In spring 2013, the Society for American Archaeology created the Task Force on Gender Disparities in Archaeological Grant Submissions because of an apparent disparity in the rates of senior (post-PhD) proposal submissions by men and women to archaeology programs at the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Although NSF success rates for men and women between 2009 and 2013 were roughly equal, the number of senior women archaeology submissions was half that of men. Given the documented increase in the proportion of women in academic archaeology, this representation of women seemed low. Moreover, submissions for NSF doctoral dissertation improvement grants were evenly divided between men and women. Statistics for Wenner-Gren noted the same general disparity in archaeology. This study examines and integrates a variety of data sources, including interviews with post-PhD women, to determine whether or not there is a problem in research grant submissions. Although the results indicate that there is a problem, it is multifaceted. Women are not well represented at research-intensive universities, and some women instead practice what we term “scaffolding” to integrate smaller pots of money to accomplish their research. Recommendations are provided for female applicants, academic departments, the Society for American Archaeology, and granting agencies.

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While our fascination with understanding the past is sufficient to warrant an increased focus on synthesis, solutions to important problems facing modern society require understandings based on data that only archaeology can provide. Yet, even as we use public monies to collect ever-greater amounts of data, modes of research that can stimulate emergent understandings of human behavior have lagged behind. Consequently, a substantial amount of archaeological inference remains at the level of the individual project. We can more effectively leverage these data and advance our understandings of the past in ways that contribute to solutions to contemporary problems if we adapt the model pioneered by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis to foster synthetic collaborative research in archaeology. We propose the creation of the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis coordinated through a U.S.-based National Center for Archaeological Synthesis. The coalition will be composed of established public and private organizations that provide essential scholarly, cultural heritage, computational, educational, and public engagement infrastructure. The center would seek and administer funding to support collaborative analysis and synthesis projects executed through coalition partners. This innovative structure will enable the discipline to address key challenges facing society through evidentially based, collaborative synthetic research.

The racially based murders of George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and others as perpetrated by white police officers and vigilantes have brought systemic racism, anti-Black aggression, and race-based injustices perpetuated against Black Americans to the forefront of our collective consciousness. The disciplines of anthropology and archaeology are complicit in the historical basis for these events. Indigenous peoples have also experienced institutional injustices, racism, and inequalities all over the world. Archaeologists are part of this history, and as a discipline, at its core, archaeology has been a colonial practice, which has had cumulative negative effects on not only Black populations but also on Indigenous peoples and other underrepresented populations. We recognize and include these populations in our statements below and advocate for more diversity and inclusivity in the archaeology community.