While I would agree that most of Jim Gibb's observations are true in the
Mid-Atlantic and Northeast- the situation is far different in most of
the rest of the country.
 
Prehistorians routinely past judgement on the potential eligibility of
historic sites at Phase I level often W/O ANY historic background info.
Unqualified people routinely do Phase II evaluations w/o any knowledge
of the HA literature or even historic material culture.
 
The attitude I often see goes something like this: "As an archaeologist
I can investigate any kind of site.  However, you historic archaeology
types are not qualified to work on prehistoric sites."
 
I would not even think about excavaing a late woodland site up this way,
but many of my prehistoric colleagues has no such scruples wihen it
comes to historic archaeology.
 
John
 
John P. McCarthy, SOPA
vice President, Sr. Archaeologist/Historian
IMA Consulting, Inc.
Minneapolis