A Test Case of Transdisciplinary Research Theory and Practice: Adena, the Home of Thomas Worthington

By the mid-1990s, the Ohio Historical Society had institutionalized a team approach to produce historical knowledge and interpretation at public sites. This approach follows a mode of research, referred to as transdisciplinary, by which many forms of new knowledge are being created in a postacademic setting. In this new setting, research is completed for the benefit of society and is produced through the cooperative efforts of several key specialists. Archaeological research at Adena, the plantation estate built by Thomas Worthington in 1807, just north of Chillicothe, Ohio, shows how transdisciplinary research has emerged as the dominant form of research at historic sites. Three distinct periods of research at the site are used to show how methodological approaches to research at public institutions have progressed over time to promote a theoretically based team approach to knowledge production.