THE GREAT JOURNEY vaslo

In the March 2006 issue of National remote points around the world. In the article, Geographic,there is an intriguing cover story he observes: titled "The Greatest Journey" by James For decades, first Americans were thought to Shreeve. In this synoptic article, Shreeve have arrived around 13,000 years as the Ice summarizes the current state of knowledge Age eased, opening a path through the ice derived from DNA studies about the covering Canada. But a few archaeologists migration(s) of anatomically modern claimed to have evidence for an earlier humans - Homo sapiens sapiens (that is, us) arrival, and two early sites withstood repeat- ed criticism: Meadowcroft Shelter [sic] - from our apparent African homeland to in Carbonized plaited basketry fragments , now believed to be about and rim from Meadowcroft. 16,000 years old, and Monte Verde in south- MercyhurstCollege ern Chile, more than 14,000 years old.'

34 WESTERNPENNSYLVANIA HISTORY I SUMMER2006 I stopped reading at this juncture because geology, paleontology, and archaeology texts I was one of these anonymous "few instead of the usual "See Spot Run" fare. I archaeologists" who believed in a pre-13,000 decided to attend the University of Arizona BP entry. [BP means before the present, to pursue anthropology before I was out of which for scientists is 1950.] Additionally, grade school and, in fact, matriculated to I was and remain the principal investigator that institution in 1962. of , and I analyzed At Arizona, I was fortunate to encounter the perishable plant fiber artifacts from one of the great figures of American Monte Verde. archaeology, Emil Haury, who first My reading pause was occasioned by much introduced me to the realm of prehistoric more than my mere participation in these material culture studies in a seminar called two projects. Instead, my mind focused on "Prehistoric Technology." In that class, I the phrase "two early sites withstood repeated fondled my first prehistoric basket. criticism." Indeed, I thought with a mixture Concurrently, I took classes from the late of quiet, relict anger - tinged with weary Clara Lee Tanner, a renowned scholar of sadness - if the writer only knew how much prehistoric and ethnographic southwestern criticism and how long it was leveled. material culture, who exposed me further to But this contribution is not about the roles the world of plant-fiber-derived artifacts. of Meadowcroft or Monte Verde in After three years, I earned my B.A. in demolishing the myth of a relatively late anthropology and then spent another year human arrival in the New World, which was in graduate school without developing any once thought to be signaled by the focal interest either in a chronological time appearance of a genuine North American period, cultural stage of development, or invention: the Clovis . part of the world. Throughout my Arizona Instead, I wish to provide a very personal years, I entertained an undeveloped interest account of how I became connected in Pre-Dynastic Egyptian prehistory, but fate with both Meadowcroft and Monte Verde would take me in a very different direction. and the incredible serendipity inherent In 1966, I decided to take a break from ,4PersonalOdyssey

in my personal, and now 33-year-long academia (at least as a student) and secured great journey. a teaching position at Youngstown College As recounted in The First Americans, a in my hometown of Youngstown, Ohio. book I co-authored with Jake Page, I wanted While at that institution, which would to be an archaeologist almost as far back as I evolve into a major middle-sized university, can recall.2 My highly-educated mother I helped develop an anthropology and basically programmed me for that career archaeology specialization within the trajectory by teaching me to read at an early sociology department but remained age with primers composed of history, uncertain of my archaeological interest.

