This article explores the use of specially trained canines to detect the location of human burials in nonmodern archaeological contexts. It discusses the history of the discipline, training and field methods, the importance of developing a working relationship with descendant communities, project examples, an assessment of canine detection effectiveness, and ways to select a canine detection team. The article highlights how the application of canine detection training and protocols to the archaeological record makes it possible to locate potential precontact Native American burial areas without ground disturbance. In some cases, probable burial areas located by canines can be confidentially mapped to ensure avoidance during upcoming construction projects. For a variety of reasons, many Native American communities have been wary of embracing this new method to locate ancestral burials. Today, however, canine detection is widely accepted by many tribal groups in California to locate ancestral burials that might be impacted by construction. Although additional controlled studies and rigorous field laboratory experiments are needed to understand the range of variation in efficacy fully, available results in both North America and Europe demonstrate that specially trained canines can often accurately locate human burials that are more than a thousand years old to within a few meters.

Archaeologists strive to understand ancient lifeways, and bioarchaeological data provide honest and immutable evidence of the realities of ancient society in the bodies of the dead. Given the importance of human remains in the archaeological record, a major component of the author's work has been devoted to the ethical responsibilities of bioarchaeologists in the treatment of the collections studied. However, the curation of skeletal remains is often challenging because the conservation and storage of these delicate materials may be afterthoughts in archaeological plans, being inadequately or incorrectly stored and sometimes treated to the same conservation conditions as more robust artifacts and samples. This article offers guidelines and recommendations for skeletal curation based on observations of curation challenges in a large collection in the subtropical Maya region. The collection was not well managed and human remains were not prioritized in the conservation program. The challenges and mitigations are presented here.

In 2003, the Autry Museum of the American West merged with the Southwest Museum of the American Indian, which housed the second largest collection of Native American objects in the country. Included within this collection is the Braun Research Library Collection, which consists of works of art on paper, rare books, scholarly publications, manuscripts, photographs, correspondences, maps and sound recordings, and other archival materials, many of which relate to the early development of the disciplines of archaeology and anthropology in the United States. For over a century, both national and international researchers have used the museum's collections and archival materials with a relative open access. However, due to the culturally sensitive nature of many of these collections and the growth of how information can be made accessible, the Autry institution is currently developing procedures that affect access, especially for those researchers who wish to study archaeological archives. Staff from multiple departments are collaborating on addressing these concerns, including developing new policies while improving access to Native American tribes, communities, and researchers in preparation for the new off-site Autry Resources Center and storage facility where the collection will be housed in the future.

Most archaeological practice involves horizontal excavations of ancient occupations and cemeteries, but the Chachapoya of Peru's eastern montane built tombs along narrow cliff ledges, which require innovative methods of investigation. Many of these sites are becoming exposed and threatened due to increased deforestation. The La Petaca mortuary complex includes 125 constructed platforms, modified ledges, mausoleums, and caves containing human remains across one section of an exposed rock face approximately 200 m across by approximately 80 m high. While the site has been looted and damaged due to various taphonomic processes (including ecological, geological, and cultural), we argue that there are recoverable details, especially in relation to how the ancient Chachapoya people created and accessed these vertical spaces. Through collaboration with technical professionals, we identified and documented many tombs using vertical progression techniques. This valuable partnership between spelunkers and archaeologists allowed us to develop techniques for “vertical archaeology,” including safe access in order to be able to document, sample, and make detailed observations of building methods and burial contents.

Any field team, regardless of the professionalism of the leadership, will eventually experience a critical event. Some events will result in a subtle degradation of the team's work; others will cause emergent threats to the safety of the team. A team's sustained performance during a field season depends partly on such chance events and partly with the team's ability to plan for and respond to the dynamic environment of the field. The duty of a field leader is to conduct clear-eyed conversations and ensure that solid preparations are laid for both the group as a whole and the individual team members. Some of these plans need to be manifested by material preparations, some of which require months of forethought. This article walks readers through a two-hour exercise, giving them frameworks from business continuity and military field doctrines to understand risk. Readers will conduct a SWOT analysis, define emergencies within their organizations, and then apply risk management practices of qualitative risk assessment and all-hazards planning to develop planning priorities. By the end, readers will have built specific action plans for improving field season readiness.

