Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects

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 "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In recent decades, archaeology and other social sciences have been navigating a divergent path between 1.the accelerated pace at which research projects are commissioned to meet career advancement goals and funder’s deadlines and 2. the rate at which communities are willing or able to be involved in research conducted in their communities. This session’s case studies will argue for ‘slow science’ approaches to archaeological research that ‘forefront ethically driven and collaborative research’ (Cunningham & MacEachern, 2016). This session will introduce a diverse group of interrelated presentations highlighting heritage management, contemporary interest in deep-time perspectives, the incorporation of recent archaeological knowledge by local actors, and community engagement initiatives. Two North American projects will examine the incorporation of indigenous knowledge and slow science in the northeastern US, and an additional project explores the relationship between local communities and the well-known Hamann-Todd Osteological Collection, Cleveland, Ohio. In southern Europe, three papers will look at local environmental values through the interpretation of animal figures, community-based research on historical ecology, and the contemporary interest in pre-modern viticulture technology in modern Tuscany, and a final paper explores efforts to affiliate local identity with an ancient Greek colonial site, Apollonia Pontica, in Sozopol, Bulgaria.

Other Keywords
Indigenous • Europe • Material Culture and Technology • North America: Northeast and Midatlantic

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-6 of 6)

  • Documents (6)
Documents
  • Anticipating Community: Slow Bioarchaeology in Legacy Anatomical Collections (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Alysha Lieurance.

    This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent publications outlining ethical guidelines for the handling of human skeletal remains stress the necessity of obtaining informed consent from donors, lineal descendants, descendant communities, and/or communities of care before conducting research. However, when consent...

  • Applying Slow Science and the Ethics of Community Engagement: An Eastern Woodland case study of indigenous incorporation with the acquisition of archaeological knowledge (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Phillip Mendenhall.

    This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation explores the implementation of the ‘slow science’ method, termed to incorporate meaningful indigenous community involvement into archaeological research. Recent initiatives involving descendant indigenous communities through land acknowledgement and explanatory...

  • Constructing Local identity through the Lens of Archaeological Knowledge: A case study on the Black Sea, Sozopol, Bulgaria (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aadya Khemka.

    This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This part of the presentation explores the dynamic relationship between the ancient Greek colonial site of Apollonia Pontica, founded in the 7th century BCE on the Black Sea, and the modern town of Sozopol, Bulgaria. Apollonia Pontica was a significant trading and cultural hub in...

  • Interpreting Exotic Animals in Etruria: Why Species Recognition Matters (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Madelyn Mezzell.

    This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation explores the roles of animals and fantastical beasts in Etruscan iconography from the Archaic to the Late Orientalizing period and the manner in which their misinterpretation, or complete lack thereof, affects our understanding of communities who inhabited very...

  • Pressing Ancient Artifacts into a Modern Solution: The Reincorporation of Ancient Pestarola by a Contemporary Tuscan Winemaker (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Olivia Young.

    This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Wine as an anthropological object is a tool, allowing us to study winemaking communities across time. The regional culture and economy of Tuscany has been shaped by the historical agricultural and production methods of winemaking. With the growing popularity of global wine brands,...

  • A Tuscan Tale: Investigating Changes in Landscape Use Through Local Environmental Knowledge (2025)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Meryl Shriver-Rice.

    This is an abstract from the "Communities of Engagement: Incorporating Deep Time and Slow Science into Community Based Research Projects" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Building upon its community-based mission, and goals to bridge cultural and ecological heritage across a deep time perspective, the Potentino Exploration Project (PXP) conducted community-based participatory research in the Seggiano basin (2023-2024). These ethnographic...