1999 SAA Award Recipients |
The following
awards were presented on March 26, 1999 by President Vincas P. Steponaitis
at the Society's Annual Business Meeting in Chicago, Illinois
Wyoming Archaeology Week Poster First Place winner, Archaeology Week/Month Poster Contest |
 Missouri Archaeology Week Poster, detail Second Place winner, |
Maryland Archaeology Week Poster, detail Third Place winner, |
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Gary Feinman and Linda Manzanilla |
  Editing
a major journal is always a daunting task, but this is especially true in
the case of a young journal like Latin American Antiquity.
Over the last three years, Gary Feinman and Linda Manzanilla, building on
the work of their predecessors, have done an extraordinary job of bringing
this journal to maturity. They made the journal run on time, wrote the first
Spanish style guide, and expanded the Board of Editors and Editorial Advisory
Committee to good effect. As a result of their efforts, the rate of submissions,
and the quality of the papers are at an all-time high. For their outstanding
editorial leadership of Latin American Antiquity, I am pleased to
present them with this award. |
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Susan J. Bender (not pictured) and George S. Smith |
 Few
would deny that the future of archaeology rests on how well we train our
students. And few have done more in recent years to ensure the future quality
of this training than Susan Bender and George Smith. As cochairs of the
Public Education Committee's Professional Involvement Subcommittee, in 1998
they organized a working conference on "Teaching Archaeology in the
21st Century." This conference brought together archaeologists from
a variety of backgrounds who, over the space of a few days, articulated
an exciting vision for the future of archaeological education. Subsequently,
Bender and Smith agreed to chair SAA's newly formed Task Force on Curriculum,
which has been extraordinarily active in carrying out the workshop's agenda.
For their energy and vision in leading SAA's efforts to improve the teaching
of archaeology, I am pleased to present Susan Bender and George Smith with
this award. |
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Joe Watkins and Tristine Lee Smart |
  When
it was first proposed in the late 1980s, SAA's Native American Scholarship
program was a visionary idea, but such ideas are not always easy to put
into practice. The fact that the program now exists owes a great deal to
the hard work of Joe Watkins and Tristine Smart, chair and vice-chair, respectively,
of the Native American Scholarships Committee. Watkins and Smart led the
committee as guidelines were drafted, procedures were established, and the
mechanisms for awarding the scholarships were put into place. Even more
importantly, they took an active role in raising funds for these scholarships
through silent auctions, private gifts, and grants from the National Science
Foundation. The fact that four such scholarships have been awarded in the
past year, and that many more will be awarded in the future, is a testament
to their efforts. For their effective and energetic leadership of SAA's
Native American Scholarships Committee, I am proud to honor Joe Watkins
and Tristine Smart with this award. |
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Caryn Berg |
 Student
members currently comprise about 30 percent of the Society, and no one has
done more to ensure that SAA serves these members' needs than Caryn Berg.
As chair of our Student Affairs Committee, she led the committee's successful
efforts to organize symposia, provide student workshops, publish articles
in the SAA Bulletin, and generally to facilitate communication among
student members as well as between these members and the SAA Board. Few
committees have been as active and as effective as the one that she chaired.
For her energetic leadership of SAA's Student Affairs Committee, I am pleased
to honor Caryn Berg with this award. |
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Judith A. Bense |
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Book AwardThe SAA Book Award is given each year to the author of a book, published within the preceding three years, that has had or is expected to have a major impact on the direction and character of archaeological research. This year we have two winners. |
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Jon Muller |
 The
first award goes to Jon Muller for Mississippian Political Economy,
his masterful synthesis concerning the rise of Mississippian polities in
the Southeastern United States. It presents a balanced and theoretically
sophisticated argument that is an excellent and timely counterpoise to the
recent outpouring of writings on high-level Mississippian power politics.
It also contributes creatively and significantly to the general literature
on chiefly societies. It is a work of mature scholarship with implications
well beyond the Southeast that is certain to stimulate discussion and interest
for some time to come. |
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Mark Lehner |
| Occasionally, an award will be made for outstanding contributions to the public understanding of archaeology. This year's second Book Award recognizes a superb example in this latter category: Mark Lehner's book, The Complete Pyramids. It is a beautifully produced and illustrated book about the Egyptian pyramids, their origins, their symbolism, and the whole Egyptian mortuary complex. It also includes a history of archaeological exploration. It is breathtaking in its scope and coverage with hundreds of drawings, maps, and illustrations, more than 80 in color. The book's popular appeal is further enhanced by a visitor's guide to the main Egyptian monuments. |
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Excellence in Ceramic Studies Award |
| Warren R. DeBoer |
 This
year's recipient of SAA's Excellence in Ceramic Studies Award is Warren
R. DeBoer, professor of anthropology at Queens College, City University
of New York. Foremost among DeBoer's many achievements are his long-term
ethnoarchaeological studies of the role of pottery in the lives of the Shipibo-Conibo
of eastern Peru and, more recently, among the Chachi (Cayapas) of western
Ecuador. His detailed ethnographic studies have provided archaeologists
with a wealth of empirical data for investigating ancient pottery production,
use life, function, depositional patterns, and style in archaeological contexts.
