Postdoc Adam Benfer stewards big data in the study of Central America
In the spring of 2024 the Faculty of Archaeology welcomed a new postdoc. Dr Adam Benfer, originally from the United States, occupies a double position as a researcher in the project of Alex Geurds and as the Faculty’s Data Steward. ‘It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially, a data steward works to help others with the best data management practices.’
From Kansas to Costa Rica
Adam Benfer started his academic career in archaeology at the University of Kansas with a focus on Andean archaeology, particularly focused on the Incas and the other cultures of the central Andean mountain range. ‘By my first semester I started studying the Quechua language and quickly got very good at it. During my studies in Peru that following summer I discovered that my Spanish was terrible, though. Somehow my Quechua was better. So I decided to go to the University of Costa Rica for a year to improve my Spanish skills.’
Pre-Columbian road networks
John Hoopes, Benfer’s undergraduate and eventual master’s advisor at Kansas, actually was an expert in the archaeology of Costa Rica. ‘This was something I hadn’t even thought about up until that point, so when I was in Costa Rica I jumped into studying the country’s archaeology, and I took a class on the topic.’ In a group assignment, Benfer investigated the pre-Hispanic road network in Costa Rica. ‘Having come from the Andes, where there’s an extensive road network that we know of, and being inspired by the work of John Hyslop who studied these roads, I decided to try something similar in Costa Rica.’ The roads, trails, and paths in Costa Rica ended up to be the perfect subject for his bachelor’s and master’s theses.
Big database
Further delving into the road networks and trade routes of Central America, Benfer wrote a dissertation at the University of Calgary in Canada. ‘I wanted to adopt a larger perspective, so I shifted my focus towards the Pacific coastal area of Nicaragua, known as the Greater Nicoya Subarea.’ But how do you investigate pre-Hispanic roads when no such roads have been found? ‘I wanted to do a least-cost path analysis, based on the geochemically sourced artefacts found in the region by various archaeologists. So I made a big database of their data and geospatially linked that up to the landscape.’ Benfer then ran the least-cost path analysis, which he subsequently compared to an ethnohistoric road map that he drew based on the ethnohistoric records. ‘All this work just to address the fact that we do not have a lot of the material record of these roads, since they do not preserve well in Nicaragua and Costa Rica.’
Coming to Leiden
In January 2023 Benfer finished his dissertation in Calgary. Going back to Kansas, he started to teach introductory courses in archaeology and cultural anthropology at a local community college, as well as working in contract archaeology. ‘I took that time to start looking for my next step. Then Alex Geurds got his grant and he contacted me, suggesting that I apply for the postdoc position. I already knew Alex from the time that he was excavating in Nicaragua and he had been interested in the answers my big data approach could provide.’ Benfer was hired in Geurds’ project and came to Leiden in the spring of 2024.
Data Steward
Aside from his research position, Benfer is also Data Steward at the Faculty of Archaeology. ‘The first time I heard the term I literally asked Google what it meant. It is pretty much what the title says: I steward data. Essentially, a data steward works to help others with the best data management practices. As someone who has dealt with a lot of data it is something for which I see a great need.’ Benfer sees himself as very well suited for the job as well. ‘I did a rather poor job of managing my own data, and along the journey I have learned a lot. I look forward to helping others to use and manage their data more optimally.’
Recontextualising artefacts
As a postdoctoral researcher, Benfer will be working in Alex’s Vici project on human-environmental engagement across Central America and Colombia. ‘My role in this project is to create a large database of artefacts housed in museum collections that come from the whole of Central America as well as the north of South America. We will focus on artefacts that are imbued with symbolism. For example ceramics with a lot of iconographic representation or stone statuary or gold work.’ Many of these objects have no recorded context, making them hard to make interpretations on. ‘What I am going to do is to attempt to recontextualise a lot of those objects. Currently I’m in an exploratory phase to figure out how exactly we will accomplish this.’
The plan is to create a geospatial database of the entire region. ‘I’ll have a raster or a grid covering the area. In little squares or hexagons, we will plot the different artefacts. So that when you click on a cell within the grid you will see all the artefacts with symbolism that come from that area, organised by date as well.’ The artefacts will also be categorised by their symbolism. ‘Like representations of plants, animals, and humans. I’m not doing the iconographic analysis, instead I will look at what iconographic research colleagues have already completed.’ It is truly big data in archaeology. ‘It is something that I’m still wrapping my head around.’
Bigger and bigger questions
Benfer hopes that the resulting database will be of use to archaeologists working insouthern Central America. ‘I would never have said it before coming here, but I see myself as kind of the up-and-coming Data Steward of the archaeology of the Isthmus-Colombian Culture Area. Hopefully we can set up a system in which we can all work together, collaborate together much more effectively, and work towards answering bigger and bigger questions. This big data approach can also work into taking an Indigenous archaeological approach as well. It is my hope and dream to decolonise archaeology in the Isthmus-Colombian Culture Area, by involving Indigenous groups in investigation of their cultural heritage.’