With the advent of commercially available digital cameras in the late 1990s resulting in the near-exclusion of analog photographic prints today, most archaeological repositories around the world have a mix of analog and digital photographic prints. That ratio is increasingly moving toward digital print processes, of which there are several types. To minimize the loss of image quality, collection managers must become familiar with the unique curation challenges of photographic prints from digitally created images. Likewise, creators of digital content must be aware that choices made when selecting a print process for reposit will have a direct effect on image and print permanence. Site photographs are critical evidence of archaeological activity, and so the preservation of digital prints is in the interest, and is the responsibility, of collection managers and archaeologists alike.

Advanced 2-D and 3-D computer visualizations are increasingly being used for recording and documentation, analysis, dissemination, and public engagement purposes. Recent technological advances not only considerably improve data acquisition, processing, and analysis but also enable easy and efficient online presentation. This article evaluates the contributions of advanced 2-D and 3-D computer visualization and discusses the potential of 3-D modeling for recording basketry technology and documenting the state of preservation of baskets. It explores the available analysis, integration, and online dissemination tools, using as case studies recently excavated baskets from Cache Cave in southern California. Results indicate that the proposed methodology, which incorporates reflectance transformation imaging visualizations and photogrammetric 3-D models, which are further processed using 3-D modeling software and integrated analysis tools and then transformed to a Web-based format, is a useful addition to the basketry analysis toolkit.

Participating in an archaeological field school is one of the only educational experiences that nearly all professional archaeologists have during their training. As a result, field schools are uniquely suited to provide experiential education in emerging skills that all archaeologists will need, such as information and data literacies at all stages of the contemporary research and publishing cycle. The “embedded” librarian program in the University of New Brunswick's Downeast Maine Coastal Archaeology Field School is an effective means to deploy that focused expertise to help students better understand the relationship between fieldwork, data, and dissemination. At the same time, being in the field provides librarians with the knowledge to respond more effectively to the complex data management and research needs of archaeologists. We encourage large research projects to consider librarians as specialist members of the research team.

Archaeological compliance is defined by state and federal legislation and the constrained, precise language in which it is written. Rules and policies operationalize the law but provide some flexibility in its interpretation and implementation. The pronounced use of “legal” and “scientific” language in archaeological compliance can be considered insensitive or offensive to some tribal members when discussing the disposition and care of the remains and belongings of their ancestors. The language we use constructs our reality and defines how we interpret our interactions of the lived experience. It is therefore necessary to revise the language employed in archaeological compliance to ensure that it reflects the values of the communities that these laws define to determine treatment and ultimate disposition of their ancestral remains and belongings. This article describes and encourages the use of a respectful terminology, developed in conjunction with compliance professionals and tribal representatives, to restructure the language we use and redefine our interactions as more considerate of tribal concerns for repatriation.

Moving image archives—like many other archives—are considered a passive repository of knowledge extraction, rather than an active site of knowledge production. Following the premise that archives are indeed a source of knowledge production, this article explores how moving image archives have the potential to produce new and alternative knowledges by bringing to light factors that may have influenced archaeological practice, factors captured within a moving image archive but obscured or marginalized within linear accounts of this practice. While such an archive may exist unevenly, the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) has been historically positioned to develop a moving image archive that features a number of well-known archaeological investigations. Yet this archive and similar moving image archives remain overlooked and underutilized resources. In order to address this, emphasis is placed on producing detailed, searchable, and retrievable content description for moving image archives. In doing so, this article maintains that the knowledge and experience brought to the management of this archive following the author's transition “from archaeologist to archivist,” is key to promoting the discoverability and accessibility of this archive with potential clients in the archaeological, academic, and broader community.

