News Article

Austin Public Archaeology Day has been cancelled. For more information, please read the notification about the cancellation of the SAA Annual Meeting from the Board of Directors.

Join SAA for a celebration of archaeology! Austin Public Archaeology Day will run from 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 25, 2020 during the SAA Annual Meeting in Austin, Texas. All members of the public are invited to explore Texas history through hands-on activities, educational materials, and talks from local archaeologists and SAA members. Analyze modern trash as a way to understand how archaeologists piece together history. Learn how to make stone tools. Put broken pottery back together. Explore real artifacts. Talk to archaeologists about their work while picking up posters, stickers, and fun educational resources.

This event is free and does not require a meeting registration. Enter Exhibit Hall 4 through the Trinity St. entrance of the Austin Convention Center. For questions, please contact public_edu@saa.org.

Help spread the word with the poster PDF [60.6 KB] and graphic below.

Public Archaeology Day is supported by the generous donors of the SAA's Public Education Endowment.

Organizations

Archaeologists from organizations and agencies, many Texas-based, will staff tables of information and activities for visitors. Organizations participating in the event include:

• Texas Historical Commission
• Texas Archeological Society
• Texas Parks and Wildlife
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park
• Palo Alto Battlefield National Historical Park
• Texas Department of Transportation
• Shumla Archaeological Research and Education Center
• Community Historical Archaeology Project with Schools
• The Heritage Education Network
• Oklahoma Public Archaeology Network
• Florida Public Archaeology Network
  
  

Speakers

Clark Wernecke, Executive Director, The Gault School of Archaeological Research
20,000 Years of Texas Prehistory

Eleanor King, The Heritage Education Network and Howard University
Conflict Archaeology: Untold Stories of the Buffalo Soldiers and the Apache in Texas

Lewis Borck, University of Missouri Research Reactor and The History Underground
How Archaeologists Tell Time

Jeremy Freeman, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
The Science of Ancient Hunting Technology

Jeffrey Williams, President, Friends of Caddo Mounds, Inc.
The Building and Survival of the Caddo Grass House Project

Anna Linderholm, Director, The BiG lab (Bioarchaeology and Genomics Laboratory), Department of Anthropology, Texas A&M
Caving for Ancient DNA: Investigating Soil Samples from Hall's Cave, Texas

Bernard K. Means, Virtual Curation Laboratory at VCU
Why I 3-D Printed Benjamin Franklin's Mastodon Tooth and How You Can Too

Marie Hopwood, Vancouver Island University
Raise Your Glass to the Past: An Experimental Archaeology of Beer

Christopher W. Ringstaff, Texas Department of Transportation
What Archeologists Learn by Making and Using Stone Tools