Call for papers: “Big Histories at Small Places”, Society for Historical 
Archaeology, 2010

Greetings!

We are organizing a multi-disciplinary session entitled “Big Histories at Small 
Places” for the 2010 Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) meetings on 6-
10 January 2010 at Amelia Island Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida, USA 
(http://www.sha.org/about/conferences/2010.cfm).  This proposed session 
will focus upon relatively recent discoveries (realizations, identifications) of 
significant long-term historical trajectories or short-term historical events 
occurring at places of very limited spatial scope.  

The session is intended to be explicitly non-academic in tone.  Presenters are 
not limited to archaeologists, and we would very much like to have historians, 
historical architects, journalists, etc. as participants.  Presentations must 
focus on material culture and involve plenty of graphic content appropriate for 
a popular (non-academic) audience.  While we anticipate primarily US 
locations for paper topics, the location can be anywhere in the world.  Ideally, 
the end result will be a popular publication, potentially suitable for educational 
curricula.

One example of a big history from a small place is our presentation about 
community archaeological work at the Baranov Museum property.  In a very 
small archaeological sampling (0.22%) of this small 1 acre parcel during 10 
days in June 2008, we uncovered approximately 4000 years of land use: 
material from prehistoric Early Kachemak period, late-18th – mid-19th century 
Russian-American Company (RAC) occupation, mid-19th century Native Alutiiq 
culture, early 20th century building and habitation, early-mid-20th century 
gardens, post-1964 Good Friday earthquake/tsunami urban renewal, 1980 park 
construction, and the 2008 present.  While all these are included in the 
broadly understood land use history of the city of Kodiak environs, the 
revealed human history of this small parcel of land lent unanticipated clarity 
and specificity to local historical knowledge: the first prehistoric site ever 
found in the city, two previously undocumented early RAC buildings, a rare 
woven Alutiiq basket, domestic household children’s toys, a building collapsed 
by 1912 volcanic ash, a ca. 1930 stone-lined garden path, tumbled structural 
material from urban renewal razings, and the pre-park ground surface.  All this 
visible, hands-on Kodiak history came from a very little piece of ground, 
demonstrating the omnipresence of history hidden just below the surface.

If this proposed 2010 SHA session interests you, please send us an abstract 
by 10 July 2009, or write or call us prior to that date with ideas or questions.

Thank you! 

Mark Cassell
Territory Heritage Resource Consulting (Anchorage, Alaska)
907-360-2668
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Katie Oliver
Baranov Museum (Kodiak, Alaska; www.baranovmuseum.org)
907-486-5920
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