Conference Agenda

A 2024 field school conducted by Wayne State University investigated sites associated with a historic Ukrainian village on Grayling Street in Hamtramck, Michigan, that was established after the opening of the Immaculate Conception Byzantine rite Catholic Church in 1914. The sites excavated included the former location of the church, a grocery store and dwelling, a bakery and oven, and an outhouse. This poster presents the initial results of a mapping survey completed in 2025 after excavations were concluded. Mapping involved collecting data with a MNSS Total Station, aerial drone, Geographic Information Systems(GIS), and archival data. The archaeological excavation units were then placed within the context of early 20th-century Hamtramck using historic Sanborn maps. The poster will then discuss how the temporal, spatial, and archaeological data will be integrated into the Hamtramck Explorer deep map, an online, interactive digital atlas that presents historical landscape data and connects it with community stories.

The northwoods of Minnesota was the logging era’s last frontier in the upper Great Lakes region. The towering pine forests on what is now the Chippewa National Forest (CNF) were a battleground involving multiple stakeholders including the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe; Rooseveltian conservationists; the logging industry; and the fledgling National Forest system. Our poster will provide an overview of what we’ve learned about late 19^th and early 20^th century logging on the CNF. Topics we’ve explored include the pre-European settlement pine forests of northern Minnesota; the Leech Lake Reservation and federal allotment policies; and archaeological evidence for logging on the CNF including excavations at the Wanaki Logging Camp. These topics entwine to illustrate the complex relationship between commercial forestry, tribal relations, and federal land management as well as the lives of the lumberjacks in a rapidly changing social and labor context.

Novels, movies, and tv shows have depicted the saloons of the western United States as scenes of hard drinking, fights, and barmaids. How accurate are the stories that have been told? The excavation of the Cactus Saloon in Tucson, Arizona provides the opportunity to examine this issue. Features, artifacts, photographs, and extensive documentary research have revealed a different, more nuanced story about the saloons of Territorial Tucson and the role they played in the community.

This poster presents a nature journaling program created in collaboration with the Florida Public Archaeology Network and the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation, designed to foster deeper personal connections with historic landscapes. Often, those working to preserve these spaces are so focused on stewardship that they seldom experience the places they protect in a mindful, restorative way. Nature journaling—an accessible, reflective practice—offers a new pathway to engagement, encouraging both preservation professionals and the broader public to slow down, observe, and connect with these environments on a sensory and emotional level. By reframing historic sites as living landscapes, the program invites diverse audiences to experience history through place-based, creative expression. This initiative not only enriches preservation efforts but also expands the community of people who value and advocate for these spaces.

During the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries in western Virginia, industry abounded; today in the U.S., uncertainty abounds. Tossed between shoals of “gas lighting” and “fake news,” how does the public know whether presidential approval ratings are at all-time lows or highs? Likewise, looking to the past we read that in the iron-furnace lands, waterways were polluted but also famously pure; that mining companies “for all intents and purposes” owned the workers, but also that many were landed farmers selectively picking up day work. Awash in uncertainty, materiality and the sensorium offer anchors. This poster and accompanying artifacts from workers’ domestic sites invite grounding and connection not only by seeing and touching artifacts but also by inferring what could be heard, smelled, and tasted: peaches, ducks, patent medicine, Vicks Vaporub, hobnail-soled miners’ shoes, oil lamps, harmonicas. What does knowing through the body bring to mental clarity, including archaeological interpretation?

Situated within the 100th anniversary of Route 66 in Illinois, this poster conducts an archaeology of tourism using tenets of landscape archaeology to analyze one part of Route 66: Chain of Rocks Road. Chain of Rocks Road was a part of Illinois Route 66 alignments outside of St. Louis, Missouri from approximately 1935 to 1965. Focusing on the built environment flanking Chain of Rocks Road, this study elaborates on how the road became a “place” that encouraged car-centric movement amid commercialized needs of staying, embodying automobile culture. Since its tenure as Route 66, many features of the route on Chain of Rocks Road have been altered, including the removal of distinctive road signs. This study concludes with a discussion of the irreparable fragmentation of Chain of Rock Road’s “place” through alterations of the built environment and its impact on the long-term establishment of its Route 66 identity.

Community based methods and collaborative archaeology projects are becoming increasingly common. How does collaboration impact our archaeological research and analysis? Do different approaches to collaboration impact the work we can do and the relationships we build? How does our approach impact communities and our relationships with them? I focus on three African American burial ground excavations: The First African Baptist Church excavations in Philadelphia, the New York African Burial Ground excavations, and the excavations at Freedmans Cemetery in Dallas. Through my analysis I consider how archaeologists approached communities for collaboration and how their choices impacted excavation, the research process, and the communities themselves.