Contextualizing the Visualization of Iconography and Funerary Belongings in Southeastern Archaeological Practice

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Visualization of artifacts is a key element of archaeology and the dissemination of information. Although technology has improved exponentially in the past few decades, the ethical use of such visual depictions of artifacts have not caught up to the degree of information these images have the potential to convey. Here, I examine recent trends in the use and quality of images depicting Indigenous Ancestors and funerary belongings in publications on southeastern archaeology. I demonstrate that there is a disparity between the quality and clarity of photographs versus drawn illustrations when depicting these funerary subjects. Analysis of image subject, relevance, originality, and artifact site data show patterns of illustrations providing clearer and more direct alignment with the topics within publications as opposed to photographs. From this study, we can identify gaps within how images are currently used and provide actionable steps toward better practices of archaeological visualization in order to convey the greatest amount of relevant information through ethical and collaborative methods.

This presentation does not contain images of human remains.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52687