WESTERNPENNSYLVANIA HISTORY I SUMMER2006 35 After two years at Youngstown College, I revisited and became part of what some resumed my graduate career and elected to archaeologists call the "marked landscape." pursue North American prehistory at the Because of their repeated visitation and University of Utah. There, I became a thrall of their often complicated geologic and the legendary archaeologist Jesse D. Jennings, sedimentologic history, rockshelters and the Dark Lord of the Desert, and my budding caves are among the most difficult sites to career took a series of wholly unanticipated excavate. Their complexity requires rigorous twists and turns. attention to detail and complicated Upon my arrival in the domain of the Dark excavation and documentation protocols, Lord, I learned that the University of Utah and Jennings was the recognized master of had just completed a major excavation at a this arcane archaeological specialization. deeply stratified rockshelter site called Hogup While the Dark Lord often stated that there Cave in far northwestern Utah. Its excavator, was no "Jennings" school of archaeology, Mel Aikens, a former thrall of the Dark Lord he was, in fact, only half right. Yes, there who had just completed his Ph.D. at the was no theoretical position or interpretation University of Chicago, would be in residence. bias linked exclusively to him. However, In my first year, I was assisting Aikens in his there remains to this day a Jennings J.M. Adovasio at Meadowcroft inthe mid-1970s. MercyhurstCollege analysis of the huge chipped stone methodological orientation that he imparted assemblage from Hogup Cave when one of to all of his students - one that I carried in those career shaping events occurred that later years to a closed site far removed from went wholly unrecognized by me. In addition the arid deserts of northwestern Utah. to being packed with whole and broken lithic After completing the Hogup Cave basketry tools and the byproducts of their analysis3 Aikens suggested I reanalyze the manufacture and refurbishment, Hogup Cave substantial corpus of basketry from Danger was replete with so-called non-durable Cave, a pivotal site in Utah about 50 miles artifacts like string, netting, and basketry. As away from Hogup. Jennings had excavated there was no one at Utah with any experience Danger Cave in the early 1950s and, like in the analysis of such stuff, Jennings, who Hogup, it was literally filled with perishable had already decided I might be too restive for artifacts. While the Danger Cave reanalysis his ungentle tutelage, suggested I should revealed some highly intriguing concordances develop an expertise in the analysis of these and discontinuities with the Hogup Cave materials, especially basketry. He further collection, it also suggested to me a potential observed that if I did not choose to pursue topic for my dissertation research. this particular career path, I should look Coincidentally, or perhaps serendipitously, elsewhere for a graduate degree. Suffice to say, I entered the field of perishable-plant-fiber I developed an acute interest in prehistoric artifact studies at a time when many of its basketry, while a variety of projects exposed older luminaries were either deceased (Otis T. me to the intricacies and nuances of Mason, Earl Morris), disengaged or rockshelter and cave excavation. disengaging from the field (Gene Weltfish, Here it is probably useful to insert that Robert Burgh), or about to retire (Charles rockshelters and caves - so-called "closed Rozaire, Luther Cressman). Furthermore, sites" because they are not exposed to the despite the fact that a substantial number of elements - often served as veritable magnets high-quality descriptive works had appeared for prehistoric and historic populations. on prehistoric basketry from the 1930s Because they provided protection from the through the early 1960s, no major weather, they were frequently visited and comparative synthetic study of prehistoric Great Basin basketry had ever been attempted. Such a study required visits to all of the major repositories in North America that housed prehistoric basketry collections from the Arid West. Each collection would have to be analyzed or reanalyzed using a standard descriptive terminology, and the results then quantified and synthesized by time period. I ran my scheme past Mel Aikens, who heartily concurred. Then I approached the Dark Lord. Jennings's patience with me had "run thin" and the prospect that my project would necessitate my absence from Utah for an extended period (in fact, most of the 1969- 1970 academic year) led him to endorse my dissertation proposal. Throughout the fall and winter of the Crew mapping and excavating inMeadowcroft Rockshelter. 1969-1970 academic year, I visited 19 temporal placement of objects I was MercyhurstCollege institutions across the and examining and in the longer run a powerful examined more prehistoric basketry from reinforcement of the rigorous excavation more sites than anyone, as far as I knew, ever protocols pounded into my head by the Dark had. The "upside" of all this (in addition to Lord and his other creatures. temporarily escaping the Dark Lord's As I was finishing my dissertation in the wrathful gaze) was to familiarize myself not spring of 1970, another one of those only with the incredible technical diversity of unanticipated and far-reaching serendipitous prehistoric basketry, but also to develop an events occurred. Tom Lynch, a South ever-escalating appreciation of what one of American prehistorian who had just my colleagues, Bob Bettinger, calls completed the excavation of a deeply "soft technology." Significantly, and in sharp stratified dosed site in Peru, gave a lecture at contrast to lithic or durable technology - the University of Utah. After his presentation which is usually the province of males - on Guitarrero Cave, Jennings introduced me basketry, cordage, netting, and related plant- by dryly observing that I worked with fiber-derived products are often the work of "baskets and such stuff." Lynch then allowed mr~e oredt females. Almost unconsciously, at least at as to how he had recovered a substantial first, I was developing a view of past amount of cordage, basketry, and textiles and jml acttiesI~g' societies and their actions that was by default asked if I might be interested in analyzing far more oriented to female activities as them at some point in the future. Though I as oppoed to the opposed to the macho-male orientation had never worked with South American derived from stone tools. material, I readily agreed to assist him, then The downside of my multi-month promptly forgot about my commitment. excursion was to realize that most of the I finished my dissertation later that spring, specimens I was examining came from graduated with my Ph.D. in May, then rockshelter and cave sites that had been, to conducted some fieldwork with another dose put it charitably, abominably excavated. The of rockshelter excavation in Nevada during results of all this were, in the short run, a lot the summer. The field director of the Nevada of chronological questions about the research was Don Fowler, another of ...... _ ......

