(April 26, 2018)—Earlier this month, several of us from Archaeology Southwest were able to attend the Society for American Archaeology annual meetings in Washington, DC. One of the highlights of these meetings for me is getting to spend time with colleagues from around the country I don’t get to see much in person. It’s a great time to see what new research they’re working on and exchange ideas for future projects.
This year our poster session “Strong Currents in Gila Basin Research” brought together colleagues old and new working in various parts of the Gila drainage. The posters from that session are archived here, so you can see them even if you weren’t able to attend the meeting in person.
Another great part of the meetings is getting to catch up with some of our former Preservation Archaeology Field School students. Some of our 2017 students worked all year expanding their class projects into research posters. It was great to see all of them again!
It was also a lot of fun to catch up with some of our students from previous years. A highlight for me was seeing 2014 alumna Alexandra Covert’s presentation on shell from northern Arizona, a short version of the master’s thesis she’s defending at Northern Arizona University this week.
Thank you to the National Science Foundation (REU-1560465) and the UA Foundation for supporting the Preservation Archaeology Field School, including the six students who attended the SAA meetings this year. Funding undergraduate research is making the next generation of archaeologists great!
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2017 field school students Susannah Johnson, Ashley Huntley, and Taylor Picard prepare to present their meeting posters.
Editor’s note: In late March, a group of Archaeology Southwest donors made gifts to establish a special Field School Fund to help make experiences like these students’ trip to the SAA meetings possible. If you’d like to join them in supporting the Field School and our students, gifts can be made here.