Archaeology in Practice E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 1054

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

This much-enhanced new edition of the highly accessible guide to practical archaeology is a vital resource for students.  It features the latest methodologies, a wealth of case studies from around the world, and contributions from leading specialists in archaeological materials analysis.

• New edition updated to include the latest archaeological methods, an enhanced focus on post-excavation analysis and new material including a dedicated chapter on analyzing human remains
• Covers the full range of current analytic methods, such as analysis of stone tools, human remains and absolute dating
• Features a user-friendly structure organized according to material types such as animal bones, ceramics and stone artifacts, as well as by thematic topics ranging from dating techniques to report writing, and ethical concerns.
• Accessible to archaeology students at all levels, with detailed references and extensive case studies featured throughout

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title page

Copyright page

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Preface and Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

List of Tables

List of Figures

1: Collaborating with Stakeholders

Introduction

What and Who Is an Archaeological Stakeholder?

Collaboration Comes in Many Forms

Learning to Work with Stakeholders: A Discipline's Journey

Differing Ways of Knowing the Past

General Thoughts about How to Consult with Stakeholders

Specific Issues and Concerns

Owning the Past

Where to from Here?

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

2: Stratigraphy

Introduction

What Is Stratigraphy?

Why Do Archaeologists Study Stratification?

How Do Different Layers Occur in Archaeological Sites?

Principles (or Laws) of Stratigraphy

Excavation and Stratigraphy

Recording Stratification

Creating Analytical Units

Case Study 2.1: Sos Höyük

Conclusions

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

3: Sediments

Introduction

Why Study Soils and Sediments?

Sediments and Soils – Defining Concepts and Terms

Field Description and Sampling

Laboratory Techniques

Case Study 3.1: Prehistoric Canals in the American Southwest

Case Study 3.2: Kennewick Man, Washington State, United States

Conclusions

Further Reading

4: Absolute Dating

Introduction

Chronometry

Limits on Chronometric Techniques

From Age Measurement to Chronology

Temporal Resolution and Behavioral Variation

Case Study 4.1: Bone Cave

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

5: Rock Art

Introduction

What Is Rock Art?

How is Rock Art Made?

How Is Rock Art Recorded?

How and Why Is Rock Art Analyzed?

Informed Methods

Formal (or Structural) Methods

Dating Rock Art

Gender and Rock Art

Case Study 5.1: The Depiction of Species in Macropod Track Engravings

Concluding Remarks

Resources

6: An Introduction to Stone Artifact Analysis

Introduction

Analyzing Stone Artifacts

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

7: Ceramics

Introduction

What Is a “Ceramic?”

How Is Pottery Made?

Handling of Ceramics during and after Excavation

Initiating an Analytical Program for Ceramics

Areas of Ceramics Research and Their Analytical Approaches

Conclusion

Resources

8: Residues and Usewear

Introduction

Functional Analysis

Methodology, Experiments, and Procedures

Microscopes

Artifact Cleaning

Plant Residues Found on Artifacts

Animal Residues Found on Artifacts

Usewear

Residues on Grinding Stones and Potsherds

Case Study 8.1: Starch Grains Analysis of Residues on Grinding Stones

Case Study 8.2: Gas Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) Analysis of Archaeological Residues (by Elyse Beck and Peter Grave)

Discussion and Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

9: Animal Bones

Introduction

Look Before You Dig

Sampling and Recovery

Bagging and Tagging

Working Facilities

Making the Record

Identification: Whose Bone Is This?

What Has Happened to These Bones?

Who Was This Animal?

Preparing for the Research Phase

And Finally

10: Human Remains

Introduction: Why Study Human Remains and How It Has Developed

Ethics and Human Remains

Normal and Abnormal Variation

Methods

Studies of the Health of Populations

Specific Studies of Disease

Using Multiple Methods to Answer Questions on Past Health

Conclusion

Resources

11: Plant Remains

Introduction: A Scene (by Wendy Beck)

Macroscopic Plant Remains

What Can Plant Remains Contribute to Archaeology?

What Are the Problems (and Solutions) for Identifying and Interpreting Macroscopic Plant Remains?

What Kinds of Methods Can Be Effectively Used to Retrieve and Analyze Plant Remains?

Case Study 11.1: Plant Remains from Kawambarai Cave, Near Coonabarabran, Eastern Australia (by Wendy Beck and Dee Murphy)

Conclusion

Further Reading

12: Shell Middens and Mollusks

Introduction

Background

The Creation of Middens

The Identification of Middens

Field Procedures

Dating Middens

Laboratory Procedures

Hand Sorting into Components

Shellfish Analysis

Identification of Shellfish and Other Species

Further Analysis

Shell Artifacts

Fish Remains

Interpretation

Acknowledgments

Resources

13: Artifacts of the Modern World

Introduction

Cataloging Artifacts

Domestic Ceramics

Clay Tobacco Pipes

Bottle Glass

Beads and Buttons

Metal Containers

Firearms

Building Materials

Cemeteries and Gravestones

Artifact Analysis

Case Study 13.1: Kelly and Lucas' Whaling Station, Adventure Bay, Tasmania

Conclusion

Resources

14: Historical Sources

Introduction

Archaeology and Historical Sources

Case Study 14.1: Scales of History and Historical Archaeology

What Are the Relationships between Documents and Archaeological Evidence?

Acknowledgments

Resources

15: Writing the Past

Introduction

First Decisions

Structure

Writing

Language

Writing for Publication

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Further Reading

Appendix: Getting Things Right

Index

This edition first published 2014

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Archaeology in practice : a student guide to archaeological analyses / edited by Jane Balme, Alistair Paterson

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-470-65716-4 (pbk.)

1. Archaeology–Textbooks. I. Balme, Jane. II. Paterson, Alistair.

CC165.A633 2013

930.1–dc23

2013016291

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Cover image: Archaeologists excavating an underground church in Rihab, Jordan, June 2008. Source: © Ali Jarekji / Reuters.

Cover design by Design Deluxe.

Chapter Abstracts

Chapter 1

Archaeology's stakeholders are many and diverse, but we must learn to collaborate with them. Many believe that they own the past of their ancestors; that it is not a public heritage. This chapter briefly examines the history of archaeological interaction with stakeholders and epistemological issues that may block successful consultation. Consultation problems involve informed consent, competing claims, and notions of cultural property. Successful consultation involves building partnerships out of mutual respect.