Jennings's ex-thralls, from whom I commitments to YSU were satisfied. Before would hear again soon. Rather the assumption of my post-doctoral than participate in the open fellowship, indeed, well before I left YSU, yet "meat market" of academic another factor intervened, which in a very job seekers, I returned to direct way affected the trajectory of my Carbonized plaited basketry Youngstown State University career. One of my fellow faculty members fragments and rim from Meadowcrol MercyhurstCollege (YSU) in the fall of 1970. at YSU, a native of Cyprus, convinced me Soon alter my arrival at YSU and and one of my fellow assistant professors somewhat to my surprise, Tom Lynch (Gary Fry, yet another of the Dark Lord's "things" contacted me about the Guitarrero basketry who had followed me to YSU in and related plant-fiber artifact collection. 1970) to do some extensive archaeological Lynch soon forwarded the large collection, reconnaissance in western Cyprus, where and I began work on it. The Guitarrero little previous work had been done. collection occupied me for most of the 1970- Thanks to a grant from the National 1971 academic year and provided my final Geographic Society, Fry and I spent a month incentive to continue - and, indeed, expand on the island in the latter part of 1970 and - my involvement with prehistoric basketry, the early part of 1971. The research was textiles, and "other such stuff." successful," but its real import lay in the More or less concurrently with my consequences of the second season of work I rail ageedm initiation of the Guitarrero project, Don on Cyprus, which we tentatively scheduled Fowler contacted me with yet another of for some unspecified point in the future. those unanticipated and career-altering I continued to work on the Guitarrero propositions. After he had completed his Cave materials throughout the spring of Ph.D. at the University of Pittsburgh, Fowler 1971, and in the summer of that year headed nee mitrm ltin undertook a post-doctoral project at the off to the Smithsonian after co-directing National Museum of Natural History of the (with Gary Fry) an archaeological field Smithsonian Institution. Convinced that the school in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania.' research experience he gleaned and the In many ways, my post-doctoral year at connections he forged there were highly the Smithsonian was all that I could have useful for any young scholar, Fowler hoped for. I worked through numerous suggested I apply for a post-doctoral position ethnographic and prehistoric collections, for the 1971-1972 academic year. made a large number of connections that I prepared a proposal to examine the large would prove invaluable in the future, and that ou eti m ethnographic Great Basin basketry collection immersed myself ever deeper into the world at the Smithsonian Institution with the of perishable technology. aim of discerning continuities and/or Early in the fall of 1971, Tom Lynch discontinuities between the prehistoric contacted me about presenting a joint paper collections I had analyzed and the work of on the Guitarrero basketry and textiles at a "recent" populations in the study area. South American symposium at the State Additionally, I hoped to scrutinize University of New York at Albany. I readily pre-historic collections from both western agreed to participate, never anticipating that and eastern North America that I had not this invitation would be the penultimate "roll previously examined. of the dice" that would lead me to a My proposal was favorably received, and I rockshelter on a hillside above Cross Creek was told I could initiate my post-doctoral in Washington County, Pennsylvania. studies anytime after my teaching At that symposium, I first encountered James (Jim) B. Richardson, III, a South Prior to my trip, I decided with no little American archaeologist at the University of reluctance to pursue the Pitt position and Pittsburgh. Richardson casually informed me visited the campus for the first time in the of a vacancy at Pitt in North American spring of 1972. My reception there was frosty prehistory for the 1972-1973 academic year, in certain departmental circles because I was but I paid little heed to this information clearly not a "New Archaeologist" a la Lewis given my ongoing commitments at the Binford, but I was nonetheless offered the Smithsonian and a vague hope I might end position. Pivotal in Pitt's decision was Jim up back out west. Richardson's