Adrian and Mary:

I am WOWED!

I received a CD copy of the Cypress Block Technical Reports about a week
ago and I cannot BELIEVE how easy they are to use!

I slowly have been accumulating comparative data to build on a model I
began with my PhD dissertation in 1991; your data from the Cypress project
will allow me to add more than 20 households and three hotels to my model
(I have limited by comparative data to contexts from the 1890's - 1920). It
usually takes me more than a day to cull the information I need from a
single site report. Yesterday, I was able to condense the information I
needed from six of your sites in less than seven hours.

The technical reports are so well organized, so usable, and so available
that I believe they make a VERY positive contribution to our discipline. I
have also skimmed through the online draft of the final interpretive report
and am incredibly excited by it as well. I believe you have demonstrated
the pinnacle of what compliance archeology should be. You have separated
the truly significant from that which wasn't; you focused on the
refuse-filled privy pits, wells, and pits with short deposition periods and
positive attributions; and you did careful, thorough historical research
about the people associated with those features. You and the writers who
prepared the reports presented the results in clear, jargon-free, succinct
style that should set an example for all of us.

In the final, interpretive report, you and the multitudes of people that
assisted you developed a powerful, and very readable statement about the
importance of historical archeology in learning about the past. This report
should be made available to the public at large, not just in a CD format,
but in a book that can be distributed to libraries and schools all over the
country.

I congratulate you, Sonoma State University, and the state and federal
agencies that sponsored your work for a job extremely well done.