Dear Everyone: I am not trying to be difficult, but would it be possible for those replying to individuals on the list to reply to their address rather than the entire list? I am receiving what appear to be a great many personal messages from one subscriber to another on my computer . . . Thanks - I hope this doesn't appear petty, but I am sure those members who are affected by this don't want their messages read by all and sundry, either. REAL SITES VS. NOT SO REAL SITES Now about real sites vs. simulated excavations, what a fascinating discussion! Lots of good arguments both ways, but as a public archaeologist who has come down firmly on the side of having students as young as age 10 participate in real digs, and who has for the past 15 years operated large-scale research excavations where this is the case, I submit the following: 1) digging mock sites teaches children and interested adults that they are not important enough to work alongside professional archaeologists on real sites. Whose heritage is it anyway? And who is paying the bill, one way or another, for most archaeological work that takes place? I think (and have good evidence upon which to base my conclusions) that there is a certain proportion of the public which will react very negatively to being told they aren't important, skilled, etc. enough to participate in the discovery and conservation of their own heritage resources. This impacts people very negatively - they might just decide that if archaeologists won't let them dig on real sites, they can just go off and do it on their own . . . with predictable results! 2) Simulated excavations, no matter how well constructed, demonstrate to excavators that archaeologists are looking for "things". Again, with predictable results - unless one is thoroughly versed in educational psychology, teaching methods, age-appropriate lesson planning, etc. this really can do what public archaeology was accused of doing in the early days of the subdiscipline's development - create pothunters. It doesn't have to, but the potential is there. 3) It takes just about the same amount of time and effort to construct, maintain and excavate a good simulated dig site as it does to do a real one! Yes, there is no report to write. But is that a factor you want the public to know about your simulated dig - that you're doing a fake site because it's too much trouble to do analysis and reporting of real archaeological data? 4) You really need to understand what students/the public are learning from what you think you are teaching before one does educational archaeology on any type of site. It can be a bit like "playing telephone" - what kids learn is not necessarily what you were trying to get across. So, whether or not one is using a real or simulated site, the issue is the quality of the educational program that is being implemented, what it is intended to teach, and an assessment of whether it actually does so. That said, not all sites or dig situations are suitable for public and/or educational programming. One has to be judicious, and one needs to have a very clear, well organized and highly structured program in place to allow for hands-on participation by untrained people of any age. So I believe that "sandbox archaeology" can teach important skills and concepts, and I have used it myself where a site situation did not warrant public participation, so please don't think I am completely closed-minded about this. But the dig at Red Wing, Minnesota, which John McCarthy has being talking about on this list and in which I am also involved, and the long-term Toronto program at the Archaeological Resource Centre in Toronto (now, unfortunately, defunct), as well as lots of other examples including Kampsville and Crow Canyon, demonstrate that good, research-based archaeology can and has been done in a fully-public context. This way the resources, skills and passion that we all apply to both archaeology and archaeology education are being devoted to not only the quest for more information about our human past, but also to the teaching of archaeological concepts and methods to the public at the same time. It's the most effective use of limited resources that I can think of, doing public archaeology on real archaeological sites. Nothing beats the educational impact of touching something "really old" and being the first one to do so in 100, 1000 or 10,000 years! I'll stop now. But if anyone is interested in more data about the psychological etc. reasons for doing real vs simulated archaeology in hands-on programming, there are a couple of publications with chapters that deal with this: Protecting the Past, ed. George Smith and John Ehrenhard, CRC Press The Excluded Past: Archaeology and Education, ed. Peter Stone and Robert MacKenzie, One World Archaeological Series, Routledge Press (older editions are Unwin Hyman). Wishing everyone a lovely fall, Karolyn Smardz ps I have administered or helped administer programs for more than 110,000 schoolchildren and members of the public so far in my career. Out of that number of participants, only a very few (maybe a half-dozen) have tried to take artifacts home with them. Not too bad odds!