the archaeologicalrecord SAA SEPTEMBER 2007 • VOLUME 7 • NUMBER 4 SOCIETY FOR AMERICAN ARCHAEOLOGY the SAAarchaeologicalrecord The Magazine of the Society for American Archaeology Volume 7, No. 4 September 2007 Editor’s Corner 2 Andrew Duff Letters to the Editor 3 From the President 6 Dean R. Snow In Brief 7 Tobi A. Brimsek Archaeopolitics 8 Dan Sandweiss and David Lindsay Probing during cemetery Vancouver in 2008 9 Dana Lepofsky, Sue Rowley, delineation in Coweta Andrew Martindale, County, Georgia. and Alan McMillan Photo by Ron Hobgood. RPA: The Issue of Commercialism: Proposed Changes 10 Jeffrey H. Altschul to the Register’s Code of Conduct Archaeology’s High Society Blues: Reply to McGimsey 11 Lawrence E. Moore Amerind-SAA Seminars: A Progress Report 15 John A. Ware Email X and the Quito Airport Archaeology 20 Douglas C. Comer Controversy: A Cautionary Tale for Scholars in the Age of Rapid Information Flow Identifying the Geographic Locations 24 German Loffler in Need of More CRM Training Can the Dissertation Be All Things to All People? 29 John D. Rissetto Networks: Historic Preservation Learning Portal: 33 Richard C. Waldbauer, Constance Werner Ramirez, A Performance Support Project for and Dan Buan Cultural Resource Managers Interfaces: 12V 35 Harold L. Dibble, Shannon J.P. McPherron, and Thomas McPherron Heritage Planning 42 Yun Shun Susie Chung In Memoriam: Jaime Litvak King 47 Emily McClung de Tapia and Paul Schmidt Calls for Awards Nominations 48 positions open 52 news and notes 54 calendar 56 EDITOR’S CORNER the SAAarchaeologicalrecord The Magazine of the Society for American Archaeology Volume 7, No. 4 September 2007 EDITOR’S CORNER The SAA Archaeological Record (ISSN 1532-7299) is published five times a year Andrew Duff and is edited by Andrew Duff. Deadlines for submissions are: Decem- ber 1 (January), February 1 (March), Andrew Duff is an Associate Professor of anthropology at Washington State University. April 1 (May), August 1 (September), and October 1 (November); send to Andrew Duff, The SAA Archaeological Record, Andrew Duff, Department of am grateful for the opportunity to serve as editor of The SAA Archaeological Record, Anthropology, Washington State Uni- a publication that I find has become increasingly useful as a forum for the commu- versity, Pullman, WA 99164-4910, (509) I nication of ideas and issues important to the discipline, its practitioners, and the 335-7828, or email [email protected]. Man- uscript submission via email or by disk larger public. As I prepared to compile my first issue, I took the opportunity to review is encouraged. Advertising and place- my collection of past issues of its predecessor, the SAA Bulletin, and The SAA Archaeo- ment ads should be sent to SAA head- quarters, 900 Second St., NE #12, Wash- logical Record. My collection begins in 1991 and the first thing that struck me was how ington, DC 20002, (202) 789-8200. this publication has grown—in size, but especially in content. My predecessors, John Associate editors include: Kantner and Mark Aldenderfer, with the help of their assistants and Associate Editors, Gabriela Uruñuela [Exchanges, Mexico have done a remarkable job in building this from a publication that largely communi- & Central America] email: [email protected] cated committee reports and other Society business to a vibrant forum for debate, new Jose Luis Lanata [Exchanges, Southern ideas, practical advice, and research, while still conveying necessary and timely Society Cone] business. The most significant developments seem to me to be the several regular email: jllanata@filo.uba.ar Anne Vawser [Government] columns established by Mark Aldenderfer in the mid-1990s and the regular thematic email: [email protected] issues John Kantner initiated soon after the Bulletin became The SAA Archaeological Andrew Duff [Insights] email: [email protected] Record. I see no need for dramatic changes and plan to build on the strong foundation Mark Aldenderfer [Interface] these two have provided. email: [email protected] John Hoopes [Networks] email: [email protected] One change I have decided to make is to develop a new regular column titled “Recent Teresa Pinter [Public Education] Past.” Its intent is to provide a regular forum for research, concerns, and discussions relat- email: [email protected] ed to historical archaeology, and to encourage greater dialogue with, and inclusion of, his- Jamie Brandon [Recent Past] email: [email protected] torical archaeology. Jamie Brandon, research station archaeologist with the Arkansas Kurt Dongoske [Working Together] Archaeological Survey and assistant professor of anthropology at Southern Arkansas Uni- email: [email protected] versity, will serve as the column’s Associate Editor. Related to this, I plan to continue pro- Inquiries and submissions should be addressed directly to them. The SAA ducing thematic issues and welcome ideas for future issues. Jamie and I would like to Archaeological Record is provided free to begin by soliciting contributions for the January issue organized around the theme of members and institutional subscribers