aggressive support along with At the conclusion of the symposium, I gave two of the most powerful members of the Pitt Jim a ride back to Pittsburgh. During our trip Anthropology Department, George Peter in a frightful snow storm, which occasionally Murdock and Alexander Spoehr - both of inspired the thought our lives were imperiled, whom, if not friends, were ancient "allies" of Jim elaborated on what Pitt was seeking in a the Dark Lord. North American archaeologist. In addition to My second basketry excursion through and teaching topical and area courses, this "new" across the western U.S. went off without a Excavations at Meadowcroft Rockshelter, early inthe project. archaeologist would develop a field training MercyhurstCollege program and revive the University of Pittsburgh Archaeological Research effort in Western Pennsylvania. I indicated a general interest but offered no commitment. Upon returning to the Smithsonian, I found myself enmeshed in another unforeseen project with far reaching effects. My adviser there - the late, great Plains archaeologist Waldo Wedel - and my unofficial mentors, Betty Meggers and Clifford Evans, concurred that it might be profitable for me to reexamine the huge perishable artifact collection recovered by Walter W. Taylor during his excavations in northern Mexico in the 1940s. The reanalysis of the Taylor collection produced a variety of significant results,' which space precludes discussing, but also raised a complex series of both provenance and chronological questions. I determined that my queries could only be answered by Taylor himself who, at that time, resided in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I decided to visit him as well as a number of institutions housing basketry collections that I had not examined during my earlier dissertation trek. Concurrently, I explored the possibility of directly radiocarbon dating some of Taylor's specimens if permission could be obtained from Taylor himself. hitch and produced a series of productive In addition to visiting Walt Taylor, I spent connections, which served me well both then an extensive amount of time at the University and, in many cases, up to the present. of Texas examining the vast basketry Significantly, Walt Taylor decided that I collections housed at the Texas should reanalyze his basketry collection and, Archaeological Research Laboratory (TARL) further, gave me permission to radiocarbon in Austin, during which time I also met David date any specimens. Upon my return to the Dibble, director of the Texas Archaeological Smithsonian, I contacted Bob Stuckenrath, Salvage Project (TASP), yet another of the the director of its radiocarbon dating Dark Lord's former minions. Indeed, Dibble facility in Maryland, to operationalize the had worked as a student in Danger Cave dating project. during the 1950s directly under Jennings - As I sadly detailed in his obituary, the in a Tolkienesque way, as close to the fires of Coahuila basketry dating project initiated my Mordor as one could get. long relationship with Bob, who was the most From Dibble and some of his staff, like careful radiocarbon dating specialist I have Elton Prewitt, I gained insights into the ever known.7 As is by now well known, he not perishable technology of the ancient only provided the basic chronology by which inhabitants of Texas and learned still more of Taylor's Coahuila cave sequence was dated, he the intricacies of rockshelter and cave was also the principal radiocarbon specialist excavation, which was Dibble's fort6. During for the Meadowcroft project. In the latter my Texas sojourn, I also met a budding capacity, Bob aggressively and acerbically palynologist named Kathy Cushman just defended the Meadowcroft dates after some prior to her departure for graduate school at questioned them. Bob had little patience for the University of Chicago. This meeting fools and, like the Dark Lord, was committed proved fateful. In time, Kathy would become to high-resolution, rigorous field and the paleobotanist of the Meadowcroft/Cross laboratory methodology. Ultimately, of Creek project and notably used data from the course, he became one of the great pillars site for her dissertation.! of the Meadowcroft/Cross Creek Project, I joined the Pitt faculty for the onset of the serving in that capacity until his death. 