Chapter 2

Stratigraphy is the study of stratification, that is, the interpretation of layers that form the deposits of a site over time. The study of stratification is of crucial importance for understanding what happened at an archaeological site – in particular, the order in which events occurred. There are four main principles, drawn from Earth science disciplines, upon which the interpretation of stratigraphy is based, but the human element in the accumulation of archaeological sites makes the application of these principles especially difficult. This chapter describes these principles and problems and the way in which a Harris Matrix can be used to describe the relationships between different layers and features at some sites. Approaches to the creation of analytical units, formed by combining material from stratigraphic units, to identify changes over time within and between sites is another important part of archaeological analysis discussed in this chapter.

Chapter 3

In archaeology, it is the sedimentary matrix that normally provides key contextual information for the interpretation of material culture: chronology, site formation, in situ transformations of archaeological information resident in soils and sediments and specifying past environments form core goals of sediment analysis when researching past human behavior. Modern technical approaches increasingly blend field and laboratory activities using “mixed methods” – deployed alongside established sampling and analytical for techniques such as grain size, pH, organic matter, and phosphorous content. Selection of approach and analytical procedures is cost-sensitive and has to be led by the research questions at hand. This chapter illustrates the process of matching analytical approach to research goals – with examples from Hokokam canal systems in the American Southwest, and the Kennewick Man in Washington State, where several techniques were used in combination without recourse to destructive sampling of the skeleton.

Chapter 4

The varieties of methods that archaeologists use to obtain age estimates for the materials that they analyze are outlined under the term “chronometry.” In this chapter, most of the major techniques are discussed, with a particular emphasis on radiocarbon. The chapter then reviews the range of assumptions involved in taking the resulting age estimates and developing these into archaeological chronologies. Case studies emphasize the need for archaeologists to relate the temporal scales at which deposits may be resolved to the nature of the inferences about past behavior that they subsequently draw.

Chapter 5

Rock art is an evocative form of material evidence for past peoples. Rock art takes many different forms around the world. Two primary forms result from their production either as engraving or by the use of pigment. Rock art can be classified according to technique, form, motif, and size. The recording technique will depend on the site context. Effective field recording will require technical skills and training. The appropriate analysis of rock art will depend on the questions asked by researchers and might include spatial distribution analysis, information exchange and stylistic analyses, questions of gender, statistical techniques, dating techniques, and examination of change over time and space.

Chapter 6

This chapter discusses a range of methodological issues and analytical techniques that offer modern alternatives to traditional typology of stone artifacts. This approach emphasizes the identification and description of variation and time ordering in manufacturing activities and their effects on artifact form, selection for further modification, and discard. A range of issues are also discussed, including research design, classification, data management, sample size effects, statistics, fragmentation, sourcing, and other topics of relevance to current and prospective stone analysts.

Chapter 7

After describing the geology and chemistry of clays, and technology of ceramic handling, suggestions are provided in this chapter for excavating, cleaning, marking, and handling of ceramics, followed by discussion of sampling and quantitative analysis. Initiating an analytical program requires appropriate laboratory methods matched carefully with areas of ceramics research (technology studies, usewear studies, dating, identification of potters, and provenance studies). Also included are suggestions for further study, a table of analytical methods, and a ceramics examination report.

Chapter 8

Usewear and residues can provide reliable indicators of how stone, bone, ceramic, and other artifacts were used in the past. In this chapter, procedures and methods are described for undertaking functional analysis, including introductory experiments and microscope equipment. The identification of organic residues requires knowledge of typical plant and animal structures, properties, and composition. Stone tools provide an example for discussing the main forms of usewear (scarring, striations, polish, and edge rounding), and the wear patterns that are diagnostic of particular tasks, such as sawing bone, cutting wood, and scraping hides. This chapter concentrates on recent archaeological applications and methodological problems.

Chapter 9

The importance of project planning and recovery procedures of animal bones is stressed in this chapter. Consistency in sieving and sampling and full documentation of all on-site procedures are essential to ensure data quality. Recording protocols balance the need for an archive and the research aims of the project. We discuss the categories of data that form the majority of any zooarchaeological record, and exemplify the link between recording and analysis by reviewing bone quantification.

Chapter 10

This chapter discusses why human remains are studied, how this area of the discipline has developed, ethical concerns and human remains, processes covering survival, funerary context, and excavation and postexcavation treatment and all their effects on analysis and interpretation of data. Normal (measurements and nonmetric traits) and abnormal (pathological lesions) variations in human remains are discussed, and an introduction to the analysis of human remains including the identification of sex, age at death, and demography is also provided.

Chapter 11

Plant remains survive at archaeological sites more often than might be expected. This chapter reviews the major areas of current research into macroscopic plant remains in archaeology. The first of these areas is the question of what plant remains can contribute to archaeology as a whole; the second is the problems associated with the identification and origin of plant remains; and the third is the available methods that can be effectively used to retrieve and analyze plant remains.

Chapter 12

This chapter describes the processes involved in analyzing a shell midden site, which is defined as an archaeological deposit that contains 50% or more by weight of shellfish remains, or one in which the principal visible constituent is shell. Problems in the identification of such sites are discussed, as are processes that may disturb them. Sampling issues are critical in midden analysis, and appropriate excavation techniques are canvassed. Some basic approaches to analyzing shell remains are described, and more complex techniques are mentioned.

Chapter 13

Basic principles used in cataloging artifacts common to historical archaeological sites are reviewed in this chapter, together with some of the major categories of artifacts found at historical archaeological sites. These categories include domestic ceramics and glass, building materials, and, more briefly, clay tobacco pipes, beads and buttons, glass tools, firearms, and metal containers. Methods used by historical archaeologists for quantifying and analyzing artifact information are discussed, with specific reference to minimum vessel counts and mean dates, and a guide to the most important literature on historic artifacts is provided.

Chapter 14

A review of historical sources in this chapter includes general guidelines for research preparation, selecting materials, and judging source credibility. A case study illustrates the use of documents at Braudel's three broad scales of history: long-term history, social time, and individual time. Relationships between documents and archaeological evidence are described as (1) identification, (2) complement, (3) hypothesis formation and testing, (4) contradiction, (5) confronting myths, and (6) creating context. An appeal is made for archaeological contributions to history.

Chapter 15

The starting points of writing are knowing what you want to say and who your audience is. Writing in the science structure – aims, background, methods, results, and conclusions – is suitable for most presentations, especially if you remember KISS (keep it simple, stupid). All writing benefits from being read and critiqued by your friends and colleagues; writing well requires constant practice. When writing for publication, follow the instructions meticulously, use only clear and relevant illustrations, and get your references right.

Preface and Acknowledgments

This volume is intended for students about the practices used by archaeologists in the analyses of archaeological materials. It can also be used as a sourcebook for professional archaeologists. Both of the authors have been involved for many years in teaching university courses in field and laboratory techniques in archaeology. The first edition of this book arose from the fact that, although there are many books for archaeology students on field methods (especially excavation techniques), much less is available for archaeological analysis techniques for students beyond the first-year university level. The gap, we believed, was a sourcebook on the practical methods of recording and analysis of different kinds of archaeological materials.

