Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Despite often facing schedule and budget constraints, cultural resources management (CRM) provides a unique opportunity to identify sites and landscapes linked to groups who have historically been underrepresented in both the archaeological and archival record. These resources, found in diverse geographic contexts, reveal the stories of ethnic and racial minorities and the economically disenfranchised in both urban and rural America during periods of significant change. This symposium will present several case studies focused on the identification and association of archaeological resources with underrepresented groups, highlighting the challenges faced and demonstrating how linking the archaeology with archival research can uncover the forgotten stories of marginalized communities. Panelists will also explore how CRM, an often-overlooked component of large-scale engineering, energy, and infrastructure improvement projects, can allow for significant and impactful research into these communities, individuals, and broad narratives – sometimes challenging our overall definition(s) of significance.

Other Keywords
Historical Archaeology • Cultural Resource Management • North America • Ethnohistory/History

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-7 of 7)

  • Documents (7)
Documents
  • The Diversity of Growth in Kansas City - Connecting Archaeological and Historical Research in Kansas City's Historic Northwest Neighborhoods (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Benjamin DiBiase.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In 2019, the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) contracted Burns & McDonnell Engineering Company, Inc. (Burns & McDonnell) to complete this survey in compliance with all applicable Federal laws and in accordance with the...

  • The Forgotten: An Unanticipated Discovery of a Mexican Tenant Farmer Cemetery in Texas (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Shelly Wunderlich.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the first half of the Twentieth Century, families of Mexican and Mexican American farmers lived, worked, and died on a tenant plantation in Milam County, Texas. Over the next 100 years their community was forgotten until...

  • Identifying Land Grants of Choctaw Individuals who Remained in Mississippi after the 1831 Treat of Dancing Rabbit Creek Removal: A Case Study in the Ha-Ta-Na and Yokatubbee Land Grants in Lowndes County, Mississippi (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Shaver.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Identifying the locations of Choctaw Land Grants from the 1831 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek is challenging due to limited and hard-to-obtain historical data. In Mississippi, archaeological sites linked to these grants are...

  • Lost My Dentures! Material Culture of the Urban Poor in Kansas City’s Northwest Neighborhood at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Jessica Kepka.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Data recovery excavations for Missouri Department of Transportation’s Broadway/Buck O’Neil Bridge Replacement Project, situated in downtown Kansas City, provided a rare glimpse into the material culture of marginalized populations...

  • Stratigraphy and Site Formation Processes at the Tinder Shanty Site (23JA1857), Kansas City, Missouri (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Gottsfield.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. In the 1870s and 1880s, Kansas City completed an ambitious large-scale grading program to build roads and neighborhoods on the dissected and uneven Pleistocene loess bluffs overlooking the Missouri River valley. An estimated 6 to 10...

  • Tracking the Enslaved and the Emancipated at Glen Fount Plantation, Meade County, Kentucky (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Douglas Kullen.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archival data on specific enslaved persons in the Antebellum South is notoriously elusive, and archaeological data usually does not provide much supporting information. Historical research conducted as part of the mitigation effort...

  • Women's Historical Patterns of Land Utilization on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Sparks.

    This is an abstract from the "Working towards a More Inclusive Picture of the Past: Archaeology, Archives, and Historically Underrepresented Communities in Cultural Resources Management" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. During 2021-2022, the Bureau of Indian Affairs sponsored a Cultural Landscape Survey on the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in Northern New Mexico, covering over 9,000 acres as part of a forestry and fuels project. This survey...