You're right, "it doesn't take a whole lot of training and education to have valid and/or siginifcant opinions on archaeological interpretations" -- but I find they are rarely informed opinions. It's true that I could look at a piece of pottery and say something intelligent about it as a non-archeologist, but could I recognize the difference between a piece of funeral urn and a piece of cookware? I doubt my abilities in this area. I'll tell you a story (uh-oh, here it comes....). My grandmother built the house in the Ozarks in which she raised 9 children alone. The house was sold when she became too sick, and it was subsequently hit by lighting and destroyed several years after her death. Four years ago, my mother and my daughter and I went down to raid her old flower beds and, while I was poking around in the ruins which (by that time) certainly might have qualified as an archeological dig, I found a rusty metal gadget. My mother and I both ventured opinions as to what it was, but we really didn't know. We were both qualified to speak on the subject of the gadget because she lived much of her childhood years in that house, and I was a bright young graduate student in history and had read the life story of the woman who built the house. Despite our close connection to the site, we could neither identify the gadget, nor explain its purpose and significance to the people who had lived in the house. I hazard to assert, however, that whatever the failings of our educational system, an archeologist, black, white, or green, who had received training in early 20th century American rural archeology, could identify that gadget, or know how to go about finding the information needed to explain its presence in the house. William M. Reger IV (217)352-6930 [log in to unmask] Department of History Voc. & Tech. Ed. 309 Gregory Hall, UIUC 345 Education Bldg., UIUC (217) 333-1155 (217) 333-0807