SAS Bulletin
Volume 20 Number 1/2 January /June 1997
From the President
The Society for Archaeological Sciences held its annual
executive board and business meetings during the Society for American Archaeology
Annual Meeting in Opryland, Nashville, Tennessee, April 2-5, 1997. Our
modest (embarrassing?) attendance of 14 out of a total membership of 354
was no doubt due to the scheduling of our meeting opposite several symposia.
Votes were tallied for the election of officers. Twenty ballots were cast
by email, and 24 by snail mail. The vote was unanimous in favor of Chris
Prior for President elect and Felicia Beardsley for Secretary Treasurer.
They will join me (as I move from President elect to President) as members
of the executive board. In addition, the desktop publishing baton was passed
on to our new Bulletin editor, Rob Tykot.
The income and expenditure summary for 1996 was
presented, and the proposed budget for 1997 was presented and accepted.
These documents were included in a previous issue of the Bulletin.
The agreement with Plenum Press for the book series on Advances in Archaeological
and Museum Science was discussed. This contract called for five books over
a ten year period. So far, four books have been accepted by SAS. The phytolith
book (Phytolith Systematics: Emerging Issues; Rapp and Mulholland,
editors) is already published; books on dating methods (Chronometric
and Allied Dating in Archaeology; Martin Aitken and R.E. Taylor, editors)
and obsidian (Archaeological Obsidian Studies: Method and Theory;
M. Steven Shackley, editor) are due out in 1997; and a volume on historic
preservation technology (Ray Williamson, editor) is expected in 1998. Other
high quality proposals are invited.
Next year will mark the 20th anniversary of the
SAS. Suggestions were made as to how this event might be marked, such as
an award to someone who has served the organization. Visibility of the
organization might also be promoted in several ways, from a more concerted
effort to distribute our membership leaflet to a student award for a paper
presented on an archaeometric topic.
Future Archaeometry Symposia were discussed. Both
the University of California at Berkeley and Mexico have expressed interest
in hosting the next North American meeting. The SAS would still be interested
in collaborating with the Standing Committee of the Archaeometry Symposia
to co sponsor the symposia, help organize North American meetings, help
with the publication of symposia proceedings or theme session papers, or
re publish hard to get proceedings from previous symposia. The suggestion
was also made that SAS might sponsor a hands on workshop at the 1998 Archaeometry
Symposium in Hungary.
Incoming President Sternberg expressed his hope
that at least one SAS sponsored symposium could be held at each SAA meeting.
There are always a number of SAA symposia that, by topic, could certainly
be sponsored by SAS. As examples, several sessions that I was able to attend
on this yearís program appealed to my personal interest in archaeomagnetism
and archaeomagnetic dating: Geoarchaeology, Paleoenvironmental Research,
and Absolute Dating (general session, #16); Learning from Once Hot Rocks
(symposium organized by Alston Thomas, Jeff D. Leach and Michael B. Collins,
#72); Time After Time: A History of Archaeological Dating in North America
(organized by Stephen E. Nash, #134). There were a number of other symposia
relevant to the SAS mission: Paleosubsistence and Paleoenvironmental research
(organized by Jennifer Falk and Irwin Rovner, #45); Prehistoric Quarries
and Chert Exploitation in the Southeastern and Mid Atlantic States (organized
by Meeks Etchieson, #53); Ancient Landscape Reconstruction: New Approaches
and Technologies (organized by Robert H. Brunswig, Jr. and Lawrence Conyers,
#54); Fryxell Symposium 1997: Molecular to Synthetic Research in Southwestern
Archaeobotany. Papers in Honor of Vorsila L. Bohrer (symposium sponsored
by SAA Executive board, organized by Karen R. Adams and Mollie S. Toll,
#69); Advanced Technologies: Archaeology for the Twenty First Century (general
session, #101); Chemical Sourcing of Ceramics in the Greater Southwest
(organized by Donna M. Glowacki); Phytolith Analysis for Archaeologists
(organized by Terry B. Ball and Linda Scott Cummings, #126). For a society
to sponsor a symposium involves no additional work, and gives the symposium
a bit more visibility in the SAA program. However, sponsorship by an organization
does not guarantee acceptance of the symposium for the SAA program.
Back to our meeting, it was mentioned that John
Yellen at the National Science Foundation is looking for feedback on NSFís
Archaeometry Program (see announcement at www.nsf.gov/sbe/sber/arch/old8752.htm).
Members were reminded to peruse the excellent SAS web site set up by Jim
Burton, located at: www.wisc.edu/anthropology/sas/sas.htm.
Jim has also kept SAS-Net,
the e-mail redistribution service started by Foss Leach, active. Traffic
has increased with notices of general interest to the SAS community.
We closed with a round of applause for Pat Martin,
who has served the SAS well as President, and before that as President elect
and Editor of the Bulletin. Thanks, Pat. We hope we can draw on
your experience as you become Past President.
Rob Sternberg
May 5, 1997
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