In a message dated 5/16/00 8:18:49 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< I believe that George would have been applying to the History Dept's
 program in Historical Archaeology as of 1978, and this explains the history
 emphasis. The anthro. MA didn't begin until 1979 and, as Linda stated,
 there wasn't a lot of coordination or cooperation between history and
 anthro. at this time. The situation at W&M is an interesting case study in
 the development of graduate education  in HA.

 Best,
 Don Linebaugh
 W&M MA grad. (2nd year) >>

Thank you for the information. I had the pleasure of working with a W&M grad
in Skagway, Alaska for the NPS, Denver Service Center, in historical
archaeology, Ross Kennedy Becker. He may have imported the first Suffolk
County, Virginia peanuts into Alaska that summer.

As another conundrum I would like to relate a story about undergraduate
education. For one of the requirements for the BA at the SUNY Stony Brook,
where I had transferred to from SUNY Buffalo, I was called back after
graduation from the field, to the Administration. There I was accused of not
having met the "science" requirements for the degree. On second counting this
was found untrue by their definition, (having studied Astronomy and Planetary
Atmospheres) but in retrospect almost absurd because I consider Archaeology a
"science" and had a fieldschool in archaeology taught by a Harvard, Ph.D.,
Anthropology and the former NYC Landmarks Archaeologist, who later taught
within a degree program called "Public Archaeology" at RPI, in Troy, NY, the
"oldest English speaking engineering college in the world," which granted a
Master of Science, though no longer a program there. I find this, in
retrospect, quite a shock, and considering the many archaeology and
anthropology courses taken and the connections many archaeology students had
with the Brookhaven National Laboratory's, and the now retired,
archaeological chemist, Garman Harbottle, almost insulting. However, this is
a problem of archaeology I think and it's image. As an undergraduate is it
considered an "art" and then in graduate school a "science"? If one is taught
the absolute and relative dating of materials, is this an art? Are the
excavations of Nuzi an "artistic" presentation and its tablets translations?
Are the statistical analyses "art"? "World Archaeology?" "National Shrines"
excavated by artists, real archaeology sites by "scientists"? The RPI,
program a "science" because it was taught by people in the SHPO?

My own exploration of the gap in my school, other than initially Anthropology
was installed in a Graduate Chemistry Research Building with an atom-smasher
in it's basement, lots of lovely clear piping and floor to ceiling
chalkboards and emergency showers in the halls, until currently with all the
social sciences in a more appropriate (? what's more appropriate than a
laboratory for archaeology?) building is that the History Dept. had all of
the "Occasional Papers" of Ivor Noel-Hume and the Anthropology Dept. did not,
though both have libraries of their own. I was practically brainwashed to go
into history where my housemate taught an American Native/African American
relations class, both used against each other at times. He Cherokee Italian
American, had located on St. David's Island in Bermuda, opened by US causeway
construction during the last World War, folklore there that had the
descendants of "King Philip" through his son who had been sent there, his
father executed, and the women and children sent to Curacao. Apparently my
definition of historical archaeology changed to the "scientific application
of methods and techniques to the material remains of the past," to which I
applied myself as best possible in the current field.

A recent breakthrough in the science of remote sensing on the ground is the
zNose, able to "smell" beyond the range of human olfactory senses, and
sensitive enough to detect pseudomona in swimming pools and health clubs and
many toxic chemicals or other odors that may be emanating from the ground. I
look forward to reading about the first archaeologist who uses the zNose on
their site. www.estcal.com

Should archaeologist's, if they're NOT scientists, therefore be used to test
HAZMAT sites or unknown dangerous sites, of which many I've been on could be
considered that, not adequately protected? If they are scientists then one
expects a level of science that reduces risk and when it doesn't, does it
reflect the problems described above? My question is in the exploration of
danger. The "Ordnance Dept." supplies maps much like the "USGS" does in the
US. The EOD (Explosive Ordnance Division of the US Army) basically did not
exist until after W.W.II when it began to emulate the techniques and methods
of the British who are probably still being called in to remove some of the
ordnance, according to them. My own experience is that the US Army is
severely understaffed under-equiped and underused for the clearance of sites
I have worked on, probably because of the unusual situation of the clearance.
I think we need more of the following:

