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