1972-1973 academic year with the specific Delvin Miller and J.M. Adovasio. MilerColection,MeadowcroftArchives premise that my teaching would not begin until the second half of the year. This somewhat unusual situation was occasioned by my commitment to a second year of survey in western Cyprus, the long planned follow-up to my earlier research there. Because of my obligations on Cyprus, I did not have the time to "scout out" suitable locations for the planned 1973 summer field training program in archaeology. This predicament initiated the final leg of the journey that led me to Meadowcroft. Prior to departing for Cyprus, I circulated the word in the Western Pennsylvania archaeological community that I was looking for a suitable locus for the 1973 summer field school. I also set forth some minimal parameters for the site. Specifically, for for two other family-owned pieces of real logistical reasons, I sought a location within a estate, Meadowlands and Bancroft Farm. radius of about 30 miles from Pittsburgh, Impressed by Phil Jack's enthusiasm, I which could afford at once the opportunity to immediately made arrangements to visit the site. conduct a state-of-the-art, hopefully multi- As soon as I saw what would be named year, multi-disciplinary investigation. As I Meadowcroft Rockshelter it was apparent, to bl/e nat rid envisioned it, this area would serve as a paraphrase Brigham Young, "This was the vehicle to train archaeologists as well as place!" The rockshelter is perched about 50 students from a variety of other disciplines, feet above stream level on the north bank of tributary of the Ohio like geology, paleozoology, paleobotany, Cross Creek, a small MeadocrUfRokhltri climatology, and history. River, which it joins some seven-and-a-half This need for a multi-disciplinary miles to the west. The rockshelter's opening is perspective had been instilled in me at oriented east-west with a southern exposure Arizona by Emil Haury and William and has a high roof (about 43 feet above the Longacre, an early Binford disciple, and modern surface of the site) with excellent indirectly by Vance Haynes, also at Arizona, ventilation provided by the prevailing wind who was one of the father figures in that generally blows west-to-east across its geoarchaeology during the early to mid- mouth. There are also permanent springs 1960s. The Dark Lord, Mel Aikens, and fellow with potable water on both the eastern and students and colleagues at Utah like Gary Fry, western margins of the site as well as a major Jack Marwitt, D. Brigham Madsen, and Jay source of water (at least in the pre-pollution Hall also hammered this perspective home; it days) directly below the shelter in Cross was reinforced many times over by the likes of Creek. Within the rockshelter were over 490 Dave Dibble and others. square feet of protected floor space. When Ideally, my hoped-for study area would two large roof blocks that had fallen on both have only a minimum of previous work so the eastern and western margins of the site that the planned field school(s) could were still in place, the living area beneath the contribute fundamental knowledge to the of the prehistory and paleoenvironment Albert Miller and J.M. Adovasio at the Rockshelter. Meadowcroftarchives Commonwealth. Finally, I hoped it would contain at least one closed site, cave or rockshelter, because of my considerable familiarity with this challenging type of resource. In the spring of 1973, I was contacted by Phil Jack, a historian at California State College in Pennsylvania. Phil informed me that he had a friend named Albert Miller, a gentleman farmer and avid amateur historian and archaeologist, who lived southwest of Pittsburgh near the West Virginia border. On the property of a foundation created by him and his brother Delvin (an illustrious harness racer) was a large rockshelter that both Phil and Albert fervently believed would make an ideal field school location. The property was called Meadowcroft, which was an acronym British archaeologist Clive Gamble (left) with J.M. Adovasio during filming of a British TV

documentary in2001. DavidScofield