The process of archaeological research, which is summarized very simply in Figure 0.1, consists of much more than recording and analysis or even excavation as much of our public audience believes. Although most research follows this unidirectional step 1 to step 7 process, in reality, sometimes there will be feedback where, for example, data collection in step 5 may lead to some reformulation of the research plan.

Figure 0.1. The process of archaeological research.

All archaeological research is driven by steps one and two, that is, a research question or problem which is informed by theory that could be high level, such as evolutionary theory, or from lower level theory, such as the relationship between gender and material goods. The precise research question has to also identify a gap in knowledge that is informed by previous work relating to the theory. It is only by having a research question that the research plan (methodology), including the principles, methods, and tasks that are needed, can be developed to examine the question (step 3). The research plan should identify the sources, such as sites, historical documents, artefacts, animal, and plant remains, from which data can be obtained.

The next step is to acquire these sources of data. This may include finding books in libraries, archaeological survey, excavation to recover artifacts, plant remains, charcoal for dating or the like, but, it should be made clear that books, objects, and so on, are not data in themselves, they are the sources from which the data, or information about the objects, are taken. The research plan informs the data that needs to be collected from these sources (step 5) and the analysis of that data that allows it to be interpreted (step 6), and it is these two steps with which this book is primarily concerned, although the individual chapters may sometimes necessarily touch on others steps of the archaeological process.

Not all data are collected in the laboratory. Some, such as the spatial position of archaeological sites or objects, sizes of buildings, and records of rock art motifs are collected in the field and some, such as data collected from texts and photographs, are collected in libraries and offices. Sometimes objects are recorded in situ (in place) in the field rather than being brought into the laboratory. Because numerous excellent books on field archaeology include advice on data collection in the field, we have concentrated on the data that are collected in the laboratory, office and libraries. We have, however, included a chapter on rock art recording (Chapter 5) and a chapter on stratigraphy (Chapter 2) because the former is usually not dealt with in detail in field method books, and the latter is needed for the discussion on chronometric techniques (Chapter 4).

We have also had to be selective about the kinds of data collection covered in the remainder of the book. There is such a variety of evidence in archaeology around the globe, and so many differences across time and space, that we could not possibly cover all material types in all places and all time periods. To make the book manageable, we have restricted ourselves to those topics that are usually covered in general university courses on archaeological analyses. Topics such as DNA methods, while now widely used in archaeology, are too specialized for our target audience. The selection of topics was largely based on a questionnaire sent to university teachers in field and laboratory techniques before the first edition was published. These academics, mainly from North America, the United Kingdom, and the Australia Pacific region, were asked which topics they would want included in a text for higher undergraduate/lower graduate students. When a second, revised edition was proposed, the (now Wiley) editors obtained reviews of the first edition to identify any major changes that were required. Apart from updates to the existing chapters, the major result of that review is that a new chapter on human remains (Chapter 10) has been added and a chapter on finding sites included in the first edition was removed as it was thought to relate more to field techniques.

This book does not pretend to cover all aspects of all possible forms of analysis of the archaeological evidence discussed. To do so would have resulted in a book of insufficient depth for the target audience. We therefore had to make further decisions about what could and could not be included within each topic. Thus, for example, Chapters 6 and 7 are restricted to artifacts in prehistory, as this technology provides the major evidence for most of the human past and is an important aspect of most university courses. Rather than trying to include something on every historical period, we included a chapter on artifacts of the modern world (Chapter 13) as this topic in particular was nominated by our respondents.

One of the problems with “how to” books is that the “why” is often forgotten. From our own experience, we were very conscious of the need to ensure that students are aware of the links between the data collection methods and the remaining steps in the archaeological research process. It is for this reason that we decided that our approach to the book would be a series of essays that showed students how different kinds of archaeological materials are used to answer research questions. In our experience, students are more likely to understand this link when they learn from archaeologists who are talking about their own research problems and how they solved them. All of the authors contributing to this book are a leading expert or experts in their subject area. As a guide to the content of each chapter, we asked authors to think about what they would like their students to know about their particular topic in a university course on laboratory methods in archaeology. The remaining part of their brief was to make sure that they explained the main techniques of analysis and to use examples from their own work to demonstrate how some of those techniques are applied and interpreted.

To further demonstrate the process of archaeological research we have included a chapter on writing up the results for an academic audience (step 7; Chapter 15). Of course this is not the only way that archaeologists disseminate their information as it is important to provide the results of our research to other audiences, including the wider public. These other audiences will require different methods of communication that are beyond the scope of this book. We have begun this book with a chapter on collaborating stakeholders for two reasons (Chapter 1). First, the topic was suggested by several respondents in the original questionnaire of topics that university teachers asked for and second, it is not covered well in other “how to” books on archaeology, but the ethical context of doing archaeology is an important part of all archaeological practice, and we thought it a good way to begin a book on the topic of practice.

Finally, we have not attempted to provide case studies from every corner of the globe. Our overall objective is to guide students on methods of data collection and analysis and to demonstrate the link between research question, analysis techniques, and conclusion rather than produce a book on world archaeology. By and large, the methods by which archaeologists achieve their aims are global. To show diverse applications of techniques, each chapter provides additional references to other work on particular archaeological evidence that has been discussed. We believe that the book will be relevant to many archaeology students across the globe and that it will provide insight into the breadth of modern archaeology. For students who are at the stage at which they are thinking about designing their own projects, the chapters in this book will be a guide to the possibilities from their evidence and the problems of which they need to be aware.

Jane Balme and Alistair Paterson

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all of the people who have helped to bring this book into fruition. The contributors by and large produced to a schedule and responded promptly to our ongoing requests. Thanks are also due to the many anonymous reviewers of the first edition who suggested revisions for this edition and of the manuscript for the second edition. We think that the final book has benefited from all of this advice. Finally, we would like to give thanks to the Wiley Blackwell editors who guided us through this edition, particularly Julia Kirk, Rosalie Robertson, Kathy Syplywczak and Jennifer Bray, all of whose advice has been invaluable.

Notes on Contributors

Jane Balme is a Professor in Archaeology at the University of Western Australia. She has been teaching undergraduate and graduate students in Australian universities for 20 years. Areas of research and publication include the archaeology of hunter–gatherer societies (especially subsistence) and Australian Indigenous archaeology.