Overall healing, harmony, and balance within Ndee (Apache) communities can be understood through the Ndee term Gózhó—“beauty, balance, and harmony.” Beyond this Ndee cultural precept, however, how are such states of Gózhó achieved, whether in the past or today? Within archaeological research on Ndee lands, achieving healing and promoting health is crucial to overall individual and community well-being. Healing activities that contribute to overall states of Gózhó can take many forms. As Rybak and Decker-Fitts (2009:334) suggest, “Native American healing practices exemplify key cultural perspectives and influence the identity development of Native American individuals.” Such healing practices including the use of yellow cattail pollen (hádńdín; Typha spp.) for protection are based on traditions and perspectives typically outside the mainstream of Western psychological tenets, yet they can have significant impact on the sense of well-being for Ndee communities. Ndee cultural specialists with the White Mountain Apache Tribe demonstrate that such traditions and perspectives are not only necessary for continued community well-being but are powerful conduits amplifying the past as present, which contribute to the ongoing cyclical and reciprocal nature of the ways Ndee communities have related to Nígosdzán—Mother Earth—since time immemorial.

Care of archaeological materials should begin when recovered in the field. Care and stabilization of objects in the field will greatly increase their research and exhibit potential. Identifying problems and understanding basic solutions to object care and stabilization is an important part of training for all potential object handlers. Proper care and stabilization of objects can and should be a priority for all object users—excavators, lab analysts, museum staff, and researchers. Constant dialogue and communication between repository specialists and archaeologists can be the most useful source for care of all archaeological objects.

The Hacienda El Progreso functioned as an important Ecuadorian agro-industrial enterprise in the late nineteenth century. Operating out of San Cristóbal Island in the Galápagos archipelago, the plantation exported refined sugar, coffee, cattle products, and other goods to national and international markets. From its beginnings in the 1860s, the plantation established the first permanent human settlement on the island, and long after its demise in the 1930s, it continues to exert an important influence in local culture. Contemporary communities of San Cristóbal are shaping their identities based on the historical importance of the hacienda. The summer of 2018 was our last field season. From its start, the Historical Ecology of the Galápagos Islands project involved close participation with communal authorities and town leaders to investigate the island's human past. In this article, we discuss legacy and services of our project in the contemporary setting of Galápagos. We examine the relevance and contributions of our project to education, heritage policies, and the local economy. We discuss lessons learned from interactions and collaborations between archaeologists and the local community, and we evaluate the consequences of implementing an archaeological project on a remote environmental sanctuary where interest in human history can collide with the agendas of nature conservation and a lucrative ecotourism industry.

The Portable Antiquities of the Netherlands (PAN) is an online system aimed at recording and documenting archaeological finds by the public. Since PAN launched in 2016, it has become an important data contributor to Dutch archaeology, amassing over 100,000 recorded finds. These data, mostly the result of metal detection, enable scholars to gain new insights and policy makers to make more informed decisions. This review describes the context in which PAN was established, along with its current structure and scope, before looking at its different components, including the underlying database and linked data reference collection. In a final section, the article briefly addresses some common issues inherent to public reporting programs and how PAN approaches these issues.

