Articulations

For nine weeks during 2001, I was lucky enough to convince some of our leading scientists to spend some time chatting with a little band of hardy souls let by Pat Garrow, now retired from TRC Garrow Associates.

While the chat room is generally quiet these days, the chats were a lively way to get to know some of archaeology's most interesting researchers--and the transcripts show it.

Chatters included

• Tom Dillehay, excavator of the still-controversial Monte Verde site
• Anita-Cohen Williams, one of the pioneers of archaeology on the Internet and moderator of the much-respected Hist-Arch email discussion list
• J. Barto Arnold, of the Institute for Nautical Archaeology, who discussed his work excavating the famous Civil War blockade runner Denbigh
• Judy Bense, of the University of West Florida, who discussed her work in public archaeology
• Bill Kelso, principal excavator at the historic townsite of Jamestown
• Justin Kerr of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies (FAMSI) on his innovative photographic work on the Maya Vase Rollout project and The Pre-Columbian Portfolio
• Rosemary Joyce of the University of California at Berkeley discussing her work on Sister Stories
• Larry McKee, of TRC Garrow, Inc., on his work in African-American archaeology
• Mike Polk of Sagebrush Consultants and Charlie LeeDecker of the Louis Berger Group on cultural resource management in North America

By the way, in case you were wondering, in archaeological jargon "articulation" refers to when you find two or more artifacts or bones in their original configuration. Think of these chats as articulations of archaeologists....

Take a peek, and see what you think!