to Archaeology and Historical Memory. If you have a contribution, please send it to me or American Antiquity and Latin American Antiquity worldwide. The SAA Archaeologi- Jamie by December 1. Watch this column for future thematic issue topics. cal Record can be found on the Web in PDF format at Most of the Associate Editors have agreed to continue, for which I am grateful. Cory www.saa.org/publications/ Breternitz, who has served as Associate Editor of the Insights column since 2002, has thesaaarchrec/index.html. stepped down. I’d like to thank him for his work over the past several years and I am Past issues of the SAA Bulletin can be found at working to find his replacement. My thoughts are to identify two people to serve as www.saa.org/publications/ Associate Editors for this column. If you have a contribution or an idea that you think saabulletin/index.html. would fit with one of the regular columns, please contact or submit materials directly Copyright © 2007 by the to the relevant Associate Editor. You can always send material directly to me. Contact Society for American Archaeology. All Rights Reserved information for all of us appears in the column adjacent to this. At present, the Associ- ate Editors are: Manager, Publications: John Neikirk Design: Victoria Russell Exchanges Gabriela Uruñuela Ladron de Guevara Papertiger Studio •Washington, DC José Luis Lanata Production: Peter Lindeman Government Anne Vawser Oakland Street Publishing • Arlington, VA >EDITORS CORNER, continued on page 9 2 The SAA Archaeological Record • September 2007 LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Natural History never mysteriously disappeared as pop- because they highlight the contexts in ular opinion declares, but instead which we work (what is geoarchaeology?) I was disappointed to read the “under- migrated en masse over hundreds of and the changing environment in which signed” letter recently submitted to The miles and centuries of time” (quotes geoarchaeology finds its niche. SAA Archaeological Record by archaeolo- excerpted from Marilyn Boynton’s gists affiliated with the American Muse- “‘House of Rain’ Makes the Past Come The authors claim that “[g]eoarchaeolo- um of Natural History. I understand that Alive” in Four Corners Free Press, Vol. 4, gy is archaeology pursued with a geolog- they are upset with Natural History mag- No. 10, pp. 18—19. Cortez, Colorado). ical bent using geological methods, azine for its publication of a story by while archaeological geology is geology Craig Childs in March of this year. And, yes, House of Rain grapples with pursued with archaeological problems Unfortunately, the undersigned party the term “Anasazi.” It strikes me as in mind but NOT using archaeological chose to level most of their criticism at absurd that we should expect the gener- methods” (emphasis added). I find this Mr. Childs, a decision that seems unfair al public to, overnight, abandon a term distinction logically puzzling and their and ungracious, particularly if they that archaeologists themselves used for recommendation that yet a third subdis- chose not to communicate with him decades. Further, it is silly to think that cipline, “geological archaeology,” be first. we’ve found a flawless, politically correct introduced confounds the issue still fur- term in “Ancestral Pueblo.” I challenge ther. My original premise that geoar- Childs’s article was excerpted from his any of the undersigned to use that term chaeology simply marks the interface recently published book, House of Rain. comfortably with the archaeologists, his- between geology and archaeology Had the undersigned taken the trouble torians, or politicians of the Navajo implicitly expands the scope of both dis- to read House of Rain, or even just Nation. ciplines. We cull and integrate methods chunks of it, they probably would not from each based on the specific ques- have tried to paint Craig Childs as “dis- As a profession, we do a poor job of rep- tions posed at sites and landscapes respectful” and “dishonest.” Instead, I resenting ourselves to the public. We where natural and cultural inputs con- hope that they would have seen his need the voices of people like Craig tribute to the archaeological record. Pro- efforts as a service to archaeologists and Childs, voices that awaken not just the fessionals allied with both fields have the ancient societies that we study. mind, but the soul. weighed in on the argument, but the Childs worked with many archaeologists growth and maturation of a unique sub- to inform his understanding of the cur- Jonathan Till field has resulted in the following claim rent archaeological debate surrounding Archaeologist, Colorado Plateau (P. Goldberg and R. MacPhail, Practical the movements and histories of pre- and Theoretical Geoarchaeology, Black- Hispanic peoples in the Southwest. His well , Oxford 2006:2): summary of this debate covers a lot of theoretical ground, but his book also The Emergence of Geoarchaeology reveals the human side of the archaeolo- in Research and Cultural Resource Does it really matter how we gists doing the work.