Here is the abstract of the Storytelling session as originally conceived by
Mary Praetzellis (pg. 35 of the Abstracts):
 
Historical archaeologists are at the nexus of information from many
evocative sources. Yet somehow we have been able to reduce the emotional
quality of the past to a list of dead artifacts and tales of trade networks.
This symposium offers archaeologists the chance to temporarily rid ourselves
from trappings of science and to be free of the parenthetical statements,
with which we usually qualify our every remark. After you tune out the
static, filter off the dross, and ignore the thousand small irrelevancies,
what do you think the site is REALLY about? What is the human story behind
it? For a few minutes, let's allow ourselves to cut to the chase and reclaim
some of the excitement that too often gets lost in our efforts to be
rigorous presenters of data. Speaks in this symposium will tell stories
based upon information from a multitude of sources. These sources and their
data will be referred to only parenthetically in slides and/or handouts. The
stories may be about a person, place, or event, and will be readily
understandable to the general public.
 
Anita Cohen-Williams
Listowner of HISTARCH, SUB-ARCH, and SPANBORD
Center for Spanish Colonial Archaeology
4060 Morena Blvd., Suite G-250
San Diego, CA  92117
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