The Alexandria Archive Institute

OPENING THE PAST, INSPIRING THE FUTURE

TAG, We’re It – A Recap of TAG Santa Fe

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The image illustrates the conference discussed in the main article. It includes Open Context in blue next to the double rhobus "open door" or "open book" logo in light and darkk blue. Below that is "The Alexandria Archive Institute" reflecting the group attending the conference. Below that in large black letters are "TAG Santa Fe" which is the conference. On the left hand size is a stylized bison or cow skull with a feather hanging from a string on the right side horn, the symbol of the conference

Recently, Paulina of the Data Literacy Program (DLP) brought our Digital Data Stories to the Theoretical Archaeology Group (TAG) meetings in Santa Fe, New Mexico! The theme for the overall conference was PLACE. Paulina took this as a chance to highlight our work with The Road Most Traveled. In addition, Paulina introduced new audiences to our plans for the educational resource in the Archaeological Data Literacy Practicum.

Day One – Conferences as Land Acknowledgement?

The first day of TAG included an awesome plenary session opening the conference. This was because of the speakers in the plenary session and where the conference took place. Both aspects operationalized a tangible approach to Land Acknowledgement. TAG attendees heard from the Governor of Picuris Pueblo, Craig Quanchello, who introduced himself and explained how Hotel Santa Fe (where the conference was held) is owned 100% by Picuris Pueblo.

As Dr. Lindsay Montgomery said, by having the conference there, the TAG demonstrated how archaeologists can reinvest in Indigenous or Aboriginal communities. Beyond that we heard from Mishuana Goeman, Philip Deloria, and Sylvia Rodriguez who explored ideas around theoretical perspectives around mapping, diverging definitions on words like place, Indigenous, and Aboriginal; and placemaking through moving landscapes. 

They all reminded me how maps are one kind of structured data. In addition, the ways that we structure, share, and understand maps exist within contexts. Maps embody ideas of place created by their makers and exist in a place to reflect different powers, perspectives, and priorities. 

Day Two – Ain’t no boring sessions at TAG

Catcii, context, and the cyclical nature of site visits expanded the many discussions of TAG, Day Two. The papers reflected how archaeologists, relying on various lines of evidence and data, can take the time to play with methods, materials, and modalities. I appreciated Dr. Tsim D. Schneider of University of California, Santa Cruz’s talk “Beads Belong in the Future, but What About Archaeology? Considering Emergence Geographies in Coastal California”. While exploring a variety of narratives through discussing the intense effort, industry, and importance of shell beads, he highlighted an interesting aspect of archaeological data. Specifically, what we choose document, who should document something, and when it should be done.

Using the example of the beached S.S. Point Reyes, within the Point Reyes National Seashore, he highlighted how legal requirements can hinder our abilities to document important material heritage. The S.S. Point Reyes beached in the 1990s, not fitting age minimums for certain documentation. But when recent storms and other events nearly destroyed the vessel causing its likely removal from the site, the need for documentation–and a wish to have had systematically documented it before those events–became apparent.  

Shipwreck Point Reyes in Inverness on the southwest shore of Tomales Bay, Marin County, California (copied from it's wikimedia commons page). A 20th boat sits beached on a sandbank with the front hull and cabin visible with water and hills in the background.

This is the S.S. Point Reyes as it looked recently. “Shipwreck Point Reyes, Inverness” by Frank Schulenburg from Wikimedia Commons posted as their own work © Frank Schulenburg / CC BY-SA 4.0

It reminded me of how the idea of scope within archaeological data and documentation both helps and hinder us, particularly within regulatory contexts. Regulations and laws focus archaeological data creation but also mean we don’t always document important features or materials before they’re gone. While easy to control within an individual project, it’s important to consider this question within legal heritage management contexts as well. Some belongings, features, landscapes, the materials world should have data creation or documentation rules broken for them while we still have the time to collect and know the stories about them.

Day Three – High roads, low roads, and digital roads for archaeology

Day three was all about the DLP! I presented my paper alongside Dr. Chester Liwosz and Dr. Kelsey Reese. Besides sharing the cool work we’ll be doing with The Road Most Traveled, it was great to see how other scholars are critically engaging with the intersections of technology and pedagogy. I loved getting to think more about the many existing technological options that can help expand our archaeological data creation and documentation as well as the important theorizing that should happen as we integrate newer technologies.

This is a slide from a presentation about the Data Story The Road Most Traveled. The was on the Archaeological Data Literacy practicum. In included excerpts of the observation form on the left side, for finds and for a sketch map, with arrows pointing to their digital counter points. These were an image of Open Refein and a screen cap of QGIS's main page.

A slide from Paulina’s presentation explaining how to turn the slow observation practices of The Road Most Traveled into digital data.

While a small session, it got me thinking about potential future projects. I really liked Dr. Reese’s theorizing of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and her case study to illustrate the point. I appreciated the heavy technical work–available to read about here open access–relating back to different ways of seeing and using those data. For example, Reese explored the concept of a choreographic landscape as a contrast to the top down view created by geographic information systems. Such an embedded visualization of the landscape, made affordable by consumer drones, represents the landscape as more than data or a container for archaeological materials.

Her work was a great reminder for how our data tools can alter how we see the world and our research questions. We should always interrogate how data collection occurs and see if it begins with theoretical perspectives to ensure that we address assumptions generated by those data.  

Day Four – Opportunities to explore

The final day of the conference was set aside for various field trips with all the sessions concluded. Folks had the option to visit various local sites and I hope they had fun! Unfortunately, I still haven’t been able to make it to any field trips pre or post conference. I hoped this would be the one but the stars didn’t align. I’m grateful for all the hosts and Pueblos that made those field trips possible and am sad I missed out!

TAG-aways

While TAG was a smaller conference than many of the others that the DLP attended this last year, it was a great chance to share our work with new communities and make wonderful connections. I gave my card to many folks interested in the work of the DLP and the Alexandria Archive Institute.

Through those conversations, I learned about cool resources other folks have that support online access to archaeological materials. One of them was the Onöndowa’ga:’ (Seneca) Haudenosaunee Archaeological Materials, circa 1688-1754 project. I hope to follow up on those potential collaborations as we move forward with various approaches to archaeological data literacy here in the DLP. And maybe we’ll even see folks again at TAG next year, hosted by William & Mary.

Image credits: The main image “TAG_header_2024 copy” by Paulina F. Przystupa from the DLP, includes the “TAG Santa Fe Logo” by Severin Fowles from the TAG Santa Fe website used with permission. The SS Point Reyes image includes credits within the caption. The slide image included a cropped screen capture of Open Refine from “OpenRefine for Archaeology: Open source data cleaning” by Eric Kansa from the AAI licensed CC BY-SA. It also included a cropped screen capture of “https://www.qgis.org/en/site/about/index.html” by Paulina F. Przystupa Material on website CC BY-SA.