Archaeology faces a turning point as digital technologies transform who performs archaeological labor and under what conditions. Although inequities affecting students, technicians, and Indigenous collaborators have been increasingly acknowledged, less attention has been paid to the political economy that structures these forms of work. Drawing on collaborative research with Nahua communities in Mixtla de Altamirano, Veracruz, this article examines how transcription, translation, deep mapping, and digital annotation of oral narratives constitute archaeological labor—despite being excluded from Mexico’s state-defined model of “legitimate” archaeology. Community projects operate under digital precarity, relying on fragile infrastructures, unstable electricity, and unpaid labor. These conditions reveal structural inequalities in archaeological practice and raise urgent questions about data governance. We propose strategies for repurpose digital tools and AI toward more inclusive practices through ethical protocols, community training, and infrastructures grounded in archival sovereignty. The article proposes a grounded framework for rethinking archaeological labor, digital infrastructures, and collaboration in community-based contexts.

The field of anthropological archaeology in North America is undergoing significant changes, particularly within academia, with an increased focus on and inclusion of Indigenous perspectives. Concomitant with the reorientation of archaeological practice that centers on Indigenous voices, concerns, and sensibilities is a subsequent reorientation in the training of the next generation of practitioners. This article highlights an example of a collaborative archaeological field school developed by, with, and for the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, the Amah Mutsun Land Trust, and the University of Oregon. We document the long-term use of collaborative field schools to train the next generation of Tribal and non-Tribal archaeologists in archaeological field methods and collaborative research practices with, for, and by Indigenous communities.

Despite improvement over the past few decades, particularly for white, cisgender women, intersectional gender-based inequality remains prominent within anthropological archaeology and beyond. Building on critiques of the leaky pipeline metaphor laid out in the introduction to this themed issue, and drawing on Black, Indigenous, and Posthumanist Feminisms, we advocate for a metaphorical shift focused on care, inclusivity, and diversity—that of a garden. The garden metaphor provides a way to express and explore the complex and intertwined ways disciplinary norms, institutions, and individuals structure and shape experiences in archaeology. After reviewing the garden metaphor and summarizing previous suggestions for improving equity in archaeology, we present recommendations for actionable steps at disciplinary, institutional, supervisory, and individual levels. Drawing on insights from the articles in the issue, as well as existing literature within and beyond archaeology, we argue that a greater emphasis on care, and its integration into the value structure of archaeology, would create a more inclusive discipline.

The proliferation of information and communication technologies in US archaeology has created myriad expectations for professional labor throughout the life cycle of data. Technological adoption has outpaced the development of professional and ethical frameworks, leaving archaeological data labor unsustainable in our under-resourced discipline. This article reviews traditional Western paradigms underpinning legal and intellectual property models that have shaped archaeological data standards and contribute to problematic outcomes for archaeological data labor, alienate publics from primary data of publicly mandated heritage preservation, disregard Indigenous Data Sovereignty, and enable the extractive commodification of heritage for AI enterprises. To address these tensions, archaeologists must reshape data labor and its products by centering public goods and Indigenous rights in all aspects of their work. As scientific and cultural professionals, archaeologists should embrace best practices in data ecosystems to create, guide, and enforce governance principles that inform and promote labor sustainability and accountability. This article illuminates the current state of archaeological data labor across the discipline through a critical review of policies, legislation, and ethics surrounding data governance (e.g., CARE, FAIR, and the US OPEN Government Data Act) and describes how archaeologists can integrate these efforts into technological initiatives across the full spectrum of archaeological practice.

This digital review examines how feminist data science can inform, challenge, and reshape archaeological knowledge production in an era of expanding digital data infrastructures. Beginning with a historical analysis of the term “feminist” in American Antiquity, I demonstrate that although feminist perspectives have appeared consistently over four decades, such engagement remains limited in scope. Drawing from this context, I argue that the proliferation of online, publicly accessible archaeological datasets requires renewed feminist and decolonial scrutiny. I situate these challenges within broader conversations around FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) and CARE (Collective benefit, Authority to control, Responsibility, and Ethics) principles, Indigenous data sovereignty, and moderated openness, highlighting tensions between expanding digital access and resisting colonial datafication. Intersectional feminist data science, particularly the framework proposed by D’Ignazio and Klein (2020), offers actionable principles for confronting inequities embedded within archaeological data structures. I illustrate these principles through a multimodal collaborative project with the Pueblo of Zuni and the Hopi Tribe, which uses film-based storytelling to reframe relationships to ancestral collections and places. The article concludes with a reflection on citation inequities and disciplinary gatekeeping, underscoring how digital data practices can either reproduce or dismantle structural biases. I argue that transforming archaeological data science requires collective courage and sustained commitment to feminist, Indigenous, and community-engaged approaches that expand the inclusivity and ethical integrity of our field.

