There and Back Again: Celebrating the Career and Ongoing Contributions of Patricia B. Richards

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "There and Back Again: Celebrating the Career and Ongoing Contributions of Patricia B. Richards" at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Patricia B. Richards has spent more than four decades immersed in the archaeology and bioarchaeology of the American Midwest. Through her field-based research into Paleoindian, postcontact, and Euro-American lifeways of the Great Lakes region, she has explored and highlighted the importance of material culture, human actors, ethnographic research, and engaged archaeology. Her work has consistently emphasized the power of archaeology to reveal the stories of those forgotten by written history, as exemplified by her creation of and long-term commitment to the Milwaukee County Poor Farm Cemetery Project. Her ethical approach to archaeological practice has been a constant in an ever-evolving career, serving as a touchstone of her advocacy for burial site preservation legislation in Wisconsin. She has also been an inspirational and inestimable mentor and colleague, and through the work of those she has trained and supported we see the positive imprint she has made on the discipline over the last decades. This session takes her retirement from teaching as an opportunity to recognize and honor her contributions to both archaeology of the Midwest and to archaeological pedagogy. Please join us as we share our favorite memories and present research inspired by her contributions to the field.