveness that has long informed search-and-rescue operations but is only slowly finding application in archaeological survey, mainly by fieldwalking. By “calibrating” field teams by having them survey tracts sewn with...

  • CRM and Synthesis (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Scott Ortman.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Today there is a growing movement to use accumulated archaeological information to contribute to discussions of general issues facing human societies, including our own. In this regard, the archaeological record is most unique and helpful when viewed at broad...

  • Cultural Resource Management, Archaeological Collections, and Ethical Issues Associated with Representations of Indigenous Time, Space, Materiality, and Historicity (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Kurt Dongoske. Kurt Anschuetz.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. A dominant view in cultural resource management is that the archaeological record and its material culture have much to offer in the creation of scientific data, elucidating the past, and contributing to cross-disciplinary scientific studies. This dominant view is...

  • CyberSW: A Preservation Archaeology Approach to a Web-based Southwest Regional Database (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Joshua Watts.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. CyberSW (NSF Award # 1738062), is a web-based science gateway built to facilitate research on the regional- and landscape-scale archaeology of the southwest United States and northwest Mexico (https://cybersw.org/). The data—focused on sites, ceramics, obsidian, rock...

  • Decolonization and Co-stewardship: Protecting Cultural Landscapes across Serrano Ancestral Territory (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Mauck. Alexandra McCleary. Ryan Nordness.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Since time immemorial, the Serrano people have maintained a close relationship with their ancestral lands, and have been tasked by the Creator to steward these lands in meaningful ways. As such, the Cultural Resources Management Department for the San Manuel Band of...

  • Digital Data Collection and Management: Where Do We Go from Here? (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Heilen. Shelby Manney.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The vast majority of archaeological investigation in the United States is conducted in compliance with preservation laws as part of cultural resource management (CRM) efforts. CRM studies have explored a wide range of social, temporal, and environmental contexts and...

  • Exploring the Complexities of Managing Cultural Landscapes and Associated Data through the Lens of the Greater Chaco Landscape (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Schlanger.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. There may be no more vexing heritage resource issue facing public land agencies today than the management of culturally significant landscapes. The challenges begin with identification. They continue through the definition of critical values and appropriate...

  • Indigenous Data Sovereignty, the CARE Principles, and the Traditional Knowledge and Biocultural Notices: Responsibilities for Researchers in Archaeological Data Collection (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jane Anderson. Stephanie Carroll.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Extractive and unethical research practices led to the accumulation of Indigenous collections in vast national repositories that have missing, incomplete, and impoverished records and metadata. The articulation of Indigenous Peoples’ rights and interests in data...

  • The National Cultural Resources Information Management System (NCRIMS): New Horizons for Cultural Resources Data Management and Analyses (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only F. Kirk Halford.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Though making great strides over the past 50 years, Section 106, the primary driver of cultural resource management (CRM), is still often boxed in by rote inventory and derivative interpretation and implementation. This paper will discuss a national initiative by the...

  • Our Checkered Past: Sites, Landscapes, Trails, and Transect Recording Unit Survey (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Phillip Leckman.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For over 30 years, archaeologists in southern New Mexico have discovered and managed cultural resources in a survey setting using the transect recording unit (TRU) method. This survey approach divides survey space into a grid of uniformly sized cells and serves as...

  • The Significance of Surface Artifact Scatters: Case Studies from Australia and North America (2021)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Simon Holdaway. Matthew Douglass. LuAnn Wandsnider.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The three authors research surface archaeological records dominated by scatters of lithic artefacts, a class of archaeological data frequently encountered during CRM projects in areas of North America and Australia. We each began researching surface lithic scatters...

  • Stop, Collaborate, and Listen: Steps toward Data Interoperability and Reuse across Archaeological Disciplines and Professions (2021)
    DOCUMENT Full-Text Christopher Nicholson. Jessica Irwin. Rachael Fernandez.

    This is an abstract from the "Refining Archaeological Data Collection and Management to Achieve Greater Scientific, Traditional, and Educational Values" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological data collected by CRM firms and academics are rarely interoperable, making it difficult to reuse information. Though most archaeological datasets produced are the result of compliance work, they are rarely used outside of the specific project for...