Twelve Metrics for Creating Effective and Sustainable Public Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeology is the study, and by extension, the story of cultures, and everyone deserves access to their stories and those of their ancestors. The better one’s understanding of archaeology, culture, and history, the better understanding of themselves and those around them. This research seeks to answer what approaches are needed to create sustainable and effective public archaeology programs. Due to the extreme importance of further efforts of inclusion, collaboration, and diversity within archaeology, this analysis quantifies multiple ways in which public archaeology can be achieved and showcase that it is possible to provide impactful programs for a variety of communities and audiences, no matter how lavish or economic one’s budget may be. During this research, characteristics that successful outreach programs have in common were identified, and 12 metrics were created that can be used for analyzing outreach models. These metrics were designed after careful consideration of the current public archaeology models. These metrics are not meant to be rigid or to grade programs, but to highlight the methods used in successful outreach. Programs should be individualized to their audience and their needs. This work is meant to inspire more outreach efforts at any level.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 37757.0