Why We Need Public Archaeology Specialists: Beyond Shards and Dinosaurs

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The underlying goal of Public Archaeology is to make archaeology accessible to the public in engaging ways that inspire meaningful connections to the people and places of the past. By presenting archaeological facts and theories in an interactive manner, it is more likely that the information not only sticks, but is also personal, thus inspiring a more active role in preservation. In an innovative effort to explore the applications that Public Archaeology has to offer in the National Park Service, Tonto National Monument and nonprofit organization Archaeology Southwest teamed up to create a unique position entirely devoted to implementing and testing Public Archaeology methods at the monument. The end goal was creating a Public Archaeology strategy to be used in future years. The 2017-2018 season was a valuable "pilot study" into what Public Archaeology-specific positions have to offer the National Park Service. By assessing the successes and challenges of new methods, outreach events, activities, and current interpretation and education programs at the monument it was my goa,l not only to create a successful strategy for the future, but to set the standard that specialized Public Archaeology positions are valuable assets to the National Park Service.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25372