SAA’s meeting announcement

Hello all – This is non work announcement mailing.

This Thursday morning at the Society for American Archaeology meetings in
Philadelphia Pennsylvania I will be chairing along with Daya Naef a public
forum called "The Future of the Past: Implications of the Internet on
Archaeology". This session will be in Salon E from 8-10 AM.

Unfortunately the program for the SAA's
http://www.saa.org/Meetings/saa2000/00ampgrm-sched.pdf has mis listed this
session as a "symposium" suggesting that there will be papers being
presented in turn (as well as mis listing particpants). However the actual
format of this session is more as a forum that will be open to questions
from the public and moderated by Daya and myself. I have included a brief
outline of our planned subjects we would like to discuss, so if you are at
the meetings and have an interest in how the Internet has/will effect
archaeology please stop by and participate.

The participants in this forum are a great selection of archaeologists who
have all created a presence on the internet in one fashion or another. As
a result, their cumulative knowledge is unparalleled for a forum on this
subject. Daya and I will lead the panel through a series of topics
relating to archaeology and the internet including:

Information on the internet.
– Is there good information on the internet?
– How do we deal with data presented as legitimate, but is crackpot.
– How much value should students/professors/SHPO's put in references that
are cited on the internet.
– Is there a future for "peer reviewed" electronic only journals?

Legal implications/boundaries of the internet
– What are the boundaries of the law?
– What are the implications of freedom of speech? i.e. List moderators
can remove individuals from their discussion lists who do
not conform to
the general standards of the group the list is trying to reach.
– Ethics of using popular resources such as Amazon which also support
auctions that sell artifacts of questionable
provenience. Should
Archaeologists avoid these places…however at many
bookstores you can pick
up popularly available books on "arrowhead collecting" and
artifact values. So
the actual effect might be void.
– Organizing rides/rooms via personally organized discussion boards. This
could be dangerous, but is it no worse that messages on a
bulletin board?

Funding on the internet
– Does it replace/compliment current channels, does it help reach a
broader audience, is it worth it?

CRM offices on the internet
– Is it cost effective for a CRM firm to become "wired", i.e. beyond an
interoffice network, should firms have a dedicate line to the
internet. Should office people have access to this line?
– Can the internet facilitate remote crews communicating with home offices.
– where will it go.

A closing discussion will be by Fred Limp.

The forum participants are:

– JD Richards – editor from the first free, fully refereed E-Journal on
archaeology "Internet Archaeology) which is located at http://intarch.ac.uk/,
– Tom King, author and frequent commentator on ACRA-L,
– Tom Wheaton – Executive Director of The American Cultural Resources
Association (ACRA) http://www.acra-crm.org/ and Vice President of New South
Associates http://www.newsouthassoc.com/ ,
– Jill Yakubick – President of Earth Search Inc. http://www.earth-search.com/,
– Sandy Noble – Director of The Foundation for the Advancement of
MesoAmerican Studies http://www.famsi.org/
– K. Kris Hirst – About.com guide for http://archaeology.about.com
– Amelie Walker – Web Master for Archaeology Magazines
http://www.archaeology.org
– Fred Limp (Discussant) – Director of the Center for Advanced Spatial
Technologies (CAST) http://www.cast.uark.edu

Hope to see some of you there!

Best Regards,

R. Joe Brandon