2003 AD Annual Report

Archaeology Division Annual Report for 2003

Archaeology Division (AD) Executive Committee Membership: The AD Executive Committee Members for 2003 were: Patricia Crown (Chair), Meg Conkey (Chair-Elect), David Anderson (Treasurer), Katherine Spielmann (Secretary), Jay Johnson (Publications Director), Jerry Moore (Program Editor), Melinda Zeder (Member-at-large), Jeff Altshul (Member-at-large), and Margaret Beck (Student Member). Michelle Hegmon served as Chair of the AD Nominations Committee (with Pam Crabtree and Bob Paynter).

I want to acknowledge the hard work of outgoing Member at large Jeff Altschul, who has served on the Executive Committee as well as our liaison to the RPA. I want to also welcome incoming members of the EXCOM: Susan Gillespie as Chair-elect and Sissel Schroeder as Member at large. We have a very diligent executive committee and I want to recognize each of them for all their hard work this year.

1) Membership. Membership in the AD stands at 1346 members, which represents a decrease of 71 members over last year, largely in the Regular and Student member categories. Other membership categories held steady or increased slightly over this time last year. However, it should be noted that the peak in membership in 2003 (1466 members) was the highest in ten years, and our membership usually increases when there is an Annual Meeting in San Francisco, so we expect it to go up again by next year.

2) Financial Standing. The financial status of the AD continues to be good and permitted the AD to undertake several initiatives. As of September 2003, the date of the last financial statement, we had net assets of $79,030.96.

3) Annual Meeting. The AD reviewed 146 paper and poster submissions, and 132 were accepted. The AD helped organize the AAA Presidential Session, "Cooperation and Conflict: Current Studies in Evolutionary Anthropology, organized by John Patton and Tim Kohler. The AD had two invited symposia: "Breaking down boundaries: Anthropological approaches to cultural transmission and material culture in memory of Carol Kramer" and "Maya social memory and history at secondary hubs of authority," and an invited poster session, "Constructed landscapes and persistent places: Studies from Prehistoric Europe." Apart from the invited sessions, the AD Program Editor reviewed nine organized sessions and seven of these made it into the final program. He also organized 3 sessions of volunteered papers and one volunteered poster session.

Rosemary Joyce will deliver the Distinguished Lecture for 2003. Colin Renfrew has been selected to give the Distinguished Lecture for 2004 at the AAA Annual Meetings in San Francisco. Tim Earles' distinguished lecture from 2002 has been accepted for publication in American Anthropologist.

In 1997, the Executive Committee of the Archeology Division established the Gordon R. Willey Award to recognize an outstanding contribution to archaeology published in American Anthropologist. The awards committee for 2003 was chaired by Meg Conkey, and they had a record of 23 articles to consider. The recipient of the 2003 award is Lisa LeCount of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Alabama for her article, "Like water for chocolate: feasting and political ritual among the Late Classic Maya at Xunantunich, Belize", published in 2001

At the AAA meetings, AD executive committee members attended meetings concerning the development of the AAA electronic publishing program, AnthroSource, and issues related to Section Fundraising.

Next year the Kidder Award will be given to a Mesoamerican Archaeologist. The nominations committee for this award is anonymous, but is already hard at work soliciting nominations. Nominations materials are due by December 31, 2003 and should be sent to Dr. Katherine Spielmann at Arizona State University for distribution to the committee.

4) Spring Meeting activities. The AD spring meeting is held at the Society for American Archaeology meetings, generally in March. For the past three years, the AD has sponsored a session at the SAA meetings, to promote inter-organizational relations. At the 2003 Annual Meeting of the SAA in Milwaukee, the AD sponsored a session, "Gordon R. Willey's Contribution to American Archaeology: Contemporary Perspectives" organized by Jeremy Sabloff and William L. Fash. At the 2004 Annual Meetings of the SAA in Montreal, the AD will again sponsor a session, "Celebrating Diversity in Archaeology - Honoring Susan Kent," co-organized by Wendy Ashmore, Marcia-Anne Dobres, Sarah M. Nelson, and Arlene Rosen. This session will be held on Thursday afternoon at the meetings, so please plan on attending.

Other issues dealt with at the spring AD Executive Committee meeting included a discussion of the Long Range Plan (presented by Janet Levy), nominations for AD and AAA-wide elections, and the Willey Award nomination. The AD has undertaken a major effort to find and nominate candidates for AAA wide positions in addition to the positions on the AD executive committee. This is a very time-consuming task for the Secretary of the AD. We currently have 19 archaeologists serving in various capacities for the AAA, including incoming President Liz Brumfiel. In addition, this year we began instituting nominations for all appropriate AAA Awards, to increase the visibility and talents of our many members.

The AD also had a booth in the SAA exhibition hall for the entire SAA meeting this year. AAA policy forbids sales of AP3A volumes at the meetings because of tax issues, but many people took book order forms and the display copies of the A3PA volumes were donated to the SAA Native American Scholarship auction. The Executive Committee and volume editors "manned" the booth. We appreciate the many AD members who stopped by to chat about issues of common concern.

