2025 Annual Symposium
of the
Ontario Archaeological Society
Call for Papers and Posters
The Call for Papers is now ended.
On behalf of the Windsor and Grand River Chapters of the Ontario Archaeological Society (OAS), we are pleased to announce the Call for Papers. The 2025 OAS Annual Symposium, which will take place from October 17th to 19th in downtown Windsor, Ontario. This territory is within the lands honoured by the Wampum Treaties; agreements between the Anishinaabe, Haudenosaunee, Lenni Lenape and allied Nations to peacefully share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. Specifically, we would like to acknowledge the presence of the Wendat Peoples and the Three Fires Confederacy Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi. We are dedicated to honouring Indigenous history and culture while remaining committed to moving forward respectfully with all First Nations, Inuit and Métis.
This three-day event will bring together archaeologists, Indigenous Communities, heritage professionals, students, and all those with a passion for Ontario’s past. This year’s symposium will feature engaging presentations, discussions, and workshops that highlight ongoing research, emerging perspectives, and collaborative approaches to archaeology with the theme of Beyond Borders: Lands, Rivers, Peoples.
The call for papers and posters is now open!
We are seeking papers for several sessions:
- A General Session, open to archaeology and adjacent fields that help us understand landscapes and their peoples.
- The Boyd Field School: 50 years of Public Archaeology Session. This session will explore public archaeology, innovative field schools across the province, and youth engagement in Archaeology and cultural heritage.
- Finally, we are calling for students to contribute papers and posters. This call is open to ongoing research and projects from students of archaeology and archaeology adjacent studies such as forensics, anthropology, archival, GPR studies and more.
Paper and poster proposals should include a title and abstract of no more than 200 words. Please specify your name or organization and the session for which your paper is being submitted. All paper and poster abstracts are to be submitted to oaswindsor@gmail.com by September 5, 2025.
Sincerely,
2025 OAS Symposium Committee
Sessions
Beyond Stages 1-4: Recipes for a Transformative Practice of Archaeology. This session invites papers that examine forms of practice and multiple conceptions of archaeology emerging from that praxis and the relationships and respect built across territories by doing, telling, honouring, celebrating, and knowing that material heritage. These papers, collectively, should invite all of us to think more about what the goals and outcomes of “doing” and “knowing from archaeology” are from within such a “Stage 5” conception of practice.
Session organizers: Dean Jacobs (dean.jacobs@wifn.org), Neal Ferris (nferris@uwo.ca), and Christopher Watts(c3watts@uwaterloo.ca)