Archaeology is in the midst of a technological revolution, particularly for data collection, first championed by light detection and ranging (lidar) in the early 2000s and now with widespread applications of unmanned aerial systems (UAS)-deployed remote sensing. While the importance of remote sensing for data collection and heritage conservation is known, less work has acknowledged the implications of remote sensing for field safety, particularly for disabled researchers. UAS offer a unique opportunity to explore circumstances that may affect mobility in the field and how advances in archaeological science can transform fieldwork by improving accessibility for disabled archaeologists. I argue that UAS can—and should—be improved to promote accessibility in archaeological fieldwork, due to their promotion of field safety, increased planning of daily tasks, and broader applications to community-engaged research. These interventions should be applied to the larger field of archaeology to improve labor management for researchers in all sectors of practice.

Community-based archaeology does not always arrange itself cleanly into standard frameworks of practice. As archaeologists, our relationships with communities are situated and emergent. It stands to reason that our methods should be as well. Several years ago, as a graduate student at the start of a community-based project, I remember my anxious desire for a roadmap—a prescribed set of methods that would guide my work with and in community. Actual practice, however, demonstrated that roadmaps have little utility on this type of terrain. Community-based archaeology is rooted in relationship building as much as research design, and relationships push us to reorient how we do (and write about) archaeology. This article examines my on-the-ground and emergent experiences using three methods during a community-based project: (1) working with oral histories as narrative sources, (2) navigating community archives in the field, and (3) learning and applying close-range photogrammetry. I argue that examining how methods emerge and change during community-based projects is a valuable aspect of archaeological practice and that a narrative approach to discussing methodology allows us to interrogate how specific challenges push us to develop creative and interdisciplinary ways to do archaeology with others.

Incorporating intangible aspects of prehistoric experience, including sound, has become increasingly important in rock art research, offering a more comprehensive interpretation of the past. Scholars suggest that the acoustic properties of certain rock art sites may have influenced not only artistic creation but also social and ritual practices. This article presents guidelines for recording, digitizing, and analyzing the acoustic features of open and semi-open rock art sites. The proposed protocol integrates two complementary approaches: a sonic exploration to gather subjective (person-centered) data, and experimental impulse response measurements based on room acoustics principles to obtain quantitative acoustic data. Given the lack of standardized methodologies for characterizing the acoustics of such sites, this protocol aims to enhance the reliability, reproducibility, and comparability of future archaeoacoustic research. By establishing a rigorous framework, it contributes to a deeper understanding of how sound shaped past human experiences.

Providing sustenance for archaeological workers has been a logistical and social challenge from the earliest stages of the discipline. Food preparation involved a constellation of workers, from gardeners to ingredient purchasers, and from cooks and chefs, who were often teams of locals who catered to and fought against preferences around taste, sustenance, and nutrition for a regionally and internationally diverse group of people. By analyzing food provision lists, material culture, and archival correspondence pertaining to excavations of Coahuila, Mexico (1947) and Piedras Negras, Guatemala (1931–1946), I seek to trace a regional cross section of mid-twentieth-century food preparation for archaeological workers. I chose to analyze these sites because of the robustness of the archival record and the similarities of their time periods. When taken together, they can provide a more detailed account of North American archaeologists working between the 1930s and 1940s south of the US border, yielding insight into this era of archaeological labor management. Food preparation and dining habits are ways in which hierarchical and segregated labor management manifest in archaeology. By juxtaposing these examples with contemporary archaeological sources, I argue that we can radically question the inheritance of quotidian structures of archaeological practice.

Cultural resource management (CRM) in the United States is an industry that thrives (or falters) on tight budgets and short deadlines. To steadily secure a reliable stream of projects from major clients (and to support the limited budgets of smaller clients), CRM firms are often forced to work with bare-bones funding, requiring them to demand a great deal of effort from their field and office personnel to stay within budget and on schedule. When the projects themselves can easily become the main focus, above the needs of the staff, an unhealthy working environment, lack of work–life balance, burnout, and resentment toward management can result. In this article, I reflect on my own leadership experiences and present a model that outlines best practices for CRM leadership professionals to follow to grow and maintain their businesses through the genuine and consistent support of staff members. I recommend three basic components to creating a healthy working environment in CRM: (1) policies and procedures that clearly outline staff safety, approaches to work–life balance, and field and lab protocols; (2) a “practice what you preach” approach to leadership; and (3) access to professional development opportunities for all staff, regardless of their job level or experience.

