Dear Listmembers,
I work in an academic setting and I’m the current editor of the African
Diaspora Archaeology Network and Newsletter, which are outgrowths of what
were previously called the African-American Archaeology Network and
Newsletter. The new network resources and newsletter are available online
at:
http://www.diaspora.uiuc.edu/
I am trying to compile definitive bibliographies of CRM reports and
publications that concern sites of African-American heritage, so I can
provide these on the ADAN website to a rapidly growing audience. I am
writing to those of you who are members of the CRM community to collect
basic bibliographic information on such reports. I hope to make
information on these reports related to African-American archaeology more
accessible for researchers -- particularly academic researchers who often
find this "gray literature" inaccessible -- by creating consolidated
bibliographies.
As you know, CRM firms typically submit reports of their findings to the
State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO), or an equivalent State or
federal agency, in the area in which the research and excavations were
conducted. In turn, some (but not all) SHPO offices and federal agencies
have supplied lists of these reports to the National Park Service (NPS)
for inclusion in a searchable database. I have compiled an initial
bibliography of CRM reports by conducting "keyword" searches in October
2005 using the Reports Module of the National Archaeological Database
(NADB), which was last updated in August 2004. This bibliography is
available online at:
http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell/CRMindex1.html
This bibliography sets forth entries from the NADB identified by searching
titles and keywords of African American, African-American, Afro-American,
slavery, slave, plantation, and freedmen, for a total of 529 entries.
There is very little overlap in the entries listed in each of these
categories of search results. The NADB database does not provide abstracts
for each entry, so it is difficult to ascertain the degree of relevance
and focus of each report reflected in a database entry. Other potential
keyword searches related to the subject of African-American archaeology
(e.g., "diaspora") yielded no results from this database. You can search
within this bibliography of database results by using the "search on page"
or "find" functions of your internet browser. For example, if you are
interested in any reports from within the area of a particular State, you
can search this list by that State's name and postal abbreviation
(e.g., "Alabama" and "AL").
However, the NADB has a variety of limitations, since not all SHPOs and
federal agencies have contributed report lists to the NADB. Therefore,
many CRM reports on African-American sites are no doubt omitted from the
bibliography described above.
Therefore, I have started creating another list, with listings of reports
sent to me by the archaeologists at CRM firms. I have posted the first
round of these listings on the internet at:
http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell/CRMindex2.html
Many thanks to those members of the CRM community who have taken time to
respond to my earlier emails and supplied the report listings in this
second bibliography: Lesley M. Drucker of AF Consultants; Scott Butler of
Brockington Associates; Loretta Lautzenheiser of Coastal Carolina
Research; Kay Simpson of Louis Berger Group; Stephen M. Thompson of
Rivanna Archaeological Services; and Carol S. Spears of Spears, Inc.
If you are a member of a CRM firm and can provide a comparable listing of
the work conducted by your organization on sites related to African-
American heritage, please send me your report information and I will add
it to this bibliography.
I will include an article discussing these bibliographic resources in the
December 2005 issue of the African Diaspora Archaeology Newsletter.
Thank you in advance for any assistance you can provide.
Best regards,
Chris
*******************************
Christopher C. Fennell
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
109 Davenport Hall, MC-148, 607 S. Mathews Ave.
University of Illinois, Urbana, IL 61801
phone: (217) 244-7309 fax: (217) 244-3490
http://www.anthro.uiuc.edu/faculty/cfennell
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