CfAS in Sweden

On 14 December 2022 Jeff Altschul and Keith Kintigh were pleased to describe and discuss CfAS with a group of about 35 Swedish archaeologists. The talk was given at the invitation of SweDigArch, the Swedish National Infrastructure for Digital Archaeology, a new initiative funded by the Swedish Research Council.  SweDigArch will develop a digital infrastructure facilitating the production of thoroughly-integrated archaeological datasets. Users will be able to conduct data-intensive, integrative, interdisciplinary research on long-term socioenvironmental dynamics. Much like CfAS, a major objective of SweDigArch is to use archaeological data to address present and future challenges in landscape and resource management. Hoping to learn from CfAS’ example, the leaders of SweDigArch asked Altschul and Kintigh to provide a history of efforts leading up to the establishment of CfAS and CCSA, described how CfAS is organized, and discuss how CfAS projects link research into the past with present day issues. The presentation was followed by a lengthy discussion period—focused on the situations and ways in which archaeology is most likely to be able to influence policy.  Slides from the presentation are available here.