overhang was as little as three and perhaps as to me, at least upon initial inspection, was the much as five times larger than at present. fact that the rockshelter was situated on the The site's relatively high position above the unglaciated portion of the Allegheny Plateau stream suggested that even during severe well south of the glacial front and, hence, floods the rockshelter would remain high and could have been used any time it suited dry. The site had other obvious amenities, transient populations in the area. too. The southern exposure guaranteed that For all but the last of the reasons cited the daily traverse of the sun would warm its above, I immediately solicited permission hg rpositt aboe sandstone roof and walls, providing a more from the Meadowcroft Foundation to initiate equable micro-climate during the colder th e am ugs excavations there in June 1973. Albert Miller months of the spring and fall. The prevailing was ecstatic, particularly since he had always wind and high roof ensured that any believed, since childhood, in the site's great campfires ignited within the site would be archaeological potential. In 1955, while that cMen duil rapidly and efficiently ventilated and, further, exploring a groundhog burrow visible on the keep flying insect pests at a minimum. site's surface, he recovered some lithic and Finally, it was clear that a veritable ceramic remains that convinced him Native cornucopia of floral and faunal resources Americans had indeed visited the site. He was would have been available to anyone who unable to convince any professional visited the site. Moreover, given archaeologists of the rockshelter's potential, Meadowcroft's strategic position in a highly though a test unit was excavated by Carnegie dissected region where traffic to and from the Museum staff members sometime in the scm-cflood 2t0 Ohio River was literally funneled down the late 1960s. Fortunately or not, this unit generally east-west trending rivers and encountered roof fall close to the surface and streams like Cross Creek, it was obvious that the testing was promptly aborted. With the anyone passing by the rockshelter would view exception of disturbances caused by the 1950s it as an ideal place to stop for a night or two. groundhog and the failed Carnegie Museum Of far less importance or, in fact, significance test pit, the site was miraculously pristine......

In retrospect, the convoluted

The first field school at Meadowcroft began cake I never expected to bake, the final part of tivists and turns in 1973. We returned again and again to a great journey, a personal odyssey, I never that connected me conduct extensive work at Meadowcroft and expected to make. 0 the adjacent Cross Creek drainage between to Meadowcroft 1973 and 1978, and then again in 1983, 1985, and 1987 - all under Pitt auspices. J.M. Adovasio, Ph.D., is the founder and Jor some 33 years director of the Mercyhurst Archaeological Additional work was conducted in the 1990s are nothing short and into the new millennium under the aegis Institute. He lives near Erie, Pennsylvania. of Mercyhurst Archaeological Institute. From James Shreeve, "The Greatest Journey," National of remarkable. its more or less humble beginnings as the site Geographic. (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic for a field school, Meadowcroft became the Society, 2006) 209(3):69. 2 J.M. Adovasio and Jake Page, The First Americans: epicenter of a fierce dispute about the In Pursuit of Archaeology's Greatest Mystery. (New temporal provenance of the so-called First York: Random House, 2002). Americans. This dispute continued into the J.M. Adovasio, "Hogup Cave Textile Analysis," Hogup Cave. (Salt Lake City, Utah: University of Utah late 1990s, until it began to unravel largely Anthropological Papers, 1970) 93: 133-153. due to the impact of Meadowcroft and its J.M Adovasio, G. F Fry, J. Gunn, and R. F. Maslowski, "Prehistoric and Historic Settlement Patterns in South American counterpart, Monte Verde. Western Cyprus," World Archaeology. (London: Taylor In retrospect, the convoluted twists and and Francis, Ltd., 1975) 6(3):339-364; "Prehistoric and Historic Settlement Patterns in Western Cyprus: turns that connected me to Meadowcroft An Overview," Research Reports of the Department of for some 33 years are nothing short of Antiquities. (Nicosia, Cyprus: Cyprus Museum, 1978) 39-57; "An Overview of Prehistoric and Historic Set- remarkable. Had I not attended the tlement Patterns in Western Cyprus," National Geo- University of Arizona as an undergraduate, I graphic Society Research Reports. (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society, 1981) 13:53-67. probably would not have ended up a thrall of J.M. Adovasio, G.F. Fry, J. Zakucia, and J. Gunn, the Dark Lord at Utah. Without the Utah "The Boarts Site," Pennsylvania Archaeologist. (Pitts- burgh, Pa.: Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, experience, I would have had no "parallel 1974) 44(1-2):31-112. career" in