NEARA conference - selections from the Schedule

So let me make a few adulatory comments and a few snyde ones. Some of the sessions were pretty exciting and I had a hard time going to sleep Friday night with my head spinning over the social and informational aspects of the day. Let's read through parts of the program schedule:

Friday 8:30-12:00 Session 1 - New England State Archeologists (Chair Brona Simon)
I did not go to any of these sessions. Brona Simon is the public official who, single handedly, is responsible for more archeological destruction than anyone else on record in Massachusetts. I sure wasn't going to go listen to her and I was a bit afraid I would have to be on the same stage with her. I have spoken with the lady by phone just once and have been plotting her overthrow. I also noticed Giovanna Peebles on the schedule, as Vermont State archeologist. She also has a pretty bad reputation among Mavor fans and, when he was near death's door, her calumny was still high on his personal list of topics and grievances. By contrast the Rhode Island State Archeologist was not on the program (I forget his name). I have heard him talk in praise of the efforts of NEARA members and he is well liked in that community. Anyway this session was in conflict with Bruce and Suzanne's talk in the other session.

Friday 8:30-12:00 Session 2 Contributed Papers (Chair Jack Hranicky)
I took one look at the title of the early morning talks and found no reason to go before Suzanne Wall and Bruce McAleer's talk. For example: "Mid-Atlantic Super-Long distance Obsidian Exchange". This sounds like a big load of nothing. I have found Minnesota Catlinite ("pipestone") on the ground here in Concord, and shell beads from California show up just about everywhere in the US. Wake me when you want to report on some Islandic obsidian. OR maybe you would want to hear about "GIS-based distance decay Modeling of the Cultural Distribution of Shriver and Loyalhanna Chert".....nope, I don't think so. Then at 10:30 I listened with interest to Suzanne and Bruce's talk "Steatite Quarrying and Utilization of Altered Metamorphic Rocks in Eastern New England". This was of interest not just because it was friends presenting but also because I knew there would be discussion of altered above ground rocks - a topic of general interest. Suzanne demonstrated that pecked grooves are very common in our woods and she did a good job making the audience aware of these altered rocks. I found her and Bruce's unwillingness to speculate about the purpose of those grooves detracted from the point they were making. Nontheless, an interesting topic. Then, since I was already in the room, I listened to the next talk: "A Pipeline to the Past, or Six Archaic Sites Narrowly Considered". I can summarize this talk in one sentence "We did salvage archeology along the path of a planned pipeline and found flakes and arrowheads". I am not sure what the content of such a talk is supposed to be. I love looking at arrowhead pictures (in lieu of looking at the real thing) and they showed a pretty nice "pre-form" made of Braintree Argillite. Not to put too fine a point on it but talks like this or like others from later sessions like "Indigenous Subsistence and Settlement Practices in Northern New England During the Woodland Period: the enduring contributions of James B. Peterson" hold little interest for me [no offense to Mr. Peterson]. In fact this is a good example of the kind of thing Curt Hoffman was speaking about when he diss'ed conventional archeology and the preoccupation with food. I took one glance at that program and started thinking about how to write a harangue on the subject of how bankrupt and in need of new ideas New England Archeology has become. Maybe it always was that way. My personal complaint: these people refuse to speculate about anything of interest and, a simple enumeration of dull facts does not a narrative make. Without narrative you have nothing.

1:00 - 3:00 PM Session 3 James Peterson Memorial Session (Chair Mark McConaghy)
[I skipped]

1:00-3:00 PM Session 4 New England Antiquities Research Association (Chair Dan Lorraine)
Here is where I gave my talk. First up was Colgate Gilbert talking about Burnt Hill "Standing Stones, Observatories, Hill Farms, and Indian Agroforestry: a look at the Sweetser and Thayer Site in Franklin County Mass". It is too long a story to tell you how he fell out of favor with NEARA, hogged the Burnt Hill site, failed to ever report anything, and generally interfered with other people wanting to research the place. After years of silence here he was, reporting on facts about the place that were observed by other people long before he got there (with no credit given to those people) followed by a complicated attempt to date the site based on someone else's estimate of forest succession and burn off. Fech! Then came me with "The Distribution of Rock Pile in Middlesex County, MA". Then came James Egan with "What's a Rhode Island Stone-Ender doing in Connecticut?", and then Tim Fohl with "Similarities of Ceremonial Structures in New England and Mesoamerica" - a discussion of why alignments related to sunrise on August 13, seem to show up frequently around here while the most significant aspect of that date is that the sun is directly overhead, on that date, at major ceremonial sites in Mesoamerica.

After this there was a break and a digression involving a short walk outsite the conference hotel where FFC located some rock piles. When we got back I listened to part of Sue Carlson's talk "How Was it Built? The Construction of the Newport Tower". Then I went back to the hallway to chat with people and get ready for dinner.

Dinner was nice with Curt, Doug, Bruce, and a few others. We drove as fast as possible down into Leominster to eat Chinese and then were back before you knew it to watch another version of Ted Timreck's Film "Hidden Landscapes: A Northeastern Ceremonial Landscape". This included some wonderful footage of Mavor and Dix when they first discovered and then started excavating at Calendar I in Vermont. Poignant because of the loss of these wonderful men but also subtly capturing the mystery of the lichen covered stones. Opening shot: an old rock, propped up, camera pans up to show the foot of a tripod and a young man (Mavor) squinting through a transit and focussing then re-focussing. Totally intent. There was a lot of other footage in there and Ted made a valiant effort to bring the viewer into understanding stone features around here by giving them a context from the deep past and from across the Altantic Ocean. I am not sure this context worked for me but then a film has difficulty being all things to all people. After that...home for a bad night's sleep and then a return to the Saturday conference.

[Tiring now of going through this schedule item by item]. Saturday was about a panel discussion with open ended Q&A, with panelists: Cherly Maltais, Curt Hoffman, Doug Harris, and alternately Tim Fohl, Tom Paul, Doug Schwartz, and Fred Martin. This panel started with a short film interview of Alan Leveille, a contract arcehologist and bad guy who blesses rock pile destruction. In this intereview he is seen making his apologies and claiming a new willingness to work with the Indians and become an anthropologist as well as an archeologist. This is another long topic I cannot get into here, but rumor has it that he was told to stop interfering with protection of Indian Ceremonial structures or his company would never work again in Rhode Island. Fech again! Anyway, after that there was an extended discussion with, for example, Doug H. telling us to read the USET resolution to find answers; and Curt H. telling us his background in Biblical Archeology (see yesterday's post); and Cheryl lending moral support and talking about being grateful for NEARA keeping alive and fighting to protect these sites (or was it Doug who said this?). It was pretty interesting to me.

Anyway, I was exhausted after this, had lunch with Lisa Gannon (Vermont State Coordinator for NEARA), hung around a bit, then drove home. Each day I had hoped to leave early and do a little exploring in the surrounding woods (Leominster State Forest) and each day the main events were mid morning and early afternoon - leaving it too late each day to do more than veg out afterwards.