Anthony Barham is convenor of the Masters of Archaeological Science Program at the Australian National University, having previously lectured in Geoarchaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. His research and teaching is cross-disciplinary and international in focus, studying sediments and stratigraphy on diverse urban development and mine sites, tells, middens, and Holocene shorelines. He has long-standing career foci in applied geoarchaeological practice in archaeological mitigation, coastal geoarchaeology, and the role of Quaternary stratigraphic architectures in determining the preserved archaeological record.

James Barrett is Deputy Director of the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research and Reader in Medieval Archaeology at the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. His particular research interests are the “long” Viking Age, political economy, migration, and the comparative study of maritime societies. Recent publications include Being an Islander, based on his work at Quoygrew, Orkney.

Wendy Beck is an Associate Professor in Archaeology at the University of New England in New South Wales. Her recent research and teaching interests include hunter–gatherer subsistence, especially plant food resources, and Indigenous and community archaeology and archaeological education. Her publications include articles in Economic Botany, Journal of Archaeological Science, and Australian Aboriginal Studies, and she coedited the book Plants in Australian Archaeology.

Sandra Bowdler is Emeritus Professor of Archaeology at the University of Western Australia. She has long been interested in coastal archaeology and hence midden analysis, having published an earlier paper of which this is a revised version (“Sieving seashells: midden analysis in Australian archaeology,” in G. E. Connah (ed.) Australian Archaeology: a Guide to Field Techniques, 1983). She is also the author of Hunter Hill, Hunter Island which describes her research in Tasmania, and numerous articles on her research at Shark Bay in Western Australia.

Kelly M. Branam, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Saint Cloud State University (SCSU). In addition to teaching undergraduate cultural anthropology courses, she teaches and works with graduate students in SCSU's Cultural Resource Management Master's program. Her ethnographic dissertation research on Crow Indian politics instigated research concerning the contentious relationship between the Yellowtail Dam, the Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area (NRA) (which was created as a result of the dam), and the Crow Indian community. She has been an instructor for several different archaeological field projects that have taken place in the Bighorn Canyon NRA. These field projects bring archaeologists, anthropologists, students, and tribal community members together for collaboration on cultural resource preservation.

Chris Clarkson is a Senior Lecturer and QEII Fellow in the School of Social Science, The University of Queensland. He is an expert in lithic analysis and works in various regions, including Australia, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia. His current research revolves around understanding the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa to Arabia, India, Asia, and Australian, as well as behavioral and cognitive similarities and differences between modern humans and Neanderthals. Chris is also working on developing better quantitative methods of lithic analysis and testing hypotheses about the evolution of technology through archaeology, theory, and experiment.

Emilie Dotte-Sarout is an Archaeobotanist at the University of Western Australia. She completed her cotutelle PhD in 2010 at the Australian National University and Sorbonne University. She researches the relationships between people and forests in the Pacific through the analysis of wood charcoal macro­remains. These are directly related to issues of landscape changes, arboricultural practices, or plant introduction and domestication. She has also been working on enhancing resources on the anatomy of woody taxa from Australasia and promoting the development of anthracology in the region. Results of her doctoral research have recently been published as book chapters or articles in various volumes related to Pacific Archaeology.

Linda Ellis is Senior Curator of the University Museum and Professor/Founding Director of the Museum Studies Program at San Francisco State University. Her books include Archaeological Method and Theory: An Encyclopedia. Areas of research and publication include laboratory methods in archaeology, museum professional practices, and archaeology of Eastern Europe from prehistory to Late Antiquity.

Richard Fullagar is Honorary Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth and Environmental Science, University of Wollongong, Australia, and a Director of Scarp Archaeology. He has recently published papers in Science, Quaternary International, Archaeology in Oceania, and Antiquity on early utilization of starchy plants in Papua New Guinea and China, stone technology, and Australian prehistory. Current interests include initial colonization of Australia, megafaunal extinctions, and the history of plant food processing.

Simon Holdaway is a Professor in the Department of Anthropology, The University of Auckland. His research interests include the arid zone and coastal archaeology of Australia, the Neolithic of Egypt, and the historical archaeology of New Zealand. He has written extensively on stone artifact analysis and human environmental interaction.

Gary Huckleberry is an Adjunct Research Associate, Department of Geosciences, University of Arizona. His specialties are geoarchaeology and geomorphology, and he has published in several journals, including American Antiquity, Journal of Field Archaeology, Geology, and Quaternary Research. He is coeditor of Geoarchaeology: An International Journal.

Susan Lawrence is an Associate Professor in Archaeology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, and a past president of the Australasian Society for Historical Archaeology. She is the author (with Peter Davies) of An Archaeology of Australia Since 1788. Other publications include Dolly's Creek: Archaeology and History of a Victorian Goldfields Community and Archaeologies of the British.

Barbara J. Little is an archaeologist with the US National Park Service in Washington, DC, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland. Her interests include public benefits of archaeology and citizen engagement via heritage. Her recent publications include the books Historical Archaeology: Why the Past Matters and Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement, coedited with Paul A. Shackel.

Jo McDonald has been recording Australian rock art for over 30 years. While being a career consultant, she has also held a research position at the Australian National University. She was Principal Investigator on the Canning Stock Route Project (rock art and Jukurrpa) and is now an ARC Future Fellow, comparing desert rock art in Australia and North America. She has published widely on information-exchange theory, gender, and rock art management, and has been involved in national and World Heritage nominations for rock art provinces. She is the Director of the Centre for Rock Art Research + Management at the University of Western Australia, and holds the endowed Rio Tinto Chair in Rock Art Studies.

Sue O'Connor is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow in the Australian National University's College of Australia and the Pacific, researching modern human dispersal, adaptation, and behavior en route to Australia. Her research interests in Australia and Island Southeast Asia are reflected in her publications and books East of Wallace's Line Studies of Past and Present Maritime Cultures of the Indo-Pacific Region (with P. Veth) and 30,000 Years of Aboriginal Occupation, Kimberley, North West Australia.

Terry O'Connor is Professor of Archaeological Science at the University of York, United Kingdom. His books include The Archaeology of Animal Bones, Environmental Archaeology, Principles and Methods (with J. G. Evans), and volumes in the Archaeology of York series. Interests and publications range across zooarchaeology, particularly bone taphonomy and human–animal behavioral coevolution.

Alistair Paterson is a Professor of Archaeology and Head of the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia. His research and teaching covers culture contact, historical archaeology in maritime and terrestrial settings, European colonization, historical rock art, and archaeological and historical methodology. He is the author of A Millennium of Cultural Contact (Left Coast, 2011), and The Lost Legions: Culture Contact in Colonial Australia (AltaMira, 2008). He is past President of the Australian Archaeological Association (2005–2007), and has been involved with editing for, and publishing in, key archaeology journals, including Archaeology in Oceania, Internet Archaeology, Australasian Historical Archaeology, and Australian Archaeology.

Charlotte Roberts is a Professor of Archaeology at Durham University, United Kingdom. She is a bioarchaeologist with a first career in nursing, who has primarily focused for 30 years on the study and interpretation of evidence of disease (paleopathology) in archaeological skeletal remains using traditional and more advanced analytical techniques (e.g., stable isotope and ancient pathogen DNA analyses). She is interested in the contextualized approaches to studying the interaction of people with their environments in the past by exploring patterns of health and disease. Her books include The Archaeology of Disease, Human Remains in Archaeology: A Handbook, Health and Disease in Britain: From Prehistory to the Present Day, A Global History of Paleopathology: Pioneers and Prospects, and The Bioarchaeology of Tuberculosis: A Global Perspective on a Re-Emerging Disease.

Peter White is Honorary Research Associate in Archaeology at the University of Sydney. His books include The Past Is Human and A Prehistory of Australia, New Guinea and Sahul. He has edited refereed journals such as Archaeology in Oceania all his professional life.

Larry J. Zimmerman is Professor of Anthropology and Museum Studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and Public Scholar of Native American Representation at the Eiteljorg Museum. He has served as Head of the Archaeology Department of the Minnesota Historical Society, as Chair of American Indian and Native Studies at the University of Iowa, and as Distinguished Regents Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Dakota. His research emphases include North American archaeology, Indigenous archaeology, and archaeological analysis of contemporary sites.

List of Tables

Table 3.1. Factors to consider when describing, sampling, and analyzing deposits in archaeology.

Table 3.2. Common sedimentological analysis and methods employed in archaeological studies.

Table 3.3. Some applications of particle-size analysis in reconstructing sedimentary history and paleoenvironments.

Table 3.4. Organic matter and calcite data from Kennewick study site and skeleton (Huckleberry et al. 2003).

Table 4.1. Sample size requirements as dry weights (from Waikato Radiocarbon Dating Laboratory 2009).

Table 4.2. The effect of contamination in comparison to the typical age uncertainty of a radiocarbon determination (from Bronk Ramsey 2008a; table 2).

Table 4.3. Dating methods grouped by shared assumptions, mechanisms, and applications from Coleman et al. (1987: 316).

Table 4.4. OxCal 4.1 Chronological Query Language to determine the span of ages for radiocarbon determinations from Kom K, Trench 2 (Wendrich et al. 2010).

Table 4.5. OxCal 4.1 output for the Bayesian analysis of Kom K, Trench 2 radiocarbon determinations.

Table 6.1. Common problems, solutions, and negative effects of various stoneworking procedures.

Table 6.2. List of features and their supposed frequency in various forms of stone artifact manufacture.

Table 6.3. Key questions and possible approaches in lithic analysis.

Table 7.1. Laboratory methods of analysis for ceramic studies.

Table 13.1. Calculations of minimum number of vessels (MNVs) for bottles, clay pipes, and ceramics, using some of the data from Kelly and Lucas' whaling station, Tasmania.

Table 13.2. Data for calculating mean artifact dates.

Table 13.3. Mean artifact dates for whole assemblage and separate components.

Table 13.4. Quantity of artifact fragments at Adventure Bay.

List of Figures

Figure 0.1. The process of archaeological research.

Figure 1.1. Working with Ojibwe elders and youths to build a Mide (teaching) lodge, Ft. Snelling, Minnesota, 2003.

Figure 2.1. Devil's Lair section through south face of main excavation, showing places referred to in the text (adapted from Balme et al. 1978).

Figure 2.2. Locations of Devil's Lair, Regentville, and western New South Wales.

Figure 2.3. A section through a sand dune bordering an inland lake in western New South Wales, Australia (adapted from Balme 1995).

Figure 2.4. A section of the Main Drain (a) at the historical site of Regentville and the Harris Matrix (b) (adapted with permission from Wilson and Birmingham).

Figure 2.5. Location of the archaeological site of Sos Höyük, northeastern Anatolia.

Figure 2.6. Sos Höyük: (a) Sequence of ages at site. (b) Section showing Middle Bronze Age to Early Iron Age IIa in Trench M16 c/d, south and west sections. (c) Burial shown in section. (d) Ceramic vessel to date associated burial.

Figure 3.1. Two case study project areas in the western United States. Case study 3.1 is located in the Phoenix basin of south-central Arizona. Case study 3.2 is located on the banks of the Columbia River in the town of Kennewick, Washington.

Figure 3.2. The profile and the granulometric data for the relict canal located on the Gila River, south-central Arizona (canal profile reproduced from Huckleberry 1999b; fig. 4).

Figure 3.3. Skeleton sediment sample locations and geochronology at the Kennewick Man discovery locality. Physical and chemical tests of sediments were used to correlate the skeleton to the upper part of the Lithostratigraphic Unit II, thus supporting the early Holocene age of the human remains (skeleton reproduced from Huckleberry et al. 2003: fig. 3).

Figure 4.1. A sample from the excavation of a heat retainer hearth before pretreatment. Rootlets, pieces of wood, and other organic contaminants are removed from the charcoal.

Figure 4.2. The limits of radiometric techniques for age estimation displayed as a radiometric decay curve. The radioactive isotope ratio R/R0 decreases through time. Precision is shown by the vertical bar and the tlow and tup ages. The maximum and minimum ranges are indicated when the error bars strike the 0 and 1.0 values on the y-axis, respectively. Modified from Blackwell and Schwarcz (1993) with permission.

Figure 4.3. OxCal probability distribution for the radiocarbon age determination from hearth SC5 (Holdaway et al. 2005). The calibrated one and two standard deviation ranges are given indicated by the two sets of horizontal brackets. Because of flat areas in the calibration curve there are multiple intercepts between this curve and the probability distribution for the radiocarbon age.

Figure 4.4. OxCal 4.1 “multiplot” for radiocarbon determinations from Kom K, Trench 2. Light-colored probability plots represent the calibrated age (likelihood) determinations while dark-colored plots are the posterior probability plots after Bayesian analysis based on the prior stratigraphic position. The horizontal bars represent the one and two standard deviation limits for the posterior probability plots (see text).

Figure 4.5. Posterior age depth plot calculated with OxCal 4.1 for selected radiocarbon determinations from Square C, Bone Cave (Allen 1996; Holdaway 2004). The prior uses stratigraphic depth and the presence of a sterile layer, Unit 6, modeled by the boundary change indicated at a depth between 0.6 and 0.8 m. See text for discussion.

Figure 5.1. Photograph of engraved macropod, boomerangs, and ship at Devil's Rock Maroota. The motifs were photographed at night, using oblique lighting (photo by J. McDonald).

Figure 5.2. John Clegg using a camera affixed to a monopod to record large horizontal engravings (John Clegg, with permission).

Figure 5.3. A site of plan Yengo Rockshelter showing location of art panels.

Figure 5.4. Scaled reduction of traced engraving panel on boulder at front of Yengo Rockshelter (refer to Figure 5.5).

Figure 5.5. Digital image of an engraved archaic motif which was traced on polythene, juxtaposed with a photograph of the same motif (images taken by J. McDonald).

Figure 5.6. Scaled reduced tracing of engraved macropod, boomerangs, and (postcontact) ship at Devil's Rock Maroota (compare with Figure 5.1).

Figure 5.7. Using a handheld PDA (Nomad) to record engravings on the Dampier Archipelago and example of the downloaded database information (photo by J. McDonald).

Figure 5.8. Example of ancient engravings of tracks, circles, and geometric designs. Western Desert (photo by J. McDonald).

Figure 5.9. Posterior view of a typical macropod foot.

Figure 5.10. Variations in gait for two species in different surface conditions.

Figure 5.11. (a) Seventeen of the 23 artifact types identified at South Saddle, ordered into species: red kangaroo/euro, gray kangaroo, megafauna, and others. (b) The bivariate graph for component scores (PCA) show how the engraved motif types cluster around zoological macropod foot types.

Figure 6.1. Examples of some of the highest achievements in prehistoric stone artifact manufacture: (a) a fluted Folsom point; (b) an Upper Paleolithic Solutrean point; (c) a Danish Neolithic flint dagger; (d) a Late Stone Age Egyptian Gerzian ripple-flaked knife; (e) a Mayan chert eccentric; (f) Aztec obsidian pressure blades and cores (from Whittaker 1994, copyright © 1994, by permission of the University of Texas Press).

Figure 6.2. Types and features of initiation and termination: (a) fracture forces; (b) Hertzian cones; (c) fracture initiations; (d) termination types.

Figure 6.3. Fracture features often found on the ventral and dorsal surfaces of a conchoidal flake (reproduced courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum).

Figure 6.4. The effects of increasing or decreasing platform angle and platform thickness: (a) low exterior platform angle; (b) high exterior platform angle.

Figure 6.5. Platform features indicative of various preparatory techniques (arrows indicate the location and direction of blows).

Figure 6.6. Various reduction techniques and forms of retouched: (a) platform redirection; (b) burination; (c) dorsal retouch; (d) ventral retouch; (e) bifacial retouch.

Figure 6.7. An illustration of some typical classifying variables and their means of combination under monothetic or polythetic classification.

Figure 6.8. Changes in core morphology over the sequence of reduction.

Figure 6.9. The reduction flowchart and the frequencies with which various core reduction sequences were employed at Sandon Point, New South Wales coast.

Figure 6.10. Changes in flake morphology over Reduction Sequence 1.

Figure 6.11. A graph illustrating the range of variation in flake shape employed in the different forms of retouching.

Figure 6.12. Changes in the flake morphology as retouching increases: (a) the percentage of the margin retouched; (b) the edge curvature; (c) the mean retouched angle; (d) the index of invasiveness.

Figure 6.13. An illustration of the range of flake fragment types found in many assemblages.

Figure 7.1. An object condition and examination report for ceramics.

Figure 8.1. A procedure for looking at stone tools.

Figure 8.2. A sample of a usewear and residue recording sheet.

Figure 8.3. Starch granules under a transmitted-light microscope with DIC (courtesy of Corinne Barlow, Jirrbal Community, Ravenshoe, North Queensland, and Judith Field, University of New South Wales).

Figure 8.4. Experimental residues and usewear on experimental flint tools: note the lighter polished areas and edge rounding in (b) and (c). (a) Conical silica particles on a mortar used to grind wild rice, Oryza sp.; DF (0.3 mm). (b) Usewear on a tool used to scrape bamboo, Bambusa sp.; BF (0.3 mm). (c) Usewear on a tool used to slice reeds, Phragmites australis; BF (0.3 mm). (d) Collagen fibers on a tool used to scrape kangaroo, Macropus sp., skin; BF (0.3 mm). (e) Fleshy tissue on a tool used to scrape possum, Trichosurus vulpecula, skin; BF (4 cm). (f) Skin, hair, and blood on a tool used to skin a possum, T. vulpecula; BF (0.2 mm). (g) The same view as in (f); DF (0.2 mm). (h) Skin and hair on a tool used to skin a kangaroo, Macropus sp.; SM (14 mm). BF, brightfield incident light; DF, darkfield incident light; SM, stereomicroscope (width of field in millimeters).

Figure 8.5. The phases of flake formation (after Cotterell & Kamminga 1990: 134, by permission of the author).

Figure 8.6. Experimental polishes on stone artifacts after 45 minutes (Fullagar 1991). Each image is under brightfield incident light, and the width of field is 0.3 mm. Note the lighter polished areas and edge rounding. (a) Usewear on a flint tool used to scrape light-density wood (Dacrydium franklinii). (b) Usewear on a quartz tool used to scrape light-density wood (D. franklinii). (c) Usewear on a flint tool used to scrape bamboo (Bambusa sp.). (d) Usewear on a quartz tool used to scrape bamboo (Bambusa sp.). Note the feather-terminated scar and the fracture stress lines (not striations from use). (e) Usewear on a flint tool used to scrape cow (Bos taurus) bone. (f) Usewear on a flint tool used to scrape tanned seal (Arctocephalus pusillus) skin. (h) Usewear on a quartz tool used to scrape tanned seal (A. pusillus) skin.

Figure 8.7. Left: Micrograph of starch granule from the surface of the c. 27,000-year-old grindstone [CS6023] from Cuddie Springs. Right: Marsilea drummondii (nardoo) grains can be irregular in shape but are generally oval to obovate, often with irregular margins and a rugose surface. The top of the grain is flattened with a broad hilum area (courtesy of Judith Field).

Figure 8.8. Chromatogram displaying relative abundance (ions) on y-axis and retention time (RT) in minutes on the x-axis. Octadecanoic acid eluted at 17.69 minutes (data produced by Wendy Beck ©).

Figure 8.9. Mass spectrum for octadecanoic acid is shown here. The y-axis displays relative abundance (of each ion), and the x-axis displays increasing molecular weight of the compound fragments (data produced by Wendy Beck ©).

Figure 9.1. (a) Articulated fish vertebrae. (b) A horse burial.

Figure 9.2. A pig mandible in situ at Flixborough, United Kingdom.

Figure 9.3. (a) Wet sieving at Quoygrew. (b) Flotation at Quoygrew.

Figure 9.4. Sampling house floors at Quoygrew.

Figure 9.5. Wash, do not scrub. Overenthusiastic washing could have removed the important mineralized fecal concretions from this specimen.

Figure 9.6. On the left, a convenient and widely used form of cardboard “bone box.” On the right, the consequences of long-term storage in a wet basement. Photo: Anne Brundle (dec.).

Figure 9.7. A corner of the York bird reference collection, showing skeletons above and specimens laid out by skeletal element below.

Figure 9.8. Forensic zooarchaeology? The size, shape, and relative positions of the tooth marks on this chicken humerus implicate a cat in the chicken's demise.

Figure 9.9. Age at death by dentition. In the 11-month sheep (above), one deciduous tooth is still retained, and the second molar is just beginning to erupt. In the 4-year sheep (below), all permanent (adult) teeth are in wear, and age estimation will be based on the relative exposure of dentine and enamel (inset).

Figure 9.10. A specimen data-entry page for the York System, showing customized form entry to a relational database.

Figure 10.1. Supine extended burial with large knife (or small seax) at waist area (Bowl Hole, Bamburgh, Northumberland 56, England) – with permission of Sarah Groves. Reproduced by permission of The Bamburgh Research Project.

Figure 10.2. Display of human remains, Hallstatt, Austria.

Figure 10.3. Skull from Matterdale, Cumbria, England, showing preservation of hair and hair pin.

Figure 10.4. Planning frame over skeletons for recording before lifting the skeletons.

Figure 10.5. Skeleton in the ground at the churchyard of the hospital of St. Giles, Brompton-on-Swale, North Yorkshire, England, showing left hip fracture and shortening of the leg. Reproduced by permission of Peter Cardwell and North Yorkshire County Council.

Figure 10.6. Example of well-marked bones.

Figure 10.7. Box used for storage of skeletons at Durham University, England.

Figure 10.8. (a) Skull and (b) pelvis of a male skeleton. (c) Skull and (d) pelvis of a female skeleton.

Figure 10.9. Example of dental development in a juvenile individual (all milk or deciduous teeth are erupted and first permanent molars are unerupted (arrows) in the jaws).

Figure 10.10. Pubic symphyseal face of the pelvis showing ridge and furrow appearance suggesting a young adult.

Figure 10.11. Example of mortality profiles from different populations.

Figure 10.12. Stature through time in Britain (from Roberts & Cox 2003).

Figure 10.13. Trochanteric fossa exostosis (arrow), a nonmetric trait.

Figure 10.14. Ear exostosis (arrow), a nonmetric trait.

Figure 10.15. Formation (a) and destruction (b) of bone in disease.

Figure 10.16. Maxillary sinusitis frequency data (Roberts 2007).

Figure 10.17. Tuberculosis of the spine (destructive lesions) at early medieval Addingham, Yorkshire, England.

Figure 10.18. Evidence of DISH in the spine in an early twentieth-century individual in the Robert J. Terry Collection, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

Figure 11.1. Sampling and recovery for plant remains (Drawing by K. Newman).

Figure 11.2. Plant recovery by water flotation (Drawing by D. Pearsall, 2000: Fig 2.23).

Figure 11.3. Example of an anthracological diagram showing relative frequency of each taxa indentified in assemblages of different contexts/time period (New Caledonia precolonial settlement sites, cf., Dotte-Sarout et al. 2010).

Figure 11.4. Example of wood atlas form with microscope images of wood charcoal used as reference for identification (cf. Dotte-Sarout 2010).

Figure 11.5. Floor plan and profile of KACA (Drawing by D. Murphy).

Figure 11.6. Plant parts as percentages of plant weight in KACA J19 (Drawing by D. Murphy).

Figure 12.1. A flowchart for the analysis of shells.

Figure 12.2. Gastropod parts.

Figure 12.3. A Turbinidae shell and operculum (note that the sculpture on the latter varies from species to species).

Figure 12.4. Bivalve parts.

Figure 12.5. Chiton valves.

Figure 12.6. A cuttlefish gladius.

Figure 12.7. Crayfish mandibles.

Figure 12.8. Sea urchin teeth.

Figure 14.1. This handwritten document, which illustrates the difficulty of deciphering handwriting, is Beard's Survey of Anne Arundel Town, 1683/1684. Annapolis Mayor, Alderman and Councilmen (Land Record Papers). Accession Number: [11200 1-22-3-23].

Figure 15.1. Obscure and clear data presentation: (a) Several sets of data have been superimposed to save space; data are measured in unrelated units, unit labels are wrong, arrows are unnecessary. (b) The same data, separated into three components and using no more space (reproduced with permission from O'Connor 1991, Writing Successfully in Science, Harper Collins Academic, 1991).

Figure 15.2. This is probably one of the world's ugliest and most misleading graph forms. You should never use it. It crams in much data, but it is seriously difficult to retrieve this. Note, for example, that although there are six time periods given (x-axis), there are only five time slots. It is hard to work out the value of a particular count – for instance, the gray column xxxiii/P3 (?P2) is actually a higher count than the white column in xxxiii/P6 (?P5) because it is the height of the columns which gives the count. It is easy for tall columns at the front rows to obscure shorter columns in the rear (created in Microsoft™ Excel by Trudy Doelman).

1

Collaborating with Stakeholders

Larry J. Zimmerman and Kelly M. Branam

Introduction

In the first edition of this book, the title of this chapter was “Consulting Stakeholders.” The change to “Collaborating with Stakeholders” for this edition reflects the rapidly changing views of archaeologists in accountability to their many publics. Collaborating is a more comprehensive term, which incorporates everything from notification to full-scale engagement in which stakeholder groups set research agendas, actively interpret results, and sometimes use information from collaborative projects to generate social policy or change relating to their group. Sometimes, archaeologists take an activist role in suggesting possible uses of information and working with a group to implement social change.

This is a far cry from a time when archaeologists sometimes joked that they got into archaeology so they didn't have to deal with living people. The truth is, some archaeologists still do hope to avoid interaction with members of descendent communities or other stakeholder groups and give any number of reasons or excuses. Times have changed, and a lot of archaeologists now fully understand that the past has many stakeholders who may have as much right to the past as archaeologists, and in the case of descendent communities, even more right to it. In fact, the very phrase “the past” may be seen as nothing more than a convenient, generic reference because some archaeologists now understand that there likely are several pasts, all of them capable of explicating a particular set of material remains an archaeologist might find.

