Fanning the Flames: Responding to Covid-19 as an Endangered Public Site

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Adaptation and Alteration: The New Realities of Archaeology during a Pandemic" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The impacts of Covid-19 are innumerable for sites and museums and a serious conundrum resulted for places already in jeopardy from factors like budgetary cutbacks and limited resources. A case study for this conundrum is presented with Arcadia Mill Archaeological Site in Milton, Florida. Owned by the University of West Florida (UWF) and managed by the UWF Historic Trust, this 42 acre public site once functioned as a thriving destination operating five days a week with robust educational and public programming and ongoing research focusing on the lives of the enslaved. In 2018, former Governor Rick Scott vetoed a bill that funded archaeology at the state level that not only eliminated Arcadia’s budget, but also impacted funds utilized at the University level. As a result, Arcadia’s operations are severely reduced and the addition of a global pandemic has taken its toll. The question becomes, where do we go from here?

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Adaptation and Alteration: The New Realities of Archaeology during a Pandemic   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology