Standard mitigation treatment for adverse effects to significant cultural resources has historically been a combination of data recovery excavation along with artifact analysis, reporting, and curation, whose purpose is to move the undertaking forward. Over the past several decades, there has been increased interest and understanding of alternative, or creative, mitigation options in these situations, which may, in the end, be the best option for the resource and more meaningful to both project stakeholders and the public. This article, the first in this special issue on creative mitigation, introduces the regulatory and conceptual framework for creative mitigation and weaves themes introduced in subsequent articles in this issue.

Software now allows archaeologists to document excavations in more detail than ever before through rich, born-digital datasets. In comparison, paper documentation of past excavations (a valuable corpus of legacy data) is prohibitively difficult to work with. This pilot study explores creating custom software to digitize paper field notes from the 1970s excavations of the Gulkana site into machine-readable text and maps to be compatible with born-digital data from subsequent excavations in the 1990s. This site, located in Alaska's Copper River Basin, is important to archaeological understanding of metalworking innovation by precontact Northern Dene people, but is underrepresented in the literature because no comprehensive map of the site exists. The process and results of digitizing this corpus are presented in hopes of aiding similar efforts by other researchers.

The alternative mitigation program that the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) established in 2008 to address impacts to the archaeological resources in the Permian Basin of southeastern New Mexico, now one of the most active of the nation's oil and gas energy fields, has supported more than $10 million in field research programs and is poised to be able to fund about $1 million in field research annually for the foreseeable future. The financial success of the program is mirrored by the program's outstanding contributions to our understanding of the Permian Basin's long and complex history of human occupation. Surprisingly, although other public lands under the auspices of the BLM are seeing similar rates of energy development, the critical elements of this program have not been picked up elsewhere in the BLM. The Permian Basin program appears doomed to be an example of a “one-off” alternative mitigation solution. The factors barring more widespread adoption include the ebb and flow of energy production activity, complications arising from mixed land status and the ability to work across jurisdictional boundaries, hesitation to change procedures that are working adequately for the time being, and a lack of capacity to institute systemic change.

A statistical analysis was conducted to evaluate whether sport climbing has contributed to de-vegetation at the base of basalt cliffs within the American Falls Archaeological District (AFAD), located along the Snake River in southern Idaho and currently managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (USBR). The increasing popularity of sport climbing has created challenging conflicts between public recreation and cultural resource protection. The loss of vegetation in the AFAD’s dune environment, from both recreation and natural processes, has already displaced and damaged significant archaeological resources. The Access Fund acknowledges that staging areas at the base of climbs are susceptible to vegetation loss and erosion, especially in arid environments. Since numerous “bare spots” occur under and along basalt cliffs throughout the AFAD, this analysis was designed to quantify these un-vegetated areas. The results of the analysis, which indicate that bare spots directly associated with climbing walls are significantly larger than those that appear to be natural, will be applied in management decisions regarding the protection and preservation of federally managed cultural resources within the AFAD. Hopefully, these results will assist other land management agencies in making proactive decisions regarding recreational use in archaeologically sensitive areas.

Archaeological sites are often dated through seriation analysis of artifacts found on the site's surface. This relative dating method remains common despite the widespread availability of absolute dating methods because it is fast and cost-effective compared to scientific dating methods such as radiocarbon dating. Surface seriation is especially important for regional survey studies that involve a large number of sites and little to no excavation. In this context it is important to ask: are surface assemblages as reliable an indicator of the age of a site as determined through excavation? This unique study addresses this question using data from seven sites in the Virú Valley on the north coast of Peru. Surface assemblages are compared with excavated ones using the G-test statistic. It is found that surface assemblages do not closely resemble excavated ones in a statistically significant sense. Nevertheless, the relative date of surface assemblages typically resembles the relative date of excavated assemblages. Caution is urged when dating surface assemblages purely through seriation because the surface may not actually be representative of excavated assemblages.

During the 2014 excavation campaign at Vignale an impressive late antique mosaic depicting Aion, the God of Time, was discovered. This artifact of 100 m2 became a milestone for outreach activities; fund-raising, theatrical performances, and archaeological trekking sessions were tailored to this finding, in collaboration with local associations. The discovery of the mosaic consolidated the promotional lines followed for this project, on-site and off-site, capable of engaging different audiences. Taking into account the recent debate about emotion as an essential constituent of the heritage-making process, a preliminary analysis of these initiatives questions the existence and the development of an emotional connection between the public and the archaeological site. Since an emotional connection emerged, further analyses and studies need to specify the kinds of emotive connection that occur. Assessment of the emotional impact intrinsic to public outreach will provide clues to transforming the “intellectual” emotion of discovery into a shared and valuable emotion for the benefit of both the archaeological project and its stakeholders.