Recognition by archaeologists of the rights of these stakeholders and the complexities of the past has taken decades, with no small amount of contention. Pressure to do so came primarily not only from Indigenous people, but also from other descendent communities, starting with demands for the return of human skeletal remains and sacred objects. As they articulated their concerns and anger, their distrust of archaeology and the pasts it generates became abundantly clear. Out of this came additional demands for consultation with descendent community members, which in some cases became part of governmental laws and regulations related to protection of cultural heritage. The result was that by the time archaeology entered the twenty-first century, many archaeologists began to consider consultation with stakeholders to be an important and expected part of their work. Although acceptance of the need for consultation became standard practice, what consultation really meant took time to sort out. A move toward collaboration, essentially a more engaged form of consultation, has been the result.

This chapter will explore some core theoretical and practical aspects of collaboration, that is, direct interaction by archaeologists with other stakeholders in jointly negotiated projects. This chapter may not be what you expect. Unlike some aspects of archaeological methods, collaboration cannot be a set of techniques to apply in standard ways or to “typical” situations. It is not intended to be a primer. To provide a “cookbook” for collaboration actually would be irresponsible and misleading because even within the same culture, descendent communities can be extremely diverse. Please heed this warning: Approaches that work for collaborating with one group may bring disaster with another.

Still, several underlying epistemological (i.e., “how we know what we know”) issues and some practical matters seem to appear with regularity. The practical considerations discussed here also will include some of the primary consultation and collaboration laws, regulations, or policies in the United States, Canada, and Australia, along with a discussion of how collaboration works (or doesn't). Throughout, brief examples will illustrate key points.

What and Who Is an Archaeological Stakeholder?

Stakeholder theory is complex (see Mitchell et al. 1997: 854), but most of us have a basic notion of who or what an archaeological stakeholder might be – an individual, group, or agency with an interest or “stake” in some aspect of the archaeological record. In practice, however, there can be substantially greater complexity, as many archaeologists will tell you. There are concerns with possession of, or rights to, some “property” that is contested, property that will be turned over to the winner of the “contest.” Each stakeholder has resources such as tradition, identity, or money to be committed to the contest and what negotiators call salience, the level of commitment the stakeholder has in pursuing this issue over other issues, essentially how important an issue is to them relative to other concerns. The archaeological record often has multiple stakeholders, all of them contending for archaeological property, whether for artifacts or for control of the very nature of the past and how stories about it get told. To the contest they bring varied resources and salience that range from low levels where they do little more than announce that they are stakeholders to intense contention that might include strong rhetoric, legal action, or even violence.

Stakeholders are varied, with archaeologists themselves being an important group. Many archaeologists have seen themselves as scientific, and therefore objective, parties to these issues, aloof from the “politics” of the past. By the early 1980s, however, there was clearly a disciplinary stake in the past as some scholars saw the repatriation issue as a threat to their access to human remains, grave goods, sacred objects, and data generated from them. Levels of salience increased dramatically as did the resources put to the contest, and some archaeologists went so far as to go to court to stake their claims (e.g., the Kennewick skeleton in the United States – for two views of this case, see Chatters 2001; Thomas 2001; see also the discussion in Chapter 3 of this book).

At the same time, archaeologists underestimated the true salience of Indigenous people regarding the past. In the repatriation issue, for example, many archaeologists thought Indigenous people didn't care about human remains and excavations of traditional sites, mostly because they rarely heard Indigenous people complain. What archaeologists failed to realize was that colonized Indigenous people had a lot of problems with greater immediacy that impinged on their cultural – sometimes even their physical – survival (e.g., land title, health issues, and economy) and very few resources. As those issues abated and some groups were able to increase their resources, saliency about protecting their cultural property and traditions sometimes made them extremely vocal stakeholders, with many seeing their very identities at stake in the stories archaeologists told about Indigenous pasts (Zimmerman 2001; for specific statements by Indigenous peoples, see Langford 1983; Forsman 1997: 109; Tsosie 1997: 66, several papers in Layton 1989, but especially Bielawski 1989).

Seeing Indigenous people and archaeologists as primary stakeholders, however, would be a vast oversimplification. Members of other, non-Indigenous, descendent communities also have a stake in pasts they see as being from their ancestors. Sometimes, descendent communities can even be composed of members of ethnic communities that are part of the dominant society. Contested pasts are sometimes violent, as in the case of the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India (Romey 2004). There are stakeholder groups beyond those who have a direct cultural or genetic affiliation to a particularly contested past. Passions are equally felt, for example, over the long-term Greek demands for the return of Elgin/Parthenon Marbles (Guardian Unlimited 2009). There are stakeholder groups such as government agencies or developers who are beyond those with a direct cultural or genetic affiliation to a particularly contested past. Some groups, archaeologists among them, even tend to think of the past as a public heritage where everyone has a stake. As cases in point, people from many parts of the world showed great concern about possible damage to archaeological sites from warfare in Iraq and looting of Iraqi museums and sites (Garen 2004) and in early 2011, looting from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo (Elkin 2011).

Private citizens can have a stake, particularly when it comes to artifacts. In several countries, the United States most notably, artifacts found on privately held land usually are considered to be the landowner's property (the rare exception being human remains). Even antiquities dealers, collectors, and looters are stakeholders, some making their living directly from acquisition and sales of antiquities. However, public moneys from citizen-paid taxes pay for most archaeological research, and government required-and-paid-for cultural and heritage resources management activities make up the vast majority of all archaeology in several countries. Thus, project managers and government agencies comprise a significant group of stakeholders who make demands about how the archaeology gets done and what happens to materials recovered. Museums and other educational organizations also may have concerns about what happens to archaeological artifacts, especially in their interpretations and presentation. Land developers become stakeholders when heritage sites get in the way of their projects, or in some cases, when archaeological sites may be seen as a positive that increases heritage tourism. Assessing the salience of each stakeholder group can be a serious challenge!

Unfortunately, the very notion of archaeological stakeholders may conjure up a contest that will have winners and losers. For example, the media, some archaeologists, and a few Indigenous people have presented the repatriation issue as some kind of “us versus them,” “archaeologists versus Indigenous,” or “science versus religion” contest in which one group loses. That has been a very limiting and unfortunate way of seeing what and who stakeholders are (Zimmerman 2008a: 189–90). For archaeologists, that certainly is worthy of another warning: Stakeholder groups don't always have to compete and actually can share agendas or form alliances to their mutual benefit.

Stakeholders to the past can be many and varied in agenda, resources, and salience, attributes that must be considered when archaeologists interact with them. Simple, general guidelines for collaboration with stakeholders don't work, so all interaction with stakeholders needs to be carefully planned, but remain flexible enough to handle the idiosyncrasies of each group.

Collaboration Comes in Many Forms