The Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA, or “The SHAs”) meets next month down in New Orleans. This is the biggest historical archaeology conference in the world, and the Arkansas Archeological Survey (ARAS) will play a big role in it!
Survey Archeologists at the SHAs
Dr. Jodi Barnes (ARAS-UA Monticello station archeologist) will host a session on foodways, with contributors from around the world. Her sessions’s abstract is:
Food is not only nutrition. It is culture and history. Much of the foods people eat on a regular basis are the direct result of long complex historical processes. Archaeology not only provides insight into what people ate or how they prepared it, it also offers a lens into cross-cultural interactions and the intersectionality of gender, race, class, and other axis of difference. Participants in this symposium explore the interactions between people across time and place to uncover the history in our food and discuss the ways they use the archaeology of foodways as a tool for public engagement and social justice.
She is also second author on a paper with Kim Christensen (University of California Berkeley) on the effects of feminist critiques on public archaeology.
Our Fayetteville station archeologist, Dr. Jamie Brandon, and University of Arkansas graduate student Victoria Jones put together a poster. It is a presentation on last summer’s archeological field school at Leetown, in Benton County. Another graduate student, Breanna Wilbanks, will present on medicinal artifacts from the former Sisters of Mercy convent, in Fort Smith.
Finally, our own Dr. Carl Drexler will co-chair a session with Dr. Michelle Sivilich (Gulf Archaeological Research Institute) on the state and future of conflict archaeology. His contribution in the session is a paper on the research we have been doing on the Camden Expedition. He is also running the pre-conference workshops for the organization.
Once these papers are over, our staff will still be busy, because all are part of the SHAs committees!
Other Arkansas Research
The Survey archeologists are not the only Arkansans who will be there. Friend of the Survey and proud Arkansan C. Andrew Buchner (Panamerican Consultants – Memphis) will also be at the SHAs, and will present on work at Jacksonport State Park. He is particularly interested in the 19th century clay pipes found there. Looking forward to hearing about it, Drew!
