By David Malakoff

It helps to carry a machete — and an umbrella — if you are doing archaeology in Sāmoa. The South Pacific archipelago, which includes six islands that comprise the United States territory of American Sāmoa and several islands — only a couple of which are inhabited — of the independent nation of Sāmoa, is soaked by up to 23 feet of rain each year. The downpours feed a lush carpet of trees, shrubs, and vines that can easily obscure structures built by ancient Sāmoans, including terraces, walls, and ceremonial structures called star mounds that are unique to the islands.

“The vegetation can make it very difficult to recognize some features, even if you are right on top of them,” said archaeologist Ethan Cochrane of the University of Auckland.

Over the past decade, however, aerial mapping with LiDAR technology has enabled researchers to digitally strip away Sāmoa’s thick overgrowth. And archaeologists have been stunned by what the images show. “Almost every place you look is just littered with archaeological features,” said archaeologist Gregory Jackmond of the National University of Sāmoa (N.U.S.). “We’re finding things that, not that long ago, nobody really thought possible.”

The discoveries include vast networks of terraces and drainage ditches, as well as earthen and stone mounds in an array of sizes and shapes — including scores of previously undocumented star mounds, enigmatic structures that might have hosted ancient pigeon-catching contests. The mounds are so named because they have three to more than a dozen projections that, from above, make them look like stars.

This is an article excerpt from the Fall 2023 edition of American Archaeology Magazine.  Become a member of The Archaeological Conservancy for your complimentary subscription!

By Tamara Jager Stewart

Standing in the shadow of the jagged Avi Kwa Ame peaks looking west, the vast, complex desert landscape holds deep canyons with natural springs and petroglyphs, rare grassland habitats, ancient Joshua tree forests, unusual quartz-lined pathways, camp sites, rock shelters, and other cultural sites that attest to the thousands of years that Native Colorado River people have thrived in this harsh environment. At the confluence of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in southern Nevada, more than half a million acres containing ancestral lands sacred to 10 Yuman-speaking tribes as well as the Hopi and the Chemehuevi Paiute, were designated a national monument this past March following decades of tribal efforts. Joined by conservationists, local residents, off-road vehicle enthusiasts, and local, state, and federal governments, tribal members’ efforts finally paid off when U.S. President Joe Biden used the 1906 Antiquities Act to proclaim this vast area adjacent to the Colorado River a national monument.

Avi Kwa Ame (which translates from Mojave to “Spirit Mountain”), the tallest peak in the Newberry Mountains, is the centerpiece of the new monument. The designation of Avi Kwa Ame as a national monument makes it Nevada’s fourth monument and a critical connector of protected areas to the west including California’s Mojave Wilderness, Castle Mountain National Monument, Mojave National Preserve, and Mojave Trails National Monument, and to the east, Lake Mead National Recreation Area. 

For the Fort Mojave (known as Pipa Aha Macav, “The People by the River”), this landscape is their most sacred. The closest of the Colorado River tribes to this sacred mountain and surrounding ritual landscape, the Fort Mojave consider themselves its caretakers. The mountain and surrounding valleys and ranges are also highly significant to the Chemehuevi (Southern Paiute), Cocopah, Halchidhoma, Havasupai, Hopi, Hualapai, Kumeyaay, Maricopa, Pai Pai, Quechan, Yavapai, and Zuni Tribes. 

This is an article excerpt from the Fall 2023 edition of American Archaeology Magazine.  Become a member of The Archaeological Conservancy for your complimentary subscription!

By Julian Smith

In May, a film production company and deep-sea mapping company announced that they had completed the first full-scale scan of the wreck of the Titanic. The 3D digital model of the wreck was created by combining more than 715,000 sonar images with 4K video footage shot by submersibles in more than 200 hours of surveys. It shows the entire ship in astonishing detail, down to individual rivets, as well as the 3-mile-long debris field that surrounds it. Engineers and historians can now use the data to study how the ship broke apart and sank, without having to take a risky submersible dive in person.

The Titanic may be in a class by itself, but there are countless archaeological sites and artifacts that can and have benefited from the research and attention brought by 3D mapping. The technology is revitalizing the field of archaeology by bringing detailed copies of sites and artifacts into the digital world and, through 3D printing, back into the real world. As scanning and printing devices become cheaper, smaller, and more powerful, researchers are putting them to more and more creative — and practical — uses.

3D mapping involves scanning an object from all sides (or as many angles as possible, when only part is visible) with a digital scanning device, ranging from satellite-based LiDAR to the latest iPhone, and recording the data as a cloud of points in 3D space. This point cloud can be converted into a “mesh,” a huge number of tiny triangles connected edge to edge that represents the surface of an irregular shape. Researchers can rotate the shape in digital space, zoom in and out, and sometimes even see certain features that would have been difficult or impossible to see in person. A 3D printer builds up a replica of the shape by laying down many thin layers of plastic. 

Archaeologists, educators, and museums use 3D models to analyze, measure, and reconstruct fragile or inaccessible artifacts in ways they never could in the real world, without having to touch them. They can share models easily, and use them as teaching aids and tools for public outreach.

This is an article excerpt from the Fall 2023 edition of American Archaeology Magazine.  Become a member of The Archaeological Conservancy for your complimentary subscription!

By Elizabeth Lunday

Leah Guenther had a problem. After several years teaching English in a Chicago high school, she took a new position in 2019 teaching American history and civics to seventh and eighth graders. She began with a traditional curriculum that started the school year with European discovery of the Americas, but she was concerned that this approach didn’t give enough weight to Indigenous cultures. She decided she could manage this if she rewound to pre-contact America after discussing colonization.

That’s not how it worked out. She struggled to get her students to genuinely connect with Indigenous cultures. “I couldn’t rewind it enough,” she said. “I was getting off to the wrong start by not foregrounding the whole history in a way that allowed my students to understand Indigenous people and empathize with them, to get a fuller story of the history of the country.”

Then Guenther learned about a workshop sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and presented by the organization Project Archaeology. The workshop introduced teachers to the use of archaeology to teach about ancient peoples. During the summer of 2021, Guenther spent a week with teachers, museum educators and archaeologists exploring Project Archaeology curricula by investigating the Fremont culture, a society that lived in what is now Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Colorado from the first to the thirteenth centuries.

Guenther began the next school year with a unit on the Fremont people. It changed the entire course, because her students became invested in Native cultures. “When we get to Columbus, the kids are naturally angry. They say, ‘wait a minute, how did he discover America when people had been living here for thousands of years?’” she said. That is exactly what Project Archaeology organizers want for their curriculum: deep engagement with people of the past through archaeology. For more than 30 years, the organization has provided educators with tools to explore the past while developing a basic understanding of the discipline and instilling respect for the nation’s cultural heritage. 

This is an article excerpt from the Fall 2023 edition of American Archaeology Magazine.  Become a member of The Archaeological Conservancy for your complimentary subscription!