Archaeologists have been adjusting to working within the surrounding context of Covid-19 transmission since the pandemic forced us to shutter our offices in March to work at home. This experience has been somewhat different for each Cultural Resource Management (CRM) organization, although the common experiences of needing to do office and even lab work at home, and to find appropriately safe ways to work in the field loom large. It is the details of the field experience that vary most. These variations include whether travel and hotel stays are required, or whether fieldwork can be accomplished by an individual working alone, or whether safety procedures are needed for crews of people engaged in a variety of tasks. Still early in this process, it is a safe bet that CRM firms continue to adapt and are flexible in how they approach projects, employing creativity in staffing while minimizing risk, especially when long distance travel is required. One creative solution is to find crews local to the study area rather than sending out standing crews who would stay in hotels, possibly in states or regions that do not (or no longer) meet rigorous social distancing standards. However, hiring new staff on a project-to-project basis to work at great distance from the office may conflict with other goals, such as keeping existing or long-term staff employed, and maintaining the quality that usually accompanies in-house experience. These are challenges which at least some firms are facing if our casual observations are correct.

Crew following safety protocols on a data recovery project in Malta, New York.

Once in the field, whether on the road or working near home, detailed health and safety considerations are now necessary on a routine basis and must be observed and reinforced rigorously. Recently, as we reopened for projects that require a crew in the field, we have implemented a series of rules and practices designed to reduce the potential spread of COVID-19 within our work-force and between our group and visitors to our work site. We also have a protocol to assist contact tracing should that become necessary for health officials working to control the spread of the disease.

Our current procedures are designed for work on the Phase 3 archaeological data recovery at the A. H. Hemphill site in Malta, Saratoga County, New York. Briefly, the A. H. Hemphill site is a historic site occupied by the Hemphill family, originally pioneers from New Hampshire, over three long generations from 1800-1917. Our work is being conducted over a large yard area because our research design requires spatially dispersed samples so we can compare different parts of the site in terms of occupation history. This has helped to maximize social distancing, especially during the first two weeks of the fieldwork.

To begin this work, we used the New York State Department of Health NY Forward Safety Plan Template to develop a safety plan in compliance with state rules and provide a hard copy to carry into the field for reference and as proof of compliance, allowing our business to conduct its work as New York State has moved through the initial phases of re-opening. Its details are incorporated in the practices we discuss further below. Our safety plan was also informed by the Reopening New York Construction Guideliines for Employers and Employees.

Travel

This is a local project and the crew live locally, so no one is staying in hotels. We travel to the site by car individually or crew are dropped off by family members. Parking is outside of the boundary of the work area, and the area is big enough for drivers to spread out a bit. Workers who may have been exposed to Covid-19, for example due to a crowd on a weekend, are additionally cautioned to park more than 6 feet from other cars.

Wash and Disinfection Station

A wash and disinfection station is set up physically distanced more than 6 feet from other work locations. The wash and disinfection station consists of a table equipped with a large water dispenser, liquid soap, paper towels, disinfecting wipes, and a disinfecting bleach-water solution in a spray bottle. A dispenser of fresh masks for crew use also is kept on this table. This station is used when people want to wash and for daily disinfecting of binders, clipboards, or other items regularly collected for common storage. Regular hand-washing or sanitizing is encouraged, even if it is just at lunchtime and the end of the day.

Masks

Wearing face masks is required of visitors and of workers, both when they are working within 6 feet of others, or in movement to common areas or between work areas. We find that most people prefer their own masks, but NY Forward rules require that we provide masks as needed, and we do (as we just mentioned, a mask dispenser is kept at the wash station).

Social Distancing

Social distancing refers to a rule of maintaining at least 6 feet of distance between people when they are not wearing masks. However, we apply the social distance concept more broadly to minimize the occasions when people would work less than 6 feet apart, and to maximize the distance of work areas to much greater than 6 feet as often as possible. As noted earlier, our broad spatial sampling across the archaeological site during the first two weeks of work has facilitated social distancing. These initial 1x1 meter excavation units were usually 7 meters apart. Currently, while we focus on specific middens, we maintain a high level of mindfulness and planning ahead when opening new excavation units. The active units of the second stage of sampling always are more than 2 meters apart, even though more people are working in a smaller area. The guiding philosophy is to maximize distance rather than to regularize six foot (2 meter) intervals, such as we would find in the check-out line at the grocery store (where more constrained space and a certain understandable impatience result in observation of the minimum standard).