This research has enabled archaeologists to develop detailed inferences
about past pottery production, use, and discard, along with site-formation
processes. DeBoer's broad and enduring impact on ceramic studies can be
measured by the frequency with which his work is cited in contemporary,
cutting-edge research. Almost every recent article on ceramic function,
use life, or style refers to his research. Every recent comprehensive reference
work on archaeological ceramics contains citations to his ethnographic and
archaeological work on pottery. It is for his enduring achievements in ethnoarchaeological
field research, the regional prehistories of lowland South America, and
methodological innovations in ceramic analysis that SAA proudly presents
Warren DeBoer with this award. |
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Crabtree Award |
| Gene L. Titmus |
 The
recipient of the 1999 Crabtree Award is Gene L. Titmus of Jerome, Idaho.
A self-taught master stone worker with 35 years of experience, Titmus's
voluntary contributions to professional archaeology are prodigious, extending
back to 1966 when he worked with Don Crabtree on replicating the Lindenmeier
Folsom point. He has since devoted countless hours to public education,
demonstrating and teaching flaked stone tool production, conducting stone
tool analysis, and engaging in fieldwork. He has donated generous amounts
of time to the Idaho Archaeological Society, serving as president of both
a chapter and the state organization, and the Herrett Center for Arts and
Science at the College of Southern Idaho, where he is currently a research
associate. His demonstrations have extended throughout the west, to Mexico
and France, and he counts several generations of academic knappers among
his students. His lithic analyses include the replication of northern Great
Basin fluted points, Mesoamerican prismatic blades, Mayan eccentrics, and
Mayan cut limestone building blocks using stone tools. His research has
discovered that Paleoindian points are ground and polished not only for
hafting but also to strengthen them and that Paleoindians used red ocher
not merely in ritual contexts but also as a polishing agent. His fieldwork
has ranged from volunteer to laboratory supervisor to project codirector.
Recently he has undertaken fieldwork at Nakbe, a Maya Preclassic site in
northern Guatemala with Richard Hansen of UCLA. In addition to contributing
to numerous conferences, he has published in several journals, including
the Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology and the Idaho
Archaeologist as well as books published by the University of New Mexico
Press, Center for the Study of the First Americans, the Palenque Round Table
Series, and the Precolombian Art Research Institute. |
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Cultural Resource Management Award |
| David G. Anderson |
 This
year's award for Excellence in Cultural Resource Management goes to David
G. Anderson, of the National Park Service's Southeast Archaeological Center.
Since the 1970s, Anderson has conducted CRM work in the academic, government,
and private sectors, all the while making substantial contributions to scholarship,
as well as to the protection and best use of archaeological resources. His
large number of publications have illustrated and utilized the vast knowledge
he has gathered through CRM research in the Southeastern United States.
His regional overviews, such as The Paleoindian and Early Archaic Southeast,
The Archaeology of the Mid-Holocene Southeast, have provided a new
understanding of chronology, environment, adaptation, and organization.
The dedication shown by Anderson to the archaeology of the Southeast sets
an excellent example for other researchers. His ability to see the research
potential of CRM, as well as to interpret the results in a regional manner,
has helped set a standard for CRM projects that has nationwide implications.
For his lengthy and impressive career in CRM, we are proud to give him this
award. |
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Dissertation Award |
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Karen G. Harry |
 The
winner of the 1999 SAA Dissertation Award is Karen G. Harry, currently director
of the Cultural Resources Program of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
Her doctorate was awarded in December 1997 by the University of Arizona.
