Upcoming Seminars

Dr. Ashley Lemke is an Assistant Professor at the University of Texas in Arlington. Formally she was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology at the University of Michigan, where she received her Ph.D. in 2016. As a prehistoric underwater archaeologist, Lemke’s research seeks to understand the social and economic organization of hunter-gatherers by investigating now-submerged ancient landscapes. These research questions have led her to work in North America and Europe on both terrestrial and underwater archaeological projects from the Lower Paleolithic to 19th-century Nunamiut archaeological sites in the high arctic.

Dr. Amy Mitchell-Cook, RPA spent 10 years as a maritime archaeologist before shifting her focus to maritime history. She has written numerous chapters, articles and book reviews on the subject. Her book, Sea of Misadventures: Shipwreck and Survival in Early America, is based on more than 100 accounts of shipwreck narratives from 1640 to 1840, and explores the issues of gender, race, religion and power. She co-wrote a chapter in an upcoming book, Methodology in La Belle: The Archeology of a 17th Century Ship of New World Colonization, on the methods archaeologists in Texas used to record and excavate the French ship that sank off the coast of Texas in 1685.

Dave Ball, RPA is the Regional Preservation Officer for the Pacific Region of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). Dave joined the BOEM Gulf of Mexico Region (then Minerals Management Service) office in 1999 and transferred to the Pacific Region office in 2010. He has almost 30 years’ experience in archaeology and has directed field research on both terrestrial and underwater archaeological sites across the US, including inundated pre-contact sites in Florida and Washington, World War II shipwrecks, and deepwater shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico. Dave is a member of the ICOMOS International Committee on Underwater Cultural Heritage and has served in various roles with the Advisory Council on Underwater Archaeology.

Cultural resource managers, land managers, and archaeologists are often tasked with managing, interpreting, and reviewing archaeological assessments for submerged cultural resources. This seminar is designed to introduce non-specialists to issues specific to underwater archaeology. Participants will learn about different types of underwater cultural heritage (UCH) and some of the methods employed to help protect those sites. This seminar is not intended to teach participants how to do underwater archaeology, but instead will briefly introduce different investigative techniques and international best practices. The purpose of this seminar is to assist non-specialists in recognizing the potential for UCH resources in their areas of impact.

Help terrestrial archaeologists and land managers to:

1. Identify the potential for underwater cultural heritage resources in affected areas;
2. Recognize best practices for treatment of underwater cultural heritage; and
3. Understand basic qualifications required for proper documentation of underwater cultural heritage.

Teresa Wriston, Ph.D., RPA is an Assistant Research Professor and Geoarchaeologist at the Desert Research Institute. Over the past 17 years, her geoarchaeological work has focused on human adaptation to changing environments as reflected by site location, preservation, and stratigraphic contexts in the western U.S. and southern Africa.

Archaeologists know the importance of cultural context in understanding the past but often fail to recognize the importance of the natural contexts of sites, features, and artifacts in their interpretations. Looking through a geoarchaeological lens can help every archaeologist begin to understand the natural contexts of their finds. This course is designed to introduce basic geoarchaeological methods to archaeologists interested in improving their research designs, optimizing their fieldwork strategies, enhancing their stratigraphic descriptions in ways that aid component definition and sampling procedures, and using natural contexts to complement their interpretations.

1. Describe what geoarchaeology is and why is it important to archaeologists
2. Explain the difference between soil and sediment
3. Illustrate why the position of an archaeological site on the landscape matters
4. Explain how natural processes effect the archaeological record

Kurt Dongoske is the President and Principal Investigator for Zuni Cultural Resource Enterprise. He is also the Tribal Historic Preservation Officer for the Zuni Tribe. Mr. Dongoske has over 40 years of experience as a professional archaeologist working within cultural resource management. Mr. Dongoske has spent the last 29 years working collaboratively with Native Americans in implementing archaeological and ethnographic research. He has designed numerous ethnographic projects that incorporate the traditional environmental perspectives of both the Hopi and Zuni people. Mr. Dongoske is a Registered Professional Archaeologist and holds a Master of Arts degree from the University of Arizona. Mr. Dongoske has published numerous articles on Native Americans, cultural resource management, and compliance.

