Archaeology Division (AD)
Annual Report for 2001
2001 AD Executive Committee Membership
Deborah Nichols (Chair), Patricia Crown (Chair-Elect), William Doelle (Treasurer), Ken Sassaman (Secretary), Jay Johnson (Publications Director), Cathy Costin (Program Editor), Robert Preucel (Member-at-Large), Joseph Schudenrein (Member-at-Large) and Lauren Bigelow (Student Member). Christine Hastorff served as Chair of the AD Nominations Committee.
Financial Standing The financial status of the AD continues to be good and permitted the AD to undertake several initiatives.
Membership Membership in the AD has leveled off at 1400 and the Executive Committee discussed ways of increasing membership, including preparing an article about the AD for the Society of American Archaeology Record. Other outreach activities include the AD continuing to sponsor a symposium at the Annual Meeting for the Society for American Archaeology and AAA participation on the board of the Register of the Professional Archaeology (RPA). It is important for the AAA to have a visible presence with an exhibit booth at the SAA Annual Meeting to distribute membership applications and publications.
Publications Volume 10 of the Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association, Social Memory, Identity, and Death: Archaeological Perspectives on Mortuary Ritual, edited by Meredith Chesson, is ready for submission to the printer and will be distributed to AD members in early 2002. Copy editing is finished for The Space and Place of Death, ed. by Helaine Silverman and David Small and the volume is moving into production. External reviews have been completed on Thinking Small: Global Perspectives on Microlithization, edited by Steven Kuhn and Robert Elston and Archaeology is Anthropology, ed. by Susan Gillespie and Deborah Nichols is under review.
To improve the distribution of A3PA, Jay Johnson began efforts to make A3PA available on-line. Through a link to the AAA website all institutional and regular members will be able to access A3PA on- line. Johnson has scanned, edited, and uploaded Numbers 1 and 2 for the internet using funds provided by the University of Mississippi. Priority will be given to making new volumes available on-line and issues that are out-of-print.
Gordon Willey Prize Patricia Crown (AD Chair-Elect) chaired the Nominations Committee for the 2001 Gordon Willey Prize that was awarded to James Snead for his article, “Science, Commerce, and Control: Patronage and the Development of Anthropological Archaeology in the Americas,” published in American Anthropologist.
A.V. Kidder Award The A.V. Kidder Award , designated in 2001 for contributions to archaeology in the U.S. Southwest, was given Linda S. Cordell.
Annual Business Meeting and Distinguished Lecture The AD held its annual business meeting on Friday November 30, 2001 at 6:00 p.m., followed by the AD Distinguished Lecture, which was given by William Longacre, “Archaeology as Anthropology Revisited.” Although the Distinguished Lecture was inadvertently omitted from the Meeting Program, on-site advertising generated strong attendance. Timothy Earle has been selected to give the 2002 AD Distinguished Lecture.
Annual Meeting The AD reviewed over 220 paper submissions, all but 20 were part of symposia. All 24 of the sessions submitted by the AD were accepted. The AD also worked with the SAA’s History of Archaeology Interest Group to facilitate a SAA-sponsored session at the Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. Complementing the AAA Long-Range Plan’s education initiative, NASA sponsored a panel, “Teaching Archaeology at the Dawn of the Millennium: Is Anthropology Really Necessary,” that was an AD-invited session.
Nominations In addition to nominating and selecting candidates to run for all vacancies on the AD Executive Committee, the AD Executive Committee undertook a major effort to propose candidates for AAA-wide positions. Suggestions for how the duties of nominating archaeologists to AAA-wide positions can be better handled will be taken up at the Executive Committee’s spring 2002 meeting.
AD Sponsored Sessions at SAA At the 2001 Annual Meeting of the Socieity for American Archaeology in New Orleans, the AD sponsored a session, “Multidisciplinary Approaches to Social Violence in the Prehispanic American Southwest,” organized by Patricia Crown and Deborah Nichols. The session involving bioarchaeologists, ethnohistorians, ethnographers, and archaeologists generated considerable interest.
Public Policy Mobilization The Archaeology Division joined with the Society for American Archaeology in an effort to stop plans to close the Smithsonian Institution’s Center for Materials Research. The AD also supported the Archaeological Institute of America’s request to file a legal brief on the Frederick Schultz antiquities trafficking case. In January, Nichols attended a meeting of presidents of national archaeology organizations (held in Long Beach, CA in conjunction with the Annual Meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology) to discuss coordination of mobilization efforts.
Register of Professional Archaeologists The AAA Executive Board accepted the AD’s recommendation that the AAA join the Register of Professional Archaeologists as a “sponsoring organization” for a two-year trial period beginning January 2002. In consultation with AD Executive Committee, President Lamphere appointed Jeffery Altschul to serve as the AAA representative on the RPA Board. The AD agreed to share costs of sponsorship with the AAA.
Impact of the AAA Reorganization The reorganization of the AAA has been very positive for archaeology as indicated by the election of archaeologists to “undesignated” AAA-wide offices. The AAA needs to make archaeologists who are not AAA members more aware of the changes from the reorganization. Suggestions include a letter or article for the SAA Record by President Brenneis and President-Elect Brumfiel, advertising highlights of upcoming AAA Annual meetings and A3PA publications in the SAA Record and newsletters of the Society for Historical Archaeology and Archaeological Institute of America.
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