In the spring of 2018, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) initiated the process of updating and revising the SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics. As part of this process, the SAA created the Task Force on Revising the SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics: Stage Two (TF-2), which would collect, organize, and analyze results from a survey (see Rakita and Gordon, this issue, for more details about the work of TF-2). This survey was available online between April and June of 2020 and was open to SAA members and non-members. Consisting of 31 questions, the survey received responses from 1,542 people (including 1,112 SAA members). A key objective was to gauge reactions and attitudes of respondents toward the current SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics. This article reports the survey results relevant to those principles, which can be found at https://www.saa.org/career-practice/ethics-in-professional-archaeology and which are reprinted in this issue of the Record. We first summarize the respondents’ demographics, and how they are using the principles. We then summarize reactions to each of the nine principles and responses to questions about how the principles address situations and concerns. These data provide an indication of the overall level of satisfaction with the current SAA Principles of Archaeological Ethics. Finally, we conclude with some guidance for considering future revisions of the principles.
Views on the Nine Principles of Archaeological Ethics from the 2020 SAA Ethics Survey
