Where to Spin our Yarn: Disseminating Archaeological Knowledge

Session Hosting Format: 
in-person session
Organizer(s): 
  • Todd Kristensen, Archaeological Survey of Alberta
Contact Email: 
todd.kristensen@gov.ab.ca
Session Description (300 word max): 

Archaeologists in Canada have a number of venues to share the impact of their work. This session explores successful knowledge dissemination in traditional mainstream formats or alternate media. Presenters may showcase new or evolved publication venues, blogs, websites, podcasts, illustrations, and the niches they occupy in academia, public engagement, or cultural resource management. How do we need to format archaeological knowledge to suit different audiences? The utility or value of archaeology in Canada can be amplified by the means we use to share it: this session is about stories and where we choose to tell them.

Presentations
Setting the Scene: Landscapes and Place-making in CRM
Presentation format: In-Person
Author(s):
  • Emily Meikle - Archaeological Services Inc.
  • Shannon Dunbar - Archaeological Services Inc.

Cultural Resource Management (CRM) archaeology favours the clarity and efficiency of technical reports in communicating with clients, governments, and colleagues. Yet archaeology is an imaginative, empathetic practice that relies on field crews making observations and developing knowledge of the landscapes in which they work. Stepping beyond reports and weaving these data and experiences into stories – through conversations in the field, digital exhibits or otherwise – is an important step in the interpretative process.

In standing where the people of the past once lived and holding their belongings in our hands, archaeologists have a unique opportunity to consider the spaces through which these people moved and the place-making practices they undertook. This presentation will explore how archaeologists engage in our own production of landscape while seeking to understand the lives of past occupants. Such insight invites empathy and a more nuanced understanding of past lives. Regarding sites with limited assemblages, such as small lithic scatters, relationship to landscape may take a more significant role as a component of the archaeological assemblage.

Featuring case studies from recent fieldwork, we will share stories from the field, consider a landscape-focused approach to stories of the past, and explore recent storytelling projects within CRM.
Storytelling Through Storymaps: A nineteenth century immigrant experience through the lens of CRM archaeologists
Presentation format: In-Person
Author(s):
  • Caitlin Coleman - ASI
  • Janis Mitchell - ASI

Nestled in farmland slated for development in Burlington, Ontario, is a site that tells a familiar story of nineteenth century immigration. Multiple families moved to Canada and set up roots in a rural community, building a new life for themselves and their descendants.  Almost two hundred years later, a group of archaeologists began to uncover their histories. One of the core values of ASI is to disseminate the results of our work. In 2024 we decided to add a new tool to our outreach efforts by establishing a digital exhibit page on our website. Our pilot exhibit will feature this farmstead, rich in local heritage. This exhibit page is currently in production and in our presentation we will share our development process and the lessons we have learned while launching this new endeavour. Our goal is to use a highly visual storytelling approach that presents two interlocking narratives- the archaeologist’s experience and the story of the people who lived on the farm in the nineteenth century. 
The Cupids Cove Plantation from the Earth and the Archives
Presentation format: In-Person
Author(s):
  • William  Gilbert - Provincial Historic Sites, Government of Newfoundland and Labrador

The Cupids Cove Plantation, established in 1610, is the oldest English settlement in what is now Canada. The site was discovered by William Gilbert in 1995 and excavations and documentary research have been ongoing every year since it was discovered. In this presentation, Mr. Gilbert will give an overview of how excavations at Cupids, and documentary research in Britain and here in Newfoundland, have enhanced our understanding of this important site.
Unanticipated Lessons in Public Outreach from the Schreiber Wood Project: Weaving Student Research into Broader Narratives
Presentation format: In-Person
Author(s):
  • Trevor Orchard - University of Toronto Mississauga
  • Michael Brand - University of Toronto Mississauga
  • Sarah Ranlett - Yale Peabody Museum, Division of Anthropology

The Schreiber Wood Project (SWP) examines late 19th through early 20th century occupation of a portion of what is now the University of Toronto Mississauga (UTM) campus by the Euro-Canadian Schreiber family. The project was initiated in 2013 to provide an affordable, accessible, on-campus archaeological field school. Since its inception, the SWP has grown to include collaborations with the UTM Library and the UTM Dean of Student Affairs, as well as expanded opportunities for student engagement through work study positions and independent research courses. Over the past five years, these opportunities have increasingly involved small, student-led research projects examining aspects of the material culture collection generated through the SWP, and on the creation of on-campus public museum-style displays highlighting aspects of that material culture. In reflecting on the past 12 years of the SWP, we are pleased with how the project has unexpectedly had an impact well beyond the field school itself. In this paper, we discuss the myriad ways that insights and interpretations from the project have been disseminated to the wider campus community and beyond through a series of non-traditional publication venues and other media.