Contemporary anthropological fieldwork in North America incorporates multiple voices, communities, and disciplines. As an archaeologist who has conducted summer field research for nearly thirty years, I have witnessed numerous changes in practice, scope, and collaboration through the years. Archaeological research is team research. We work with local communities, but we also form temporary residential communities for months at a time. Like ethnographers, being “in the field” immerses the primary investigator in unfamiliar cultural and geographic surroundings. Unlike ethnographers, these individuals simultaneously are responsible for a cast of assistants and students and families also experiencing the isolation of being away from home while living with strangers. We thus often find ourselves working in a mini-field within the field. In this presentation, I will summarize several case studies that highlight my experiences, lessons, and challenges in directing fieldwork in contemporary archaeology.
Part of Reports from the Field Speaker series
The Ethnography of Archaeological Fieldwork - Laura Scheiber
Thursday, December 06, 2018, 3:00 PM – ,
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