basketry and textile studies and, in J.M. Adovasio, "Prehistoric Basketry of Western North turn, would never have encountered Tom America and Mexico," Early Native Americans: Pre- historic Demography Economy, and Technology. Ed. Lynch, gone to the Smithsonian, nor indeed, D.L. Browman (The Hague, Netherlands: Mouton found my way to Pitt. Without the Cyprus Publishers, 1980) 341-362; J.M. Adovasio, "Some Thoughts on the Chronology ofCueva Espontosa and experience, there would have been no reason the Cuatro Cidnegas Basin," Sandals from Coahuila to solicit help in finding a suitable field school Caves by W.W. Taylor, Studies in Pre-Columbian Art & Archaeology. Eds. N.J. Demerath, M.C. Kennedy, and site even if I had somehow managed to be P.J.Watson (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Pub- lications, 2003) (35)147-151; J.M. Adovasio, "Per- hired by Pitt. Perhaps the final exquisite piece ishable Industries from Hinds Cave, Val Verde County, of serendipity in this improbable saga was the Texas," Ethnology Monographs. Ed. K.A. Cushman (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980) 5. nature of the site itself. J.M. Adovasio, obituary for Robert Stuckenrath, While I would like to say that I presciently Radiocarbon. (Tucson, Ariz.: Department of knew that Meadowcroft Rockshelter would Geosciences at the University of Arizona, 1995) 37(1):VI -XIII. prove to contain some of the most ancient Kathleen Cushman Volman, "Paleoenvironmental archaeological remains in North or South Implications of Botanical Data from Meadowcroft Rockshelter," (College Station, Texas: Texas A&M America, this would be a patent falsehood. I, University, 1981) dissertation on file; "Floral like my friend Tom Dillehay, who excavated Remains from Meadowcroft Rockshelter, Washington County, Southwestern Pennsylvania," Meadowcroft: Monte Verde and provided the opportunity Collected Papers on the Archaeology of Meadowcroft for me to analyze its perishables assemblage, Rockshelter and the Cross Creek Drainage. Eds. R.C. Carlisle and J.M. Adovasio. (Pittsburgh: University of never suspected that the antiquity of my site Pittsburgh Press, 1982) 207-220. would prove to be the final serendipity.' J.M. Adovasio, "Cordage and Cordage Impressions from Monte Verde," Monte Verde: A Late Pleistocene For me, deep and ancient deposits at Settlement in Chile. Ed. T.D. Dillehay (Washington, Meadowcroft were the ultimate icing on a D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1997) 221-228.

WESTERNPENINSYLVANIA HIISTORY I SUMMER 2006 43 ...... Organized in 1929 to promote the There are thousands of recorded study and preservation of the prehistoric archaeological sites in Pennsylvania, many of and historic archaeological resources in which are centuries old. Each has a unique Pennsylvania, the Society for Pennsylvania Thr r story to tell about the people who visited it, Archaeology, is a vibrant mix of professional but unfortunately, more and more of these and non-professional archaeologists, sites are destroyed by development before historians, and people interested in they can share their secrets. Do your part to Pennsylvania's past. The organization help preserve and interpret unique non- publishes Pennsylvania Archaeologist, a renewable resources by joining the Society for bi-annual archaeological journal available to Pennsylvania Archaeology. members of the Society. For more information, please visit In addition, most SPA chapters, six of www.PennsylvaniaArchaeology.com or write which are located in Western Pennsylvania, to The Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology, hold monthly lectures, have group meetings, Inc., P.O. Box 10287, Pittsburgh, PA 15232. and excavate archaeological sites in their Help us save Pennsylvania's past before it areas. No experience is necessary to take part disappears forever! in these activities; SPA members teach you the proper excavation techniques (while Bill Tippins is an amateur archaeologist and having fun at the same time). member of Allegheny Chapter No. 1 of the Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology (SPA). He is also the editor of Pennsylvania Archaeologist, the statewide archaeology journal published twice a year by the SPA. (nterested in Digging into Pennsylivania'sPast? By B IIppifs

Mary Miles (president of Chapter No. 22) and her daughter Maraina (vice-president) at the Clear Creek Dig last summer. KnenurWt lvcx~t

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