The dissertation, "Ceramic Production, Distribution, and Consumption
in Two Classic Period Hohokam Communities," was written under the direction
of a committee chaired by Paul Fish. Harry's research is a theoretically
and technically sophisticated investigation of Hohokam ceramic production,
distribution, and consumption at the local level. The study focuses on exchange
within the early Classic Period Robles and Marana communities in the northern
Tucson Basin. Both communities are characterized by a hierarchy consisting
of a central village surrounded by numerous smaller villages and hamlets
in a variety of settings. The central villages contain public architecture
in the form of platform mounds and have higher proportions of non-local
and luxury goods that do other settlements. Harry used chemical and mineralogical
analyses of large samples of these artifacts to investigate socioeconomic
relationships at the community level. In so doing, she produced a dissertation
of unusual quality that has contributed significantly to political-economic
theory and to the methodology of ceramic sourcing on a local scale. |
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Fryxell Award |
| Henry P. Schwarcz |
 This
year's Fryxell Award for Interdisciplinary Research in the physical sciences
goes to Henry P. Schwarcz. Schwarcz earned his Ph.D. in geology from the
California Institute of Technology and has taught geology at McMaster University
in Ontario for most of his career. His first publications related to archaeology
involved uranium series dating of travertine deposits in caves, but he became
intrigued by the many fascinating issues and problems archaeologists deal
with and began to devote much of his research effort to archaeological geology.
He has published more than 100 articles on archaeological topics, involving
sites in all parts of the world. Many deal with dating, especially in the
crucial and difficult age range between radiocarbon dating and potassium
argon dating, using the uranium series as well as electron spin resonance.
He also has investigated a wide range of other topics of significance to
archaeology, including paleoclimates, stable isotope geochemistry of human
and animal bone, and isotopic analysis of food residues on ceramics. He
has served as chair of the Archaeological Geology Division of the Geological
Society of America and on the editorial boards of Journal of Archaeological
Science, Journal of Human Evolution, and Geoarchaeology.
He also is notable for his inspiration and support to junior researchers;
10 of his former graduate students are working as geoarchaeologists. For
his extraordinary commitment to strengthening the intersection between archaeology
and geology, the Society for American Archaeology is honored to present
the 1999 Fryxell Award for Interdisciplinary Research in the physical sciences
to Henry P. Schwarcz. |
MISSING PAGE 18 |
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Distinguished Service Award |
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James A. Brown |
 SAA
takes great pleasure in presenting the 1999 Distinguished Service Award
to James A. Brown, professor of anthropology at Northwestern University.
James Brown's service to the Society and to the profession as a whole has
been exceptional. He served on the Executive Committee of the Society from
1990 to 1993. He also has served as president of the Chicago Anthropological
Society, president of the Illinois Archaeological Survey, secretary of the
Center for American Archaeology, and chair of the Board of Directors of
the Illinois State Museum. His contributions in fieldwork, theoretical writing,
and teaching have been enormous. He directed excavations at, and published
results from, the major sites of Koster, Mound City, and Fort Michilimackinac,
as well as other sites in Illinois. In the course of these projects he contributed
substantially to our current understanding of Archaic subsistence patterns,
transition to sedentism, exchange systems, and changes in Native societies
in response to European settlement. His contributions to theory are especially
recognized in the area of mortuary analysis, but he has also greatly advanced
study of other issues such as subsistence. His publications are extensive.
In his role as teacher, Brown has educated a whole generation of North American
archaeologists. His colleagues note especially that he encourages his students
to participate actively in all aspects of the discipline. As a result, they
also are becoming major contributors to the field. We are pleased to present
this award to such a deserving colleague. |
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Arthur C. Parker Scholarship |
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Iwalani Ching |
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SAA's Native American Scholarship Fund was established in 1988, largely through the efforts of Robert Kelly and David Hurst Thomas. Now, 10 years later, the fund has finally grown to the point where the principal is large enough to support an annual scholarship. The scholarship is named in honor of SAA's first president, Arthur C. Parker, who was of Seneca ancestry. The goal of the scholarship is not to produce Native American archaeologists, but rather to provide training for Native Americans, so that they can take to their communities an understanding of archaeology, and also that they might show archaeologists better ways to integrate the goals of Native people and archaeology. The winner of this year's Arthur C. Parker Scholarship is Iwalani Ching, a Native Hawaiian attending Rutgers University who will use the scholarship to attend the Koobi Fora Field School. I am happy to announce that since last year, SAA has been able to award six additional Native American Scholarships that have been made possible by support from the National Science Foundation, for which we are tremendously grateful. The three recipients in 1998 were:
And the three additional recipients for 1999, chosen at this meeting, are:
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Fred Plog Memorial Fellowship |
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Sarah Herr |
| The Fred Plog Memorial Fellowship is presented in support of research to a graduate student who is ABD and writing a dissertation on the American Southwest. The award consists of a $1,000 stipend, and will be presented annually over a period of at least 10 years. I should point out that this fellowship was made possible by the generosity of Fred Plog's family and friends, and it is a fitting tribute to an archaeologist who not only contributed greatly to Southwestern research, but also was an inspiring teacher. I am pleased to announce that the winner of the first Fred Plog Memorial Fellowship is of the University of Arizona. The fellowship will support her innovative dissertation research on the relationships among mobility, migration, and sociopolitical organization in a frontier area along the Mogollon Rim in Arizona. Herr's research focuses on the 11th and 12th centuries and will examine relationships among households and communities at a regional scale. The study will utilize new data collected by the Silver Creek Archaeological Research Project, as well as information from earlier excavations by William Longacre at Carter Ranch Pueblo and Emil Haury at Tla Kii Pueblo. Results from Herr's research will have important implications for current models that emphasize migration and integration. |
New SAA Officer and Board Members |
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Paul Minnis
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The Resolutions Committee offers the following resolutions:
Be it resolved that the appreciation and congratulations on a job well done be tendered to the retiring officers
Vincas Steponaitis
Lynne Sebastian
and the retiring board members
C. Melvin Aikens
Donna J. Seifert
and the retiring editors of Latin American Antiquity
Gary Feinman
Linda Manzanilla
and others who have served the Society on its committees and in other ways;
To the staff, and especially Tobi A. Brimsek, the executive director, who planned the meeting, and to all the volunteers who worked at registration and other tasks;
To the Program Committee, chaired by
LuAnn Wandsnider
and to the committee members
Effie F. Athanassopoulos
Laurence E Bartram Jr.
