The 1996/1997 year was an educational experience for the Inter-Society Relations committee of one. Continued association with the International Association for Obsidian Studies (IAOS) and attempts to continue contact with the Archaeometry Symposium Standing Committee met with varying success.

Probably most important was the proposal by my lab, the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, in intellectual association with SAS, to host the 2000 Archaeometry Symposium at Berkeley. The lab and particularly the museum frequently host conferences of the size typical of the Archaeometry Symposium, and the campus and Bay Area are a particularly pleasant and functional area for this type of conference. Mexico City and Beijing also tenured proposals, and we were confident ours would be given serious consideration. The lab, the Archaeological Research Facility, and museum brought Mike Tite, the standing committee chair, to Berkeley to show off the facilities, and our capability to host such an event. In the end, Mexico City was chosen to host the symposium in 2000, and we were asked to consider resubmitting for 2004 when the symposium returns to North America. We intend to do so, emphasizing the commitment of support by the Society for Archaeological Sciences.

I have a copy of our proposal, which will be modified appropriately for the next submission.

I continue to send our meeting dates to various newsletters, but am surprised to see how few actually list it. I will continue to do so, and persistence will eventually pay.

Timely decisions about the day for the SAS business meetings at the SAA would be helpful to insure that the various newsletters publish our meeting schedule.

Following on the above, the business meeting of the IAOS was held in Seattle at the same time as the SAS business meeting this year. Since most IAOS members, as well as some who could be SAS members, are also SAS members, it would behoove us to coordinate with IAOS in the future. I attempted to do so this year, but both organizations schedule the business meetings at the last minute.

As usual, any member that has inter-society type news, please forward it, and I’ll act on it appropriately.