Kerry Ogata writes:
 
>Unfortunately, Larry, they did *not* hire a historical archaeologist
>at the University of South Carolina.  They hired Joanna Casey, an
>archaeologist who studies prehistoric Africa.  I know many historical
>archaeologists applied, but even out of the final four candidates,
>only one was a historical archaeologist.
 
[snip]
 
>I'm sure Casey is a fine archaeologist, but I was disappointed; I
>wanted a historical archaeologist.  It made sense to me:  I mean,
>how many students want to come to South Carolina to study
>prehistoric Africa?  There are so many historic projects in South Carolina,
>and so many opportunities, it seems to me they needed another
>historical archaeologist.
 
(1) No 'unfortunately' in hiring Dr. Casey; she's a very sharp
archaeologist. And if you're going to bring such concerns up in
future, I'd suggest that you leave people's names out of it when
broadcasting on mailing lists.
 
(2) Sorry to hear so categorically that USC student's aren't
interested in the prehistory of Africa (although I think that
Joanna might be able to change that...) All those
African-Americans just lose interest before their Diaspora, eh?
Mind you, I'm biased -- I work in West/Central Africa, too, and
I've got a Ph.D. in African archaeology from Calgary -- as far
away from Africa as you can get, really. Still, we persist, and
the incongruity of our location doeesn't seem to hurt our
scholarship too much. I'm sure that Joanna will come to terms
with it, too.
 
 
Scott MacEachern