At more than any point in the history of Canadian archaeology, Indigenous academics, knowledge keepers, artists, Elders, and youth are now participating and leading archaeological research and cultural resource management projects. At the same time, as individuals and institutions work towards reconciliation and decolonization, more archaeologists recognize the opportunities that archaeology can provide to foster land-based learning, to reconnect Indigenous communities to their lands and ancestors, and to support the well-being of Indigenous peoples (see Schaepe et al. 2017; 2021).

And yet, accompanying this progress in archaeology is an increasing awareness that archaeological field sites, labs, and classrooms have not always been safe places for Indigenous peoples. Many Indigenous faculty members, students, and CRM personnel balance cultural stress, intergenerational trauma, and structural racism with the physical and mental toll that the demands of archaeology exact. Moreover, our Indigenous and non-Indigenous colleagues have documented the harassment and violence that many women, members of the LGBTQIA2S+ community, gender non-conforming individuals, and racialized peoples risk while working or volunteering in archaeology (see Hodgetts et al. 2020; Voss 2021 a, b). And Indigenous peoples risk secondary trauma when working on projects where cultural protocols are violated or ignored. 

We propose a session that would begin with a panel of Indigenous archaeologists and other Indigenous peoples with experience in archaeology who would share their experiences—both positive and negative—working in this field. These presentations would be followed by a talking circle facilitated by Kisha Supernant during which conference attendees will ask questions of the panelists and share their own experiences. Our hope is that the talking circle will result in recommendations to archaeologists—especially project directors and principal investigators—for how to enact trauma-informed approaches to field- and lab-work, teaching, mentoring, and community collaborations.

Geographic Information systems have often been criticized for being colonizing tools, even when incorporated into otherwise well-meaning archaeological contexts. But must that necessarily always be the case, or can archaeologists use GIS to intentionally decentre the archaeological colonizing gaze and privilege Indigenous perspectives when conducting research? Informed by a Two-Eyed-Seeing approach - that embraces the strengths of Indigenous perspectives and ways of knowing while simultaneously engaging with Western approaches and procedures - this session takes the view that the colonizing affects often evident in archaeological applications of GIS are due to the theoretical approaches taken by the archaeologists employing the tool rather than something necessarily inherent within the tool itself.  The papers comprising this session highlight some of the innovative approaches that can be used when incorporating GIS into archaeological research. They show applications of GIS that are not exercises in archaeological colonization but rather, through intentional theoretical engagement, elevate and bring to the fore Indigenous perspectives that have often been hidden by less critical archaeological applications of GIS.

This is a Hybrid Session and will include online and in-person panelists and participants. 

The CAA-ACA Advocacy Committee will be hosting a panel discussion featuring industry professionals from CRM and the heritage sector (NGOs, government) discussing their backgrounds, training, and experience.  Panelists will present short, prepared marks, following which a Q&A session for attendees will be taking place.

The target audience for this session is upper-year undergraduates, graduate students, and early career professionals, and the purpose is to provide resources, guidance, and training by leveraging the expertise of CAA-ACA members and partners in our networks.

Over the last four decades, David Black has advanced the archaeological understanding of the Maritime Peninsula through fieldwork, research, and writing, mostly focused around the Quoddy Region. At the same time, he was a prodigious teacher, supervisor and mentor to generations of northeastern archaeologists. In this session, we celebrate David’s accomplishments on the occasion of his recent retirement with a series of research papers from his colleagues, students, and friends. We particularly invite papers with a regional focus on the Maritime Peninsula, a topical emphasis on coastal archaeology, or that engage with other of David’s interests, such as collaboration with avocational archaeologists, geoarchaeology, and zooarchaeology. 

Landscape is a vital part of any community. They affect and are affected by culture and those who live in them. Thus they are also a vital area of study for any archaeologist trying to understand a community. In 1982 Lewis Binford published “The Archaeology of Place” where he argued for the importance of understanding the relationships among places. Now, 40 years later, understanding the relationships between people and places is still just as important despite the methods used to do this changing greatly. Researchers have borrowed technologies from other fields including Geology and Geography and applied them to archaeological research. Archaeologists have a large array of tools at their disposal; Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) with Multi-spectral and LiDAR sensors, and Magnetic Radiometry to name a few. It is through these technologies that we want to explore how the sub-discipline of landscape archaeology has and continues to develop. Using “a landscape approach provides cultural–historical frameworks to evaluate and interpret diverse observations about spatial and temporal variability in the structure and organization of material traces” (Anschuetz et al 2001). How then, are these theoretical frameworks, methods and technologies challenging our understanding of the complex nature of existing relationships between people, places, and material?

Anschuetz, Kurt F., Richard H. Wilshusen, and Cherie L. Scheick. 2001. ‘An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions’. Journal of Archaeological Research 9 (2): 157–211. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016621326415.
Binford, Lewis R. 1982. ‘The Archaeology of Place’. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 1 (1): 5–31. https://doi.org/10.1016/0278-4165(82)90006-X

As we begin to reimagine the role of archaeology in the contemporary world, students and early-career professionals must evaluate the relationship between their research and the broader society with which it articulates. To follow the conference theme of “Gathering Perspectives,” this session is aimed primarily at students and early-career researchers who are interested in gaining more presentation experience and who wish to share their voice with the archaeological community.  Presentations for this session can involve a research project that has preliminary findings, the results of an honour’s thesis or independent project, a research proposal, a story from the field, a short history of your favourite object, a book review, or a tasty field recipe- the only catch is your presentation must be given in 5 minutes!

The presentations will be given synchronously using an online format to accommodate those who are not able to attend the conference in person for personal or public health reasons. Please submit an abstract using the Abstract Submission Form on the CAA website to secure a slot in the session. Abstracts should provide a general description of your topic and should be no more than 250 words. Presentations of similar topics will be grouped together. Visual components for presentations from accepted presenters will be limited to only 1-3 slides and will be requested prior to the presentation date to allow for compilation and smooth transition between presentations. A synchronous question-and-answer period will be offered at the end of the session. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to caa.students@gmail.com. We look forward to your submission and hearing your valuable perspectives and insights!

In this session, we want to hear about community-based archaeologies or Indigenous archaeologies that have taken place in the last few years. With COVID-19 and the continuing impacts of this pandemic on Indigenous communities, archaeologists and Indigenous communities have gotten creative in finding ways of bringing heritage and archaeology to Indigenous communities in ways that address their needs and interests. In this session, we want to hear about new methods of engagement, or effective methods of engagement in community-based archaeologies and Indigenous archaeologies that have laid a foundation for relationship building between research institutions and Indigenous partners across Turtle Island. In this session, we are hoping to provide an opportunity to hear from community members who are often not given platforms to speak about their experiences with archaeology and heritage driven projects and how we can move forward in partnership with Indigenous communities when developing projects.