Kurt Anschuetz is an anthropologist and archaeologist based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His research foci are the archaeology of late Prehispanic and early Historic period Pueblo agricultural water management and Native, Hispanic, and Anglo cultural landscapes. Dr. Anschuetz currently is assisting the Pueblo of Acoma in preparing a Traditional Cultural Properties study in Chaco Canyon and the greater the San Juan Basin. He has worked with Acoma in contributing to the Mount Taylor Cultural Property Nomination to the New Mexico State Register of Cultural Properties, and is a member of the Pueblo’s team of consultants in the adjudication of the waters of Rio San Jose. He has completed comprehensive cultural landscape studies of Native, Hispanic, and Anglo communities’ relationships with the Valles Caldera National Preserve. Dr. Anschuetz also serves as an Expert Witness for the U.S. Department of Justice in water rights adjudications on behalf of the Rio Grande Pueblos of Cochiti, Isleta, Kewa, Ohkay Owingeh, San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, and Taos.

By definition, "mitigation" is reducing the severity, force or intensity, seriousness, painfulness or grief of an event, development, procedure, or situation. As part of the CRM mitigation processes, direct, indirect, and cumulative effects on cultural resources that fulfill one or more of the National Register of Historic Places’ (NRHP’s) criteria must all be identified in order to address any competent approach to and for mitigation. Two key questions must then also arise within any mitigation process: (1) By whom is mitigation developed and implemented? and (2) Whose interests, concerns, benefits, and well-being are addressed? Historically in the United States, mitigation in CRM has focused on the status and character of a material property itself. Recognition of traditional cultural properties (TCPs) has provided productive directives to identify and consider properties vital to different cultural groups' living identities, histories, values, belief systems, and lifeways. These directives have concomitantly presented a challenge to consider what culturally sensitive and respectful mitigation may—or may not—be. The instructors present examples from their experiences working with the Acoma and Zuni people to illustrate how approaches to mitigation can be sensitive and respectful, as well as lessen the pain, grief, and even wrath, for harms and losses that the people are asked to endure.

1. Guidance in designing and conducting compliance with the NHPA that more meaningfully and equitably involves Native Americans
2. Greater appreciation and understanding of Native American heritage concerns, including their personal and collective relationships to the landscape
3. Recognition of patterns of systematic cultural bias embedded in the language of the NHPA and the ways in which that affects how archaeologists characteristically implement CRM legislative mandates and regulatory protocols

Carla Hadden is an Assistant Research Scientist in the Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory at the University of Georgia Center for Applied Isotope Studies. Dr. Hadden specializes in radiocarbon dating, environmental archaeology, and zooarchaeology, and is an Associate Editor for Radiocarbon, the main international journal of record for research articles relevant to radiocarbon techniques. She regularly publishes on radiocarbon method development and archaeological applications in high-impact journals such as Science Advances, American Antiquity, and Radiocarbon, and is regularly called upon to peer review manuscript submissions on radiocarbon dating and Bayesian chronological modeling in archaeology.

Bayesian chronological modeling revolutionized chronology building in archaeology. It provided a robust mathematical framework for incorporating all the dating information available, including radiocarbon dates, stratigraphy, artifact typologies, and the written historical record. The purpose of this seminar is to provide archaeologists with an introduction to the key concepts, assumptions, and terminology used in Bayesian chronological modeling; an overview of the basic structures and applications of age models; and an introduction to the “iterative approach” to sample selection and chronological modeling. We will introduce the audience to the several software options available for age modeling (OxCal, BCal, and various packages implemented in R) and compare their pros and cons. We will not provide a step-by-step “how to” for constructing models in any one program, but participants will receive a workbook and “quick start” guide for modeling in OxCal. This course will enable participants to understand and evaluate age models that they encounter in archaeological literature; will provide a necessary foundation for those interested in exploring how Bayesian models could contribute to their own projects; and will provide resources for those who wish to learn more about constructing chronological models. The intended audience includes those who have no previous experience in Bayesian chronological modeling.

1. Understand the basic terminology related to Bayesian chronological modeling, e.g., event; phase; sequence; boundary; MCMC; prior probability; posterior probability; likelihood; parameter; convergence; agreement
2. Evaluate and interpret model outputs
3. Understand and follow the conventions for reporting modeled dates in technical reports and scientific journals

Mary Beth Trubitt has worked in Cultural Resource Management and academia, and for the last twenty years has served as a research station archaeologist for the Arkansas Archeological Survey. She has written archaeological reports and has read many more of them, and brings a perspective on what makes reports interesting to write and useful to read. In 2020, Trubitt concludes a term as editor for Southeastern Archaeology and begins a term as editor for Caddo Archeology Journal.

It may seem overwhelming to sort through the details of archaeological fieldwork and artifact analyses and sit down to write the technical report. Just as you need a plan for investigations, you need a plan for summarizing the results. This seminar will provide archaeologists with strategies and resources to organize and write a technical report that will provide readers with the necessary information.

1. Identify the audiences for your technical report and the information they expect
2. Discover helpful resources for organizing and supporting your report
3. Learn some do’s and don’ts for better writing technical reports