Schedule Details – EAA Annual Meeting 2026

August 27, 2026 | 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM
427

22 - Collaborative Synthesis to address major research questions with broad relevance

Session with presentation of 6 slides in 6 minutes

This session will create a dynamic forum to examine how collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and international synthesis can address one of archaeology’s most pressing challenges: integrating heterogeneous datasets and methodological approaches to answer large-scale questions about long-term human and environmental dynamics. Presenters, including members of the Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis (CfAS) and affiliated initiatives, will demonstrate how synthesis-driven research can overcome fragmentation in archaeological data and practice by combining diverse evidence, comparative frameworks, and multiscalar analyses.

The session will highlight concrete case studies in which synthesis has produced new insights into major thematic problems such as urban resilience, socio-environmental change, religious transformation, and inequality. Speakers will introduce methodological strategies for integrating datasets, from textual and material archives to remote sensing, computational modeling, and community-based knowledge. They will also share lessons learned in building and sustaining long-term collaborative research networks, including best practices in data interoperability, ethical engagement, and knowledge translation.

Participants are warmly invited to reflect on their own experiences with collaborative research and to contribute ideas for future synthetic efforts. Through focused discussion on the problem of archaeological fragmentation and the methodological innovations needed to overcome it, this session aims to chart a clear and actionable vision for the next generation of archaeological synthesis.