Archaeological Institute of America (AIA)

Basic Information

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), located at 44 Beacon Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02108 USA, http://www.archaeological.org, is the oldest learned society in North America devoted to archaeology. It is also the largest with over 200,000 members. The AIA was founded in Boston in 1879 under the leadership of Charles Eliot Norton of Harvard University (Sheftel 1979: 3). It has a unique structure based on local societies, now numbering over 100 across the United States, Canada, and overseas. The AIA counts among its members professional archaeologists, most of whom work in the Old World, and members of the general public with a deep interest in archaeology. The coexistence of these two groups has shaped the AIA throughout its history and continues to be a fundamental element of its character.

The AIA promotes archaeological research and disseminates its findings, notably in a scholarly journal, the American Journal of Archaeology; in a popular magazine,...