SRI Foundation Hosts “Passport in Time” Clearinghouse

Passport in Time (PIT) is a volunteer program of the USDA Forest Service. PIT volunteers work with professional Forest Service archaeologists and historians on a wide range of projects, including archaeological surveys and excavations, recording and restoring rock art, archival research, historic structure restoration, gathering of oral histories, and analysis and curation of archaeological artifacts. These projects take place within National Forests throughout the country. In 2005, the SRI Foundation entered into a cooperative agreement with the Forest Service to host the PIT Clearinghouse. The Foundation’s services include advertising projects that are open to volunteers, processing volunteer applications, providing resources to the PIT project leaders, and maintaining the PIT Program databases.

In 2006, this extremely popular volunteer program was expanded to provide other federal and state agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and various state parks, the opportunity to have their projects advertised through the PIT Clearinghouse. Agencies wishing to host a project that uses volunteers are able, for a fee, to access the services of the PIT Clearinghouse and advertise their projects on the PIT web page.

If you are interested in learning more about Passport in Time or want to volunteer on a PIT project, please visit the PIT web page at www.passportintime.com.

Agencies interested in hosting a PIT project can contact Matt Dawson, Program Manager for PIT, at

The Society for American Archaeology’s magazine “Archaeological Record” contains several articles on public outreach. One article by Carol Ellick notes that archaeological specialists are essential for compiling, analyzing, and interpreting the technical data within their specialty. The same is true with outreach and education. The archaeological educator analyzes the data and translates it giving archaeological data meaning to a specific audience—the public. A copy of this article can be downloaded at http://www.saa.org/Portals/0/SAA/Publications/thesaaarchrec/mar02.pdf, page 8 (2.1 MB PDF).

“The Awful Truth about Archaeology” An insight and opinion piece by Lynne Sebastian, Ph.D. on the public’s perception of archaeology and what archaeology is really all about.

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