Meghan's thesis research weaves together multiple stories of indigenous and Euro-American families who surrounded and interacted with an archaeological deposit originally excavated and analyzed in 2008 from Arlington, Washington. Meghan's reanalysis of the archaeological assemblage employs a biographical approach, which looks at how the 'lifetimes' of artifacts discarded in the privy are connected to the lives of the Teager, Hurd, Lovelace, and Weimer families who owned and occupied the site between 1890 and 1940. In order to construct nuanced and compelling biographies of the site, she employed extensive archival and genealogical research with the help of SVGS in 2021. Her talk will discuss how genealogical methods were used in her research, how this kind of historical information is more broadly useful to archaeologists, and explore the ethical implications of using publicly available genealogical information for archaeological research.

Bio:

Meghan Caves has nearly completed her Master's Degree in anthropology and is pursuing her Doctorate in historical archaeology at the University of Idaho. She has worked as an archaeologist in the Pacific Northwest since 2018 and is currently an archaeological technician at the Umatilla National Forest out of the Pomeroy Ranger District in Southeastern Washington.