SAA 2018 recap, better late than never

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The 2018 Society for American Archaeology meeting happened back in April in Washington, D.C., but I never did get a recap posted here. This is more Twitter embed-heavy than I’d prefer to be. But, well, it was six months ago.

I started off the first morning with a meeting of the Council of Councils, as outgoing Secretary of the Council of Virginia Archaeologists. It was really fascinating to learn how other state’s professional associations function.

The SAA 2018 Beer Swap was an adventure. We enjoyed some of Shawn Graham’s tasty Coronation Hall cider in his absence, I got to meet a ton of Twitter folk, and good times were had.

I was honored to be elected Co-Chair of the Digital Data Interest Group with Dr. Kelsey Noack-Myers. In the past few months, we’ve set up a new DDIG website and organized some sessions for SAA 2019 in Albuquerque.

I organized a very productive electronic symposium, Futures and Challenges in Government Digital Archaeology.. See the detailed post for more. The presentations and conversations were really rich and covered a lot of territory.

I also participated in a very important forum chaired by David Gadsby and Anne Vawser of the National Park Service, Keeping Our Secrets: Sharing and Protecting Sensitive Resource Information in the Era of Open Data. We came away with some concrete strategies, both technical and social, to address sharing and withholding sensitive information. This forum inspired DDIG efforts on an SAA 2019 sponsored session related to ethics of open data. Watch this space for more on the 2019 e-symposium 0penness & Sensitivity: Practical Concerns In Taking Archaeological Data Online.

Other great sessions:

As usual, I came away with big ideas and big feelings. Never not sappy. Already excited that the next meeting is only half a year away.

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