Another aspect of social distance requires breaking up the regular teams of two or three that archaeologists often work in. Our excavation work therefore has proceeded with each individual excavating his or her own 1x1 meter units. Exceptions to this are made when deep unit excavation is expedited by adding a screener (with the screen set up more than two meters from the unit), or when assistance from one of the excavation directors is needed. The other exceptions when two or three people work together include teams using long tapes to set up excavation areas, and teams triangulating the corners of 1x1 meter excavation unit corners. In the first case people are often more than 2 meters (6 feet) apart. In the last case people are about 1 meter apart, but usually only for a few minutes. Wearing masks is absolutely necessary for this work due to reduction of distance.

In order to assign individuals to excavate 1x1s alone, planning and additional purchasing has been necessary to equip people with the tools and materials they need and to minimize equipment sharing. Each crew member was equipped with a binder full of the various excavation recording forms and graph paper, plus a clipboard with a closing cover, pencils, and sharpies. In addition to binders and clipboards, each crew member has been equipped with a toolbox containing a line level, plumb bob, bypass (root) clippers, metric tape, plastic bags, paint brushes, hand sanitizer, and tick spray. The crew members hold onto the toolboxes for the duration of the project, so they are not stored in a common area. Finally, each crew member was equipped with larger equipment including a flat shovel, a rocker screen with ¼ inch mesh, a dustpan, tarps, and buckets.

Preparing individualized field kits in the back yard on a sunny Sunday evening

Preparing binders for each team member prior to the start of fieldwork. Binders were labeled with names to minimize handling by more than one person.

The binders can be replenished from a container of extra forms stored in a common area physically distant (>6 feet) from the wash station. The common area also contains a table displaying many of the common items for quick and easy access, reducing searches through containers. Replenishing forms is typically done in coordination with a supervisor to minimize the number of people in contact with common stores of materials. Examples of items in shorter supply shared out of the common area include loppers, round tip shovels, specialized smaller shovels for digging in deep excavation units, a ladder, a one-inch diameter Oakfield corer, 30-meter tapes, Munsell color charts, and water spray bottles to moisten walls for “reading” soil stratigraphy.

Common area where shared equipment is stored when not in use. Binders are picked up by each team member in the morning and turned in at the end of the day to be disinfected and stored until the next day.

Splitting teams of two into individual excavators requires doubling the amount of a large number of items. While some things are on-hand, this requires numerous new purchases. Plan purchases as effectively as possible with regard to your schedule. However, equipment delivery on time may be problematic if you are suddenly expected to start up immediately during the general exuberance of opening up. We recommend that if you need to order something well-crafted (rather than mass-produced at big-box store consumption levels), be mindful of the time it takes for delivery, as well as the troubling reality that unknown/untested products, even if delivered quicker than your usual source, may not meet your expectations. Also, gearing up for social distancing may greatly increase the budget you need for supplies and materials, although some of what you purchase will be reusable in the future. This is a good investment for this year and possibly next, for the simple reason that currently there is no end in sight for social distancing.

Disinfecting and Quarantining Items

The binders and clipboards are disinfected daily with chlorine wipes when they are collected for overnight storage inside. The tables are also disinfected daily with bleach solution. Artifacts are collected in bins that are quarantined for the foreseeable future in the archaeology lab. On occasion, if an artifact bag was retrieved before going into quarantine it has been disinfected with a chlorine wipe. A garbage bag is kept in a tall wastebasket at the wash station for disposal of paper towels, wipes, PPE, and regular site waste. The garbage bag is sealed and removed for disposal at the end of each day. As we noted the toolboxes are in the possession of their users for the duration of the project. Larger tools are stored outdoors overnight, but typically are reused by the same people each day.

Logs, Questionnaires, Visitors

The project director maintains a log of who has been on site each day and asks the crew a series of questions regarding Covid-19 exposure and testing to provide daily updates of this information. Visitors are included in the log by name and the nature of the visit to the fullest extent possible. The project director also maintains a log concerning cleaning and disinfecting and the removal of garbage bags.

We alert visitors to the need to wear a mask. This is arranged by communicating ahead of time with clients and other archaeologists, historians, or environmental scientists. Masks are required but there is the possibility that additional people, some innocent and ignorant of the issue, will intrude (hopefully only around the edges of the work area). We have been able to record those who did not wear a mask by name. These are people who showed up unannounced without masks but were met early and not allowed within 6 feet of the work area.

The log of people on site anticipates the possibility that a worker or visitor will test positive for Covid-19, and the log will be a key to tracing contacts across the social networks that overlap at our project site. In addition to understanding that your archaeological site or survey area may become a hub in a contact tracing effort, if you are a CRM manager or executive, it is important that you understand your organization’s obligations regarding work and payment should a worker either test positive or self-quarantine due to possible exposure through avenues such as family, friends, roommates, or large gatherings of people. While we cannot advise you about this in any detail, it is clear that there are some things you must do as the employer, and other things you cannot do.

Your re-opening is probably underway. What precautions are you taking? What has worked and what hasn’t? Here’s to a safe and successful re-opening for everyone!