Army Coming in to Sweep The Chippawa Battlefield Site

NIAGARA FALLS, ON, May 2 /CNW-PRN/ - Niagara Parks is bringing soldiers back
to the Chippawa Battlefield site. On May 2, 2000 till May 4, 2000, twenty-two
soldiers of 2nd Combat Engineer Regiment and fourteen of the Lincoln Welland
Regiment will carry out an operation on the historic 1814 battlefield at
Chippawa. Under the supervision of site archaeologist Jon Jouppien and
historian Donald E. Graves, these well-trained soldiers will sweep the
battlefield with the same hi-tech mine detection equipment used by Canadian
soldiers for humanitarian purposes worldwide. A demonstration of the sweep
will take place on Tuesday May 2, 2000 at 11:00 a.m. at the Chippawa
Battlefield site.

"The purpose of this operation is to find and flag the location of as many as
possible of the estimated 50,000 lead musket balls fired during the battle
fought on July 5, 1814. This information, when correlated, will hopefully
permit historian Graves and archaeologist Jouppien to accurately pinpoint the
location of the two opposing armies during the battle. This newly- developed
heritage technique has been used by the United States National Parks Service
on a number of American Revoluntionary War battlefields but it is believed
that the Niagara Parks Commission is the first organization in Canada to
undertake a project of this type" says Brian Merrett, Chairman of the Niagara
Parks Commission.

It is the Commission's intention to use this information as part of the
planned development of the Chippawa Battlefield. The first step will be a
walking tour which should be in place by the 186th Anniversary of the battle
this coming July.

As the area to be swept constitutes a war grave for approximately two hundred
American, British and Canadian soldiers, and their aboriginal allies, digging
will not be part of this operation - only the location of artifacts will be
marked, they will not be excavated.

The two military units involved in this project are well chosen. Part of the
2nd Combat Engineer Regiment is currently serving in Kosovo and the regiment
has, in the past, carried out mine and booby trap clearance throughout the
former Yugoslavia and in the Persian Gulf. The Lincoln and Welland Regiment,
the local Niagara militia regiment, has a long connection with the battle of
Chippawa - Lincoln militiamen fought in the battle in July 1814.

The Niagara Parks Commission is proud to carry out this important and novel
work, which is part of their ongoing commitment to developing Chippawa, the
most pristine battlefield site in North America east of the Mississippi, as a
world class historic site.

SOURCE  Niagara Parks Commission

CO:  Niagara Parks Commission

ST:  Ontario

And this type of problem is discussed where in Anthropology? Andreski's
"Military Organization and Society," 1971?

The late Edward Johanneman, MA., used to take in much of what we could
consider historical archaeology in this sense. When the atom-smasher "Isabel"
was planned for the National Laboratory, he had to raise the question of the
WW I training trenches left from Camp Upton in the middle of it. When Suffolk
County was acquiring parcels on Long Island in New York for additional parks
and preserves, each was evaluated for potential archaeological significance
for the County and posterity. Whenever land is bought of very old environs it
is indeed a historical mystery what was there. In fact I am surprised by
national significance coming out of what would be considered "nowhere." For
example, a site in Flanders, NY, "The Black Duck Lodge," haunt of 19th
century politicians and their kin, (including the White House). It instituted
some very early conservation measures, maybe because of the scarcity of
resources, yet nonetheless, replacements for ducks taken was instituted,
perhaps because it was a very old Hubbard family homestead. Ironically
"ducks" became very important to later Suffolk, and the "Islanders" hockey
team once the L.I. "Ducks." The current minor league baseball team is also
named "The Ducks."

The documentation and inspection of properties of significance is owed to the
future not so much as ourselves, so when someone asks "What happened there?"
there will be an answer. And if significance was ignored and the law
circumvented it will serve as a lesson to those who ask in the future, "Where
is the first steam ship to cross the Atlantic, the SS Savannah? Why, on Long
Island. "Where was the first battle in the American Revolution under General
Washington?" The same place. In that place were constructed many homes owners
to whom was given an historians account of the battle by the developer, Mr.
Trump, "The Donald's" father. In the press, the "Brooklyn Eagle" around 1942
he was referred to as "Blitzkrieg Trump" for the bulldozing and developing of
the battleground "Patergat Woods." I thought historical archaeology invented
to do a better job working together with the laws of the land and the
developers, if it wasn't then we should invent another.

From my experience,
George J. Myers, Jr.
Molinology - the study of wind-, water-, and animal-powered mills. SIA