This review assesses the capabilities of the technology of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) as tools for increasing the presence of archaeology in our digital society. Instead of focusing on the academic value of the content of these courses, I explore their usefulness as promoters of rigorous archaeological practices and ethics, as well as the protection and preservation of cultural heritage. After enrolling as a student in six MOOCs, I have analyzed whether these courses successfully provided students with an informed and critical understanding of the field, as well as creating networks of advocates that can share this knowledge across their communities.

Archaeologists are regularly asked to present public programs. The audiences are varied, as are the settings. Often, the programs are one-time events, and archaeologists usually talk about current or favorite projects. However, public programs may run into unexpected problems because they take archaeologists into unfamiliar situations. In addition, not all programs, including some that seem successful, leave the audience with the message the archaeologist intended to convey; occasionally, the audience will even receive the opposite message. This article is designed to help anyone preparing public programs to avoid some common problems. The lessons fit into three groups. The first group consists of knowledge lessons: know your audience, know their interests, and know their community. The second group consists of logistical lessons: how many programs or classes should be involved? How long should each program last, and what facilities should be used? The third group consists of development lessons for both you and your audience, including building goals and objectives into the program and using appropriate assessment methods. It also includes creating networks that support your program. Can you develop the individual encounters into a coherent approach? Whether a program is designed for a single school class of 30 fourth graders or for a booth at a county fair visited by 4,000 fairgoers, each one should be designed to provide a coherent message to the audience.

Jefferson Patterson Park and Museum worked with a local high school class to conduct an analysis of artifacts from a nineteenth-century privy excavated more than 30 years ago. The project filled a specific request from the school system, which asked for help in creating an in-depth endeavor that would allow the students to develop new skills and expand their understanding of local history. For the Museum, it completed one small piece of a decades-old project and allowed us to live out our mission in a compelling way. Students and staff produced a community exhibit, posters, and the final research report on this feature. This paper explores the dynamic that empowers the co-creative process to construct not only a good end product but also demonstrable gains for those involved. It establishes that the strength of the co-creative process lies in the purposeful sharing of power and authority for the betterment of our community members.

Coastal shell midden deposits are a quintessential component of the archaeological record on the Pacific Northwest Coast. Despite their importance in informing the cultural and environmental histories of Indigenous peoples, research on shell middens has largely not sought to address the physical extent of these cultural deposits, which requires estimating shape, depth, and volume. Here, we present a new scalable geospatial model, designed to work with legacy survey data, for estimating midden volumes based on applying a regular geometric solid to sites with known extent and depth. We evaluate the accuracy of this technique using percussion core, total station, and lidar data from eight sites in Tseshaht territory on western Vancouver Island and three sites on the north coast of British Columbia (Canada). As part of the evaluation process of our results, we calculate uncertainty using subsurface core depth data and then compare generalized and modeled midden volume estimates. We demonstrate an accurate general model applied at the regional scale across a systematically surveyed landscape. This work presents the first landscape-scale measure of midden extents and volume within our study area, with relevance to historical ecology and settlement patterns.

Formally established in the fall of 1947, the Laboratory of Archaeology at the University of Georgia is an archaeological research and collection repository. It is considered one of the premier institutions for curation of archaeological collections from the American Southeast. For over 70 years, the Laboratory has served as a repository for objects and associated records generated from archaeological projects and research undertaken by faculty, students, CRM professionals, and state and federal agencies. The Laboratory curates over 20,000 cubic feet of artifacts as well as paper and digital archives. In addition, the Laboratory houses the Georgia Archaeological Site File and manages data from more than 59,000 archaeological sites, including over 11,500 archaeological reports. In this paper, we explore implementation procedures for bringing legacy collections up to modern curation standards. We also outline how we migrate the data on paper records into the digital realm, articulating them within a comprehensive framework.

More and more archaeologists who once relied on shovels and surveys now regularly collect data with digital sensors and use computer-based management systems to carry out complex analyses. Geographic information systems (GIS) and geographic information science (GISc), satellite remote sensing, aerial and close-range photography, terrestrial and aerial Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR), near-surface geophysics, and a wide array of visualization schemes designed to integrate and display data from multiple platforms are now integral to every stage of archaeological investigation, interpretation, and reporting. Even though these methods are an increasing part of archaeological research worldwide, there have been few conferences, meetings, or workshops dedicated to sharing methods and applications in digital archaeology in North America or even in the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of a few special sessions in regional or general archaeological conferences. This deficit is particularly striking in comparison with the situation in Europe, where several societies dedicated to archaeological geomatics regularly hold both continental and regional meetings.

