October is Pennsylvania Archaeology Month! Every October, events and programs are held across Pennsylvania to celebrate the Commonwealth’s deep past.
PA SHPO partner agencies and organizations including the the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology (SPA) and their local chapters, the Pennsylvania Archaeological Council (PAC), as well as local historical societies and universities, offer public archaeology programs for all ages to highlight their region’s archaeological and historical significance. We have a lot of announcements this year so here we go!
TWIPA Blog Announcement
For many years the Archaeology Section of the State Museum ran the “This Week in Pennsylvania Archaeology” (TWIPA) blog. This blog highlighted archaeological research, fieldwork, information and events in Pennsylvania and served as a place for researchers and advocational archaeologists and hobbyists to learn about the Commonwealth.
I’m happy to share that we are bringing the TWIPA posts to this blog! The website that hosted the TWIPA blog has become unreliable and unstable, and we are no longer able to maintain the blog on that website. The TWIPA webpage was taken offline at the end of September.
An example of an older TWIPA post from 2020. This one shared some information about what archaeologists have learned about leisure activities from their work.
If you are looking for it, don’t worry! Luckily, we have a blog functioning perfectly well right here! Working with PHMC’s talented team of archaeologists, we will be transferring much of the TWIPA content to this blog. Some posts will be revised with up-to-date research such as our County Reports, which can change every year, and others may be edited in deference to the Tribal Nations with whom we are consulting.
Starting this month, we will be posting these “retro” posts regularly and we look forward to seeing everyone’s comments and discussion. If there is a specific post or piece of information you are looking for, please get in touch with us at ra-bhpmail@pa.gov and we will be happy to help!
Archaeology Month Events
PA SHPO’s Archaeology Curation Team is hosting a series of Learn at Lunchtime lectures for Archaeology Month that will be held virtually again this year.
Presentations begin at 12:15 p.m. and last approximately 20 minutes followed by a Question-and-Answer session. Registration is required to attend these free, virtual programs. Visit statemuseumpa.org/pa-archaeology to register.
- October 3, 2025 – Melanie Mayhew will present “Learning to See Rock Art, Cave Art, and Stone Landscapes in Pennsylvania”.
- October 10, 2025 – Kelly Berliner will present “Quarries, Forts and Beyond: The Archaeological Conservancy’s Preservation Efforts in Pennsylvania”.
- October 17, 2025 – Steven Brann will present “Protecting Civil War Treasures at Gettysburg National Military Park”.
- October 24, 2025 – Brian Fritz will present “How Buried Soil Horizons Form and Their Importance to Archaeology”.
The full calendar of events in Pennsylvania for Archaeology month can be found here.
Additionally, International Archaeology Day is October 18, 2025, and the Archaeological Institute of America provides a Calendar of Events from across the nation and around the globe.
Annual Poster
Each year a poster is produced to visually share some facet of Pennsylvania archaeology. SPA and PAC alternate responsibility for the poster each year. This year the poster, Save the Past for the Future, which highlights a Community Archaeology and digital methodologies we use in the field to find and record sites.
The 2025 poster talks about community archaeology and digital methods.
The SPA maintains a gallery of previous posters. Copies of the poster are available free at many of the events this month, can be downloaded and printed from the SPA website, or physical copies are available through the mail by contacting Dave Burke at the Archaeology Curation Team.
Share Your Sites!
Do you have (or think you have) an archaeological site you would like to register with our office? Let us know!
The Pennsylvania Archaeological Site Survey (PASS) program is the statewide inventory of all recorded archaeological sites in the commonwealth representing 16,000 years of Pennsylvania’s history. Archaeological sites provide unique sources of information that help us tell the story of the people and practices that shaped the landscape of the commonwealth. The more sites we record, the better (and more complete!) story we can tell.
PA SHPO’s archaeologists are always willing to accept archaeological site data. For more information about the PASS program and registering archaeological sites, please visit the PASS website.
Comment Policy
PHMC welcomes and encourages topic-related comments on this blog. PHMC reserves the right to remove comments that in PHMC’s discretion do not follow participation guidelines.
Commenters and Comments shall be related to the blog post topic and respectful of others who use this site.
Commenters and Comments shall not: use language that is offensive, inflammatory or provocative (this includes, but is not limited to, using profanity, obscene, or vulgar comments); disparage other commenters or people; condone illegal activity; identify the location of known or suspected archeological sites; post personal information in comments such as addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses or other contact details, which may relate to you or other individuals; impersonate or falsely claim to represent a person or an organization; make any commercial endorsement or promotion of any product, service or publication.
If you would like to comment on other topics not related to this blog post but related to PHMC, please fill out the PHMC Contact Us Form.
