Balancing the Blessing and Burden of St. Augustine’s Local Archaeological Preservation Ordinance during a Global Pandemic

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.

St. Augustine is one of the few local governments in the United States that has an archaeological preservation ordinance to protect its buried heritage. Since the ordinance was enacted 32 years ago, the development booms of 2018 and 2019 marked the greatest number of projects conducted by the City Archaeology Program. This was immediately followed by the sudden shift to 2020 pandemic restrictions combined with the persistent high volume of archaeological work. In addition, the sudden depletion of a work force primarily comprised of retired volunteers for field and lab projects presented challenges to daily operations. To continue to provide volunteer opportunities, the program shifted to offering remote work transcribing hand-written documentation from legacy collections while working within an existing budget cycle. The challenges of COVID-19 ultimately prompted changes in fieldwork prioritization, refocused efforts on older endangered collections, and instituted long-range planning for program staffing and budget stability.

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