Workshops

SAA workshops provide continuing education on a wide range of practical issues relevant to the professional archaeological community. Workshops have limited enrollments, so sign up soon! As noted, specific workshops are open to both meeting attendees and those not attending the meeting.

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 10

Rock Art Site Management

Sponsored by the International Rock Art Network, Getty Conservation Institute, and Bradshaw Foundation

1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.; maximum 30 persons; $27 Annual Meeting attendees; $35 non-Annual Meeting attendees

Instructors: David S. Whitley and Johannes H.N. Loubser

The workshop will provide a practical introduction to the management of rock art sites, oriented towards CRM archaeologists and students, thus covering information that is not otherwise available in academic settings, books, or agency training and guidance. It is intended to provide enough information to allow CRM archaeologists to develop site management plans, and to access more specialized assistance and resources when needed. Our ultimate goal is to improve the way that rock art sites are managed, recognizing that this is most easily achieved by educating individual archaeological practitioners.

Workshop Agenda

1) International Heritage Management Principles
The ICOMOS Burra Charter, and how it articulates with the NHPA regulations, and NPS and Advisory Council guidelines.
2) Site Management Basics
Stakeholder values; visitor, conservation, and reassessment strategies; infrastructure and education approaches.
3) Condition Assessments
Individual site assessments; regional/triage approaches.
4) Conservation Basics
Maintenance and panel interventions.
5) Case Studies
a) Visitor strategies
b) Regional/triage assessments
c) Graffiti removal

Transparent and Open Archaeological Science Using R

Sponsored by the Open Science in Archaeology Interest Group

1:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.; maximum 20 persons; $69 Annual Meeting student-attendees; $89 Annual Meeting attendees; $129 non-Annual Meeting attendees

Instructor: Ben Marwick

Recently, serious concerns about the reproducibility and transparency of research have arisen in many scientific disciplines. These concerns reveal a wide gap between scientific practice and ideals, and threaten to erode public support for research. This workshop will provide hands-on training in robust techniques and free tools and services to improve the reproducibility and transparency of archaeological research. We will introduce participants to R Markdown, Git, and data repositories, which have all been essential in recent developments in social and natural sciences.

In this workshop, participants will learn how to use R Markdown to write reports and articles that transparently combine text and code. They will become familiar with the Git version control system to track changes to text, code, and data, and to collaborate more efficiently. They will be able to use a data repository, such as the Open Science Framework, to deposit their code and data, and get a DOI to make it openly available to accompany publications and reports. This workshop is well-suited to novices who have never used these tools before.

Participants will need to bring a personal laptop (and power supply). Before attending the workshop, please download and install R (for Windows: https://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/release.htm, for OSX: https://cran.r-project.org/bin/macosx/R-latest.pkg), RStudio (for Windows and OSX: https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/#download) and Git (for Windows and OSX: https://git-scm.com/downloads). All other materials will be provided in the workshop.

FRIDAY, APRIL 12

Repatriation Workshop

Sponsored by the Committee on Native American Relations and the Committee on Repatriation

2:00 p.m.–4:00 p.m.; maximum 25 persons; free for Annual Meeting attendees; pre-registration required; walk-ins welcome on a seat-available basis

Instructors: Kristen Barnett and Lauren Sieg

This workshop will be the inaugural session of an annual workshop organized around the theme of repatriation. It is intended to establish equitable collaborative partnerships between the SAA and local Tribal communities associated with the locale of our annual meeting. This year the workshop will be based on repatriation concerns, broadly considered, in the Southwest region. The specific topics for the workshop will be structured by responses to an independent survey of local Tribal Historic Preservation Officers or Tribal NAGPRA representatives, museum professionals, federal representatives, universities, professional archaeological societies, and CRM firms. The survey is aimed at identifying local concerns, barriers, and challenges to repatriation. Survey results will provide a baseline for small and large group discussions focused on realizing a multitude of challenges from various experiences and problem-solving as a collaborative effort. We will also reflect on how we currently situate ourselves in relation to the results of the survey and reevaluate our goals as a concerned and invested SAA.

SATURDAY, APRIL 13

Using tDAR: A Workshop for SAA Members Benefitting from the SAA–Center for Digital Antiquity Good Digital Curation Agreement

Sponsored by SAA and the Center for Digital Antiquity.

9:00 a.m.–10:30 a.m.; maximum 40 persons; no charge to SAA members; pre-registration required; walk-ins welcome on a seat-available basis

Instructors: Leigh Anne Ellison and Rachel Fernandez

This workshop is provided as part of the current SAA–Center for Digital Antiquity agreement to promote good digital curation and data management practices. The workshop is designed for retired members, student members, members from countries with discounted rates, and members from Tribal Historic Preservation Offices. SAA members in these categories are eligible, as a benefit of SAA membership, for no-cost uploads to tDAR (annually up to 10 files or a total of 100 MB). The workshop will show how you can integrate good digital curation habits into current or past research projects to ensure easy access to data and research results long into the future. We will focus on strategies that can be implemented before research begins (including a discussion on how to budget for digital archiving), as well as ways to streamline the archival process for ongoing or completed research projects that lacked a digital archiving strategy at the outset. Finally, this workshop will discuss and illustrate the types of projects and data archived in tDAR to demonstrate how to make the most of your SAA member benefits. 

Register!