Ethics and Best Practices for Mapping Archaeological Sites

Summary

Principle 6 of the Society of American Archaeology’s Principles of Archaeological Ethics emphasizes archaeologists’ responsibility to publically report archaeological investigations with the stipulation that "An interest in preserving and protecting in situ archaeological sites must be taken in to account when publishing and distributing information about their nature and location." This paper first provides a critical review of current geolocation sharing recommendations and practices, and then describes available methods for dealing with sensitive location data and suggested best practices. Particular attention is paid to geomasking techniques, which communicate observed spatial relationships while obscuring sensitive geographic coordinates. Currently, only two geomasking techniques are widely used in archaeology: aggregating archaeological site locations into grids or administrative units, or placing points that represent site locations at a particular distance from their true locations. These techniques, while useful, are part of a larger and growing suite of tools that visually convey spatial data without revealing sensitive site locations. Principle 6 allows researchers flexibility in tailoring methods of communicating site locations, which is useful given the range of archaeological contexts. However, this work encourages researchers to responsibly exercise that flexibility by incorporating archaeological and environmental data into an explicit decision-making process for representing those places.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 22049