In spirit I agree with the recent remarks by Alasdair Brooks;
however, two points need to be made:

        (1) the is already an organized World Archaeological Congress
and at its recent meeting in Capetown, South Africa historical archaeology
was well represented. [Side note: Would someone connected with the WAC ask
them not to overlap their meeting dates with those of SHA. The SHA is older
and so was in that time slot first.] I see no reason to try to duplicate
the WAC only for historical archaeolgists.

        (2) the "Historical Archaeological Community" does not have
money; indeed, the North American branch is the richest as a group. We
simply can not afford to go to, say, Sydney or Capetown or Lima. A meeting
in Sydney, for example, would simply be the Australians-New Zealanders with
a hand full of others.

        I would like to suggest that we try, for the time being, a more
limited set of steps in internationalizing our discipline. Specifically:

(1) would someone in Europe please put on this list instructions and
        information on how one can join the Society for Post-Medieval
        Archaeology (SPMA) with the fees in $$. I do not understand how
        anyone in the New World, especially the English speaking part of
        the New World, can be studying the colonial period and not belong
        to the SPMA and yet many in the States and Canada have yet to join.
        Their journal, POST-MEDIEVAL ARCHAEOLOGY, is excellent.

(2) would someone in Australia (Ian? Susan?) please put on the list the
        same information on membership for the Australasian Society for
        Historical Archaeology (ASHA). Although it is a bit more distant,
        anyone in America studying the 19th and 20th centuries would find
        both the ASHA journal and Newsletter outstanding.

(3) York

    Do not give up on this idea. If the major problem is the hotel can not
        you do what they did in London - i.e. put us all in several small
        hotels near the meeting site (British Museum)? Although such a
        meeting would be a bit unfair to our West Coast members, and SHA
        does have a large California contingent, it is in easy reach of
        most of the membership. Since such a meeting would be a few years
        off the SHA could also try to raise a special fund to help student
        members go and perhaps less expensive housing could be found in
        York.

(4) SHA 2003 New England

    If SHA does go to Rhode Island in 2003 perhaps a theme of "The Atlantic
        World" would be a good way of getting our European colleagues
        (the SPMA and others) to come over and join us. Again, perhaps both
        the SHA and SPMA could try to raise a special fund for the European
        student members. Others regions (Africa, Asia and Latin America)
        are a much more difficult problem because of distance and $$$.


    Finally, I stand corrected about William Wallace. However, I suspect he
        did approach York until: (1) he was told there was no hotel that
        could house Scotland, and (2) he saw Alasdair on the York ramparts
        with a supply of large rocks. Is Durham in Scotland or England and
        is it a town, a village or a canal? [Perhaps Matthew Johnson knows.]

    I have been talking too much on HISTARCH and taking up too much
space, so this is my last comment for some time.

                                Bob Schuyler