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 Pennsylvania, 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 Meadowcroft Rockshelter, 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 projectile point. 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 in the 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 in Meadowcroft Rockshelter. 1969-1970 academic year, I visited 19 temporal placement of objects I was MercyhurstCollege institutions across the United States 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.