My apologies to both Julie King and Phil Levy for contributing to the derailment of their call for contributions to their symposium.  I hope the lively debate on a tangential topic has at least given their session some free publicity.

As to the ongoing comments from Conrad about expense for archaeologists that inspired my prior post, I would only gently reiterate that there are historical archaeologists outside the United States as well.

Given Conrad's comments about remote conferencing I would also observe quickly that at least two sessions at SHA 2013 are indeed exploring some form of digital remote access for specific participant constituencies in North America and Australia.  While this can never replace the face to face interaction of actually attending a conference, we are eager to be as flexible as possible with symposium formats.   Note that anyone presenting remotely/digitally will still need to pay the full conference registration fee (this isn't unprecedented; I organised a symposium at Amelia Island where one UK presenter prepared a recorded powerpoint presentation since he couldn't attend in person.  He paid the full registration fee despite not being present).  Those interested in exploring this should contact me off-list.

Alasdair Brooks