Fostering synthesis in archaeology to advance science and benefit society

Abstract

In 1966 the US Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act. Its intent: to ensure that the values embedded in historic buildings, archaeological sites, and other important places of the past honored all Americans in ways that would inspire and motivate present and future generations. In the intervening 50 years, archaeologists have diligently discovered, documented, analyzed, and curated our collective past. Fig. 1. Public support can expand archeological finds and help tell the stories of people and places. Here, archaeological surveyors work in the Western Papagueria of Arizona. After laws protecting archaeological sites were passed in 1966, the number of recorded sites in the region ballooned from 100 to more than 2,000, which allowed researchers to document 10,000 years of human occupation in one of the hottest, driest parts of the United States. However, this rich store of data has untapped potential beyond documenting long-term trajectories of numerous human societies. Archaeological data can be key to expanding scientific understandings of human social dynamics, redressing injustices of the past, empowering local and descendant communities, and aiding in the formulation of solutions to contemporary problems. Collaborative synthetic research, as practiced in ecology and other sciences, has been a powerful driver for advancing interdisciplinary science. But to utilize these advances, archaeologists, as a community, need a means to bring disparate datasets together and interpret them. This entails creating a vehicle by which collaborative synthetic research becomes a routine and institutionalized practice in archaeology—a budding effort we call the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis. It’s an initiative that will not only benefit the discipline but will also enable researchers to communicate to the public the richly detailed stories of humanity itself. Many nations have laws protecting cultural heritage, and as a result, archaeologists have access to far more data than ever before. In the United States alone, … [↵][1]1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: jhaltschul{at}sricrm.com. [1]: #xref-corresp-1-1