5) Communications and Publications. Volume 12 of the Archaeological Papers of the American Anthropological Association (A3PA), entitled, "Thinking Small: Global Perspectives on Microlithization," edited by Steven Kuhn and Robert Elston, came out in 2003. Volume 13, "Archaeology IS Anthropology," edited by Susan Gillespie and Deborah Nichols, also came out in 2003. At the Spring Meeting, the Executive Committee considered four prospecti for new volumes and decided to accept two for future publication. Our publications director, Jay Johnson, has done a terrific job trying to catch up on the publications series after it had fallen behind by several issues. We now employ a copy editor to help with the volumes, making it easier for volume editors. Jay is also improving the distribution of A3PA by making new issues available on line thru a link with the AAA website.

The new AnthroSource project should make the AD publications more widely available to libraries. In the original plans, the A3PA was slated for inclusion in the project in the fourth year of the process, but through the efforts of Rosemary Joyce on the Portal Committee, our publications were moved up to the first round, and will be included in 2004. In order to be in this group, the Executive Committee has voted to make the AP3A a serial, along with other journals in this first round. Althoughwe expect thus to have our initial costs somewhat reduced ( first round journals/serials will not have to pay for the development time) and a down-the-line increase in revenue stream as institutions, in addition to our individual members, will be able to be subscribers ( something that was not frequent while we have been only a volume-by-volume publication. And although we expect increased dissemeination and wider citation, we are still working out the up-front costs that are expected. In light of this,we will be increasing our dues for Regular members only ( not Students),

6) Outreach. Outreach activities for this year included sponsoring a 4rd annual symposium at the Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. As noted, we had a booth at the SAA meetings as well. The AAA also participates on the board of the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA). At the AD's behest the AAA and AD jointly paid the fees to become a "sponsoring organization" for a 2 year trial period beginning January 2002. Jeffrey Altschul, Member at Large of the AD, has served as our representative to the RPA Board., and will be replaced by AD Treasurer, Davud Anderson. In the letter submitted by Jeff Altschul at the end of his term, he stresses the importance of this representation of the AAA and AD on the RPA Board.

7) By-laws. There were no changes in the by-laws this year. However, the Executive Committee is placing four by-laws changes on the ballot for the spring. The first changes concern the Program Chair position. The Program Chair is in charge of receiving and evaluating all submitted program materials and setting up the Distinguished Lecture. Because the position takes some time to learn, we recommend that we add a Program Chair Elect position, so that the incoming Program Chair has the opportunity to learn how to do the job before starting to do it.

Second we recommend that the Program Chair have a three year term, rather than the current two year term for the same reasons, and the first year of that term will be as Program Chair Elect, and it will overlap with the last year of the term of the Program Chair, for continuity and communication.

The second set of changes concern the Nominations Committee. The Nominations Committee currently consists of three members, appointed by the AD Executive Board, but without voting privileges on the board. Each member serves for 3 years, but the terms are overlapping, and in the third year, the member with two years experience becomes Chair of the Nominations Committee. The Executive Committee recommends that the Chair of the Nominations Committee be an elected member of the AD Executive Committee, with full voting privileges. The responsibilities of the Chair would change to include providing the Secretary with much needed help in preparing the nominations materials for the AAA Nominations Committee.

The final by-laws change would change the title of the Chair of the Archeology Division to the President of the Archeology Division. We are virtually the only Section of the AAA whose head is called Chair instead of President, and while this is a relatively minor issue, it has some ramifications particularly in AAA Section Meetings, where the title of Chair suggests a much smaller membership and clout than the Archeology Division actually has.

8) Future Activities. The AAA-AD will continue its outreach to other professional archaeology associations/societies. We will continue to make our publications available on the internet. We will continue to explore ways to increase diversity in the division. We will continue to seek new members through outreach at the SAA meetings.

10) Long Range Plan. In 2002, the AD was asked to respond to the AAA Long Range Plan with comments suggestions for specific objectives for the AD in the Plan. We made 8 specific recommendations and received input on all of them from our liaison, Peggy Nelson. The Long Range Planning Committee then asked us to address their Objective V, which concerns increasing diversity in the discipline. After a lengthy discussion of ways in which the AD could foster increased diversity, the Executive Committee decided to institute Minority Travel Award for undergraduate and graduate students. We would distribute 3 awards to students presenting papers and 2 awards to students at their first meeting. At least one of these awards has been designated to go to a student presenting in a special invited poster session for students. Awards would be $500 for each student. This will commence with the 2004 AAA meetings.

Finally, the AD was active in drafting various letters and statements on behalf of the AAA concerning issues related to archaeology and archaeological resources. At the request of Dena Dincauze, we drafted a letter to William Myers, Solicitor for the US Department of the Interior requesting immediate attention to the ownership of the River Basin Survey materials, an issue that has critical ramifications for the many museum collections in jeopardy because of funding and closures. This letter was signed by AAA President Don Brenneis at our request. We drafted a letter concerning support for the Iraq Cultural Heritage Protection Act and urged the AAA to support this legislation. Finally, we helped draft a statement for the AAA concerning non-violent means to stop looting of archaeological sites in Iraq. We regret that at the 2003 annual meetings of the AAA, the presentation by archaeologist McGuire Gibson on the cultural heritage of Iraq was scheduled at the very same time as our Open Business meeting.

Respectly submitted, Patricia Crown, with amendments by In-coming Chair, Margaret Conkey

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