In his (brief) defense, he was trying to educate the kind of local
researchers that local history collections in libraries and small museums
rely on. He was very interested in preservation, as were others on the
faculty -- he just didn't want to get dirty in the process.

And I quite agree that archaeologists need to be able to do documentary
and archival research, among other skill.

Carol
--
Carol A. Nickolai

Anthropology                            Geography
University of Pennsylvania              Community College of Philadelphia
email: [log in to unmask]           voicemail: 215-751-8989, 0077#


Linda Derry wrote:
> Scruffy?  Unemployed?    Hmmm.... I've always thought that archaeologists
> benefited more than historians from 106 and other environmental /
> preservation legislation (job wise), and so were the better employed.
> Personally, I've found it hard to interest   academic historians in
> preservation issues (preservation of historic places that is, as opposed to
> documents)  -  especially when it came to donating their time to construct
> historic contexts.  Whereas, generally, I could always "guilt-trip" an
> archaeologist into helping because they saw this as an ethical duty.   In
> fact I vaguely remember an old CRM publication (the one published by the
> Dept. of the Interior) that discussed the lack of interest in preservation
> by traditional historians.  Does anyone else remember this issue?  Has
> anyone else had the same experience?