Many Indigenous groups in Taiwan, including the Bunun, inhabited remote mountainous regions. Beginning in the 1930s, all mountain settlements were relocated to lower-lying areas by the colonial authorities. These groups lost the territories where they used to hunt, practice slash-and-burn agriculture, and carry out other social and cultural practices. Having being separated from their ancestral lands for decades, their knowledge of their former settlements and traditional ways of life is gradually disappearing. In recent years, there is a tendency among the younger generation of Indigenous people to organize and participate in roots-seeking expeditions. As their knowledge about the former settlements is limited, they seek help from the elderly—and archaeologists. Since 2014, I have collaborated with Bunun communities, recording their ancestors’ lands in the Lakulaku River Basin by joining archaeological surveys on roots-seeking trips. During these surveys, I had to learn Bunun values and gain knowledge of the Lakulaku River Basin via the bodily experience of moving through and being in the landscape with its traditional inhabitants. By applying remote-sensing technologies such as airborne lidar in our surveys, our team managed to identify and record settlements that were unfamiliar to the Bunun.

Archaeological site tours are a common form of public outreach, but are they done as well as possible? Do they convey the information that is intended and are they effective in teaching about archaeology, culture, professionalism, and ethics? Over the years, I’ve been asked by cultural resource management (CRM) firms and university anthropology department field school directors for information on how to construct and give site tours. In the past, responding to this request meant cobbling together information from various sources and adding commentary. The intent of this article is to bring all of that information, along with 25-plus years of experience, together into one comprehensive narrative with the intention of providing guidance for those who have trepidations about offering site tours as a form of public outreach.

Culturally significant landscapes, which evoke and promote strong feelings of attachment among their constituencies and advocates, pose a management challenge for federal agencies. Current cultural resources laws and policies focus largely on the physical characteristics of individual sites and features. I call here for a management approach that differs from current practice in several important ways. First, it recognizes the power of landscapes and landscape character. Drawing from both wilderness and park management, it calls for the identification and preservation of landscape characteristics, and the development of landscape-level inventories that can identify current landscape condition. Finally, it recognizes that how a landscape is experienced by its constituencies and advocates is a measure of management effectiveness. For management to succeed, management approaches must recognize and respect the core values and experiences that are at the heart of culturally significant landscapes.

The collection of 3D point data is a common bottleneck for archaeological excavations despite an increasing range of powerful spatial data collection technologies. Total stations often require a dedicated operator, and they are optimal for excavation-level data collection over relatively short line-of-site distances. Precision Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) require reliable communication with constellations of distant satellites and may not be accurate enough for all data recording contexts. A new category of spatial data collection hardware, called Indoor Positioning Systems (IPS), or “indoor GPS,” has the potential to provide a more cost-effective and efficient approach to the collection of point data during excavations by making 3D point data collection widely available and accessible. Additionally, such systems may allow greater detail in digital field data recording by enabling the collection of shape data via continuous recording. In this article, we present one such IPS system—the Marvelmind IPS—discuss its potential value and limitations, and provide a case study of a field test of the system at the Chalcolithic (4600–3600 BC) site of Horvat Duvshan, Israel.

Formal archaeological publication is unimaginative in its use of images, and often the images used do not best serve the text. The result is that text and image poorly relate. But graphic formats that establish an interrelationship between text and image can be used to create new layers of richness. One such example is the use of comics. In order to illustrate how the visualization principles of comics can be used to re-shape formal archaeological publication, the author presents an adaptation of the first three pages of “Ceramics and Polity” by Michael Whalen and Paul Minnis, originally published in American Antiquity. The use of similar visualization principles opens up the possibility of new kinds of professional, interdisciplinary, and peer-to-peer narratives. The article is in the form of a 10-page comic.

In the United States, deaccessioning is a poorly understood collections management tool. Archaeologists often view deaccessioning with what Robert Sonderman called “primal fear,” and this fear has caused them to overlook the opportunities that deaccessioned artifacts and collections may provide in the area of public archaeology education. Although deaccessioning without checks and balances can be problematic, when done properly and ethically, it offers previously untapped resources to the creation of educational programming, such as teaching trunk programs. This article discusses the process of deaccessioning and suggests that deaccessioned artifacts may be useful as content for teaching trunk programs. We discuss a case study from our own institution, where we implemented a trunk program in 2016 that was largely stocked with material from a deaccession we had performed the previous year. We also offer suggestions for anyone wishing to implement a similar program.