Close to Home: Public and Institutional Archaeology in the University Setting

Summary

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

During the fall of 2021, a group of 13 students, a graduate teaching assistant, and two professors continued the years-long excavations and credit-offered course of the Harvard Yard Archaeology Project, which takes place amongst one of the busiest tourist attractions and academic centers of Boston. A primary goal of the 2021 field season was to further characterize the extent of the building foundations of the Old College, a 17th-century building of early Harvard, although larger goals include presenting archaeological excavations to the general public. As former students of the class, we have experienced firsthand the ways that public archaeology can intersect with studying archaeology in a university setting. Therefore, we hope to present the larger SAA community with answers to the following questions: How do excavations within universities contribute to public archaeology? What is the role of student archaeologists participating in public archaeology? How does a class that advocates for public archaeology influence students’ desires to pursue a career in archaeology? We will propose a survey and a plan to interview students who have completed the Harvard Yard Archaeology Project and similar classes at other institutions to answer the questions presented here.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

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

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Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36939.0