Elizabeth Chilton
Stephen R. Durand
Dorothy Lippert
Kathleen D. Morrison
John D. Richards
Lauren Sullivan
Patrice Teltser
Stanley Van Dyke
Karen Wise
and the Annual Meeting workshop coordinators
Philip J. Arnold III
Shannon Fie
and to the Annual Local Advisory Committee, chaired by
Winifred Creamer
and be it further resolved that thanks again be given to those who inform us of the deaths of colleagues, and finally, a resolution of sympathy to the families and friends of
James Anderson
Charles J. Bareis
Darlena Blucher
Robert T. Bray
Patricia Bridges
John Cotter
Hugh Carson Cutler
Edward Mott Davis
Gene Carl (Pinky) Harrington
Amy Harvey
George Haseman
Alden C. Hayes
William D. Hohenthal
Dienje Kenyon
Col. William Koob
Floyd Glen Lounsbury
Clara Hall Millon
Sabatino Moscati
Linda Schiele
Xiang-Qing Shao
Viva Spier
Ian M. (Sandy) Thompson
Hernan Julio Vidal
Denis Williams
Eric Wolf
The members rose for a moment of silence in honor of our departed colleagues.
Jon Muller
The 2000 Nominating Committee requests nominations for the following SAA positions:
If SAA is to have effective officers and a representative Board, the membership must be involved in the nomination of candidates. Members are urged to submit nominations and, if desired, to discuss possible candidates with the 2000 Nominating Committee: Chair William D. Lipe, Beverly Mitchum Chiarulli, William Green, Julie Stein, and Mary Stiner.
Please send all nominations in writing, along with contact information for both nominator and nominee, no later than September 2, 1999, to:
Chair, 2000 Nominating Committee
c/o SAA, Executive Director
900 Second St. NE, #12
Washington, DC 20002-3557
tel: (202) 789-8200,
fax: (202) 789-0284
email: tobi_brimsek@saa.org
Over
the past two decades, no problem facing archaeology has been more important,
or more fraught with potential pitfalls, than that of relations with Native
American communities. And no one has been more creative in tackling this
problem than Jon S. Czaplicki. As chair of the Public Education Committee's
Subcommittee for Native American Education, Czaplicki has already organized
two archaeology workshops for Native American educators, "Teaching
with Archaeology: Building Curriculum, Building Bridges." The first
was held in 1997 at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence, Kansas;
the second was held in 1998 near Cherokee, North Carolina. Both were highly
successful, and provide a model for what is likely to become an ever-growing
avenue of communication and positive cooperation between archaeologists
and Native peoples. For his extraordinary vision and leadership in organizing
these workshops, I am proud to honor Jon Czaplicki with this award.
Public policy
is one of the most important areas of SAA's activity, and no member has
put more energy into this area in recent years than Judith Bense, who
chaired our Government Affairs Committee from 1994 through 1998. During
her term, she reorganized the committee, re-energized the grass-roots
Government Affairs Network, and lobbied tirelessly on behalf of issues
important to the Society. Were it not for her efforts, archaeology would
not have fared nearly as well as it did in the 104th and 105th Congressesamong
the more challenging in recent memory for advocates of historic preservation.
For her effective and energetic leadership of SAA's Government Affairs
Committee, I am pleased to present Judith Bense with this award.