In recent years, mobile GIS systems have become essential tools for the real-time management and recording of archaeological data, particularly in archaeological survey projects. This article explores their potential for the real-time digital management of archaeological excavations and presents a practical application. One of the main limitations to the use of mobile GIS applications in archaeological excavation has been that global navigation satellite system receivers embedded in mobile devices do not provide the necessary accuracy for detailed stratigraphic documentation. The free and open-source mobile GIS application QField offers a possible solution to this problem. Because of the Bluetooth connection with external differential global navigation satellite system receivers, QField achieves the high accuracy required by stratigraphic excavation workflows. At the same time, because it shares the core libraries of QGIS, QField supports the development of a real-time excavation GIS environment, in which each stratigraphic unit is uniquely encoded and becomes the focus of the digital data acquisition process.

Sustaining a career in archaeology, particularly one in cultural resources management (CRM), requires more than technical expertise or academic credentialing. Career opportunities have expanded beyond traditional pathways, but the scaffolding that supports professionals across every career stage has not kept pace. Mentoring, in the form of knowledge sharing, advocacy, and intentional networking, can make the difference between leaving the field or thriving in it. This article contends that mentoring is essential career infrastructure, as fundamental to career sustainability as field school training or thesis research. Drawing on experience mentoring more than 75 students, colleagues, and job seekers, this discussion demonstrates how thoughtful mentoring fosters professional development, promotes access, and helps mentees navigate the complex intersections of client work, personal research interests, and public engagement. This article also introduces the concepts of sponsorship—the active promotion of mentees for advancement—and network weaving, the deliberate cultivation of professional connections across broader scales, as critical tools for career readiness, resilience, and inclusion. Case studies illustrate how these practices unlock doors to leadership, expand skill sets, and may help slow attrition. The article concludes with actionable and scalable recommendations for CRM organizations seeking to build the mentoring infrastructure that archaeological careers require.

Archaeological data literacy is an integral part of the stewardship of the archaeological record. From paper notes, and their digital surrogates, to time and power intensive computer-based modeling and simulations, archaeologists of all kinds require data literacy to do their jobs and preserve the work of previous generations. Yet, archaeological data literacy lacks explicit education in current archaeological training despite the demand for these skills in academic research contexts and in private sector and government mandated archaeology. In this review, we reflect on the places hiring archaeologists expect data literacy skills to be taught and frame this call in terms of a need to incorporate explicit data skills in archaeological education. We also suggest that the cultivation of data literacy skills should be part of the continuing education of archaeologists as the field becomes increasingly data and technology oriented.

Archaeologists have a history of borrowing tools, theories, and practices from other disciplines. Yet, despite a large body of literature and calls for our discipline to establish more inclusive and safe workplaces, few archaeologists have studied or utilized scholarship addressing best practices in leadership and management practices. This article argues that engaging with this scholarship could be an effective way to improve our leadership and management approaches. It does so by exploring three components of this literature: a values-based workplace culture, a coaching-oriented leadership, and project management methods. It also provides examples from the author’s experience in implementing these practices in museum and higher-education settings. By adopting more intentional approaches to our work by looking at the wide array of research that has studied how organizations operate and succeed, archaeologists have the opportunity to produce safer, more effective, and more inclusive workplaces and more effective research outcomes.

Games have the potential to engage a wider public with archaeology, but popular products also continue to perpetuate misconceptions about the past. One potential solution is for archaeologists, heritage professionals, and historians to act as consultants in the process of game design. However, there has been little published about what consultation involves, particularly with the understanding that games with archaeological themes often rely heavily on colonial narratives, as well as stereotypes that affect descendant communities. In this digital review, I draw on my experiences as an archaeologist and cultural consultant within the tabletop games industry to highlight how representation, expertise, and positionality are considerations for any scholar who is solicited for consultation on a commercial product. I also address the unpaid, underpaid, and emotional labor that lurks within an industry reliant on personal passions and work characterized as fun. I conclude with recommendations that focus on reducing harm in the present while playing with the past.