Innovative Decolonization through Community Archaeology at the Garnet Ghost Town

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

How do we ethically correct whitewashed historical interpretations and understandings of federal landscapes? By utilizing noninvasive community archaeological practices, a new understanding of the diversity and intersectionality of a turn-of-the-century Montana mining boom town is unveiled. The Garnet Ghost Town Community Archaeology Project is a collaborative research project combining the University of Montana, Bureau of Land Management’s Garnet Ghost Town, and the Garnet Preservation Association. Innovative decolonization of previous understandings of Garnet utilizes boundary breaking community archaeological methods, invents new curation methodologies to address federal curation facility growing issues, and provides a framework for historical archaeological practices globally. Bringing to the forefront are the previously not represented Indigenous, African American, and Chinese diasporas of the historical Garnet community. Research into material wealth-based inequality creates multiple new understandings of how the evolutionary landscape of the Garnet Ghost Town is truly a home for ALL, will be answered.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35897.0