Peabody Highlights
Society for American Archaeology Teaching Award In August 2020, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) announced its newest education award, the Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology Award for Archaeology and Education. The Robert S. Peabody Institute of Archaeology Award for Archaeology and Education recognizes the excellence of individuals or institutions in using archaeological methods, theory, and/or data to enliven, enrich, and enhance other disciplines, and to foster the community of archaeology education practitioners. The Peabody Award will spotlight these contributions and promote teaching ideas, exercises, activities, and methods across the educational spectrum, from K-12 through higher education and public education. Diving with a Purpose received the inaugural award at the April annual meeting of the society.
Virtual Practicum In spring 2021 Ryan Wheeler mentored Oberlin College student Annabel Dobbyn in a virtual practicum. Annabel used online auction data to track the buying and selling of shell gorgets, a distinctive artifact from the southeastern United States. Together, they developed a database with hundreds of shell gorgets sold online, identifying the primary auction houses involved in these sales, a fair number of fakes, and price trends. We were surprised to learn that most gorgets sold online were unknown in the archaeological literature. Regional trends were interesting as well, including a large number of gorgets from West Virginia, where few had been reported. One of the most interesting observations was that some gorgets were offered for sale over and over by different auction houses, often with very different descriptions and provenance data.
