Avocational to Aspiring Archaeologists: 35 years of Community Engagement at the McKendry Site

Summary

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

The McKendry Site is a multi-component pre-contact Indigenous and post-contact Euro-American site located in Chautauqua County, Western New York. Archaeological excavations involving public participation have been carried out since 1989. Throughout the site’s thirty-five excavation seasons, the past eighteen have been directed by students from the University at Buffalo Department of Anthropology. Project goals have been re-oriented from rote excavation and identification to how methodologies and interpretations influence motivations to excavate and the increasing attention on Indigenous archaeological frameworks; focusing more on site mapping, artifact and feature analysis, record keeping, and collaboration with Indigenous communities. The shifts in data recovery and preservation law reflect the ever-evolving paradigms of North American archaeological practice. Investigating these changes serves to highlight the ethical advantages of a more Indigenous, community-based archaeological project.

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): 53955