At Tell Yunatsite, a prehistoric settlement mound located in the Upper Thracian plain of Bulgaria, stratigraphic relationships between archaeological deposits are incredibly complex. Such complexity then prompted our exploration into developing a new methodology for the documentation of complex stratigraphic relationships. Here, we present the results of a new photogrammetry-assisted methodology that was developed to compensate for the shortcomings of currently utilized stratigraphic documentation methods, such as the Wheeler-Kenyon box grid and the Harris Matrix. First, using a UAV drone, we produce a high-resolution photogrammetric model of the entire site. Second, with structure from motion photogrammetry, we produce 2.5D models of excavation units in stratigraphic succession. Finally, utilizing GIS and Blender (a 3D computer graphics software application), we digitize the horizontal extents of each archaeological deposit and “fill” the space between their successive surfaces (from top to bottom) until a faithful 3D model of each deposit is generated. These deposit models are then combined and rendered simultaneously to form 3D block models of the excavation units that may, in turn, be cross-sectioned in any direction to view stratigraphic relationships in virtual profile.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration are undertaking a long-term, multiphase project to improve and rebuild Interstate 95 (I-95) in Pennsylvania, within the historic city of Philadelphia. Given the complex urban setting, the archaeological subsurface testing for the I-95 Girard Avenue Interchange Improvement Project is being guided by a programmatic agreement under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act and a categorical exclusion under the National Environmental Policy Act. Through data-recovery excavations, the contractor for the project, AECOM, has documented 30 historical-period and Native American archaeological sites. The project includes its own professional journal, live interactive reporting, and a public archaeology center.

Digital imaging technologies have enhanced archaeological research and profoundly expanded the scale of the discipline’s potentialities. As illustrators and archaeologists move away from using hand-drawn images (of hand-held, real-life objects) to depict artifacts and other archaeological information, certain capabilities of the traditional illustrative process are lost. One such loss is the ability to present a complete and informed representation of an artifact free of the distortions and visual limitations that single-perspective (i.e., digital or photographic) imagery produces. This is accomplished by the illustrator through the unification of multiple views of the artifact from various perspectives into a single two-dimensional image that communicates to the viewer important attributes of the artifact, free of distortion and remaining true to the measured, analytical conventions of the illustrative process. Liberation from the single-viewpoint perspective was one of the fundamental elements of the Cubist movement. Traditional archaeological illustrators utilize Cubist principles to communicate visually to the viewer a complete, accurate, and undistorted package of information about an artifact. The supplanting of hand-drawn illustrations by digital images in today’s archaeological publications threatens to revert the visual representation of data back to uninformed, surficial “snapshots” of incomplete objects.

As archaeology has evolved, partnerships between private collectors and archaeologists have ebbed and flowed. This article contributes to a growing body of work dedicated to recognizing the contributions of the collecting community, with a focus on maintaining reciprocal models for long-term collaborations. This research article argues that for these collaborative efforts to progress, archaeologists must operate through an archaeological ethnographic lens that fosters work in partnership and generative dialogues. Utilizing ethics from the Society for American Archaeology's “Statement on Responsible and Responsive Stewards of the Past” (Society for American Archaeology 2018), an undergraduate student and private collector partnered to retroactively document an artifact collection collected over 60 years in Colorado's San Luis Valley. This article is distinct, however, in that it centers the research methods, offering a pragmatic example of utilizing an archaeological ethnographic framework alongside collaborative inquiry and oral history methodologies. The partnership cultivated within the research team opened a new line of inquiry into the collector's past collaborations with professionals, revealing a variety of informative and illuminating stories. As the academic discourse widens, incorporating such stories into the canon will improve collaborations and foster networks of partners to create sustainable long-term collaborations that ultimately lead to greater understanding of and care for the material past.

This article presents a case study detailing the difficulties and results of collaborating at a privately owned cave site. For many years, Spirit Eye Cave—a privately held cave system—was a pay-to-dig site, with detrimental effects on the archaeological deposits. The pay-to-dig chapter had impacted this important site, but professional archaeologists had not tried to piece together this destructive history. After months of sleuthing, it was determined that some of these pay-to-dig patrons had recovered and owned or sold Indigenous ancestors from the cave. This discovery was unexpected and shocking, but it focused the efforts at the site on the recovery of these ancestors from private collections. These conversations have been uncomfortable but have demarcated responsible and responsive stewards (RRSs) from bad actors, resulting in the recovery of multiple artifact collections and ancestors that have produced significant research results and opened previously nonexistent dialogues with modern descendant communities.