A GBAC Retrospective

Here's my take on the GBAC, I'll discuss a few of the papers presented, share a funny story about Steve Simms and his optimal foraging rage, and end on an inspirational note.

Now that I have been to several conferences, I find myself more and more hesitant to take notes. I still have mounds of notes from the GBAC two years ago, the SAAs in SLC, and the Southwest Seminar. For the most part, these notes have profited me nothing. So, my discussion of a few select papers will be sparse. If any of you want to jump in and add to this, please do.

Rich Talbot's paper on finding sites was very well done. He discussed the need for archaeologists to be more tech savvy and employ the use of large earth-movers to facilitate finding sites. He also suggested that archaeologists look for sites in areas of soft sand, like dunes, floodplains and alluvial fans. Use of earth movers in these areas would be especially helpful due to the large amount of deposition.

The session that Rich participated in was full of papers that promoted the use of large earth moving machines.
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Another great paper was Joel's paper on the Fremont. This paper was very reminiscent of his "100 Years of Utah Archaeology" but it was based solely on the Fremont. Joel discussed the beginnings of Great Basin Archaeology and its heavy ties to the southwest.

Then he proceeded to pimp Madsen and Simms and all that they had done for the Fremont.

Joel then provided a timeline discussing important dates in Fremont theory

1900-1930 Boasian
1970 Processual
1982 HBE
1998 Madsen and Simms
2000,2002 Janetski and Talbot

I feared that this would be yet another political paper designed to keep everyone happy, but Joel surprised me by throwing in a little barb about the genetic evidence from Steinaker Gap which illustrates that the Fremont are closer genetically to the SW than anyother group.
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Clint Cole was a heavy hitter at this conference with a few papers and a poster.
Clint spoke on INAA and Snake Valley Corrugated ceramics. He compared three sites, Parowan, Baker Village, and surveyed sites near Pinoche, NV. Clint discovered that there are some mineral outliers found in Baker Village ceramics. He also determined that the variability in SVC is shared with all three sites, and that 1/3 of the ceramics from Baker Village match those found in Parowan. (chris, fogive the summary, it was a little over my head)
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A student from UNR (Linsie Lafayette) did a study on use wear of Great Basin Stemmed points. Lafayette had someone make two sets of various GB stemmed points and she hafted half to spears and the other half to knife handles. She looked at impact marks on the projectiles (after spearing a dead deer) and butcher marks on the knives. Lafayette determined that some of the GB stemmed points may not have been points at all due to their inability to penetrate or stay hafted.
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William Adrefsky spoke about using lithics to understand land use patterns. He used ethnographic data to figure out the average daily travel time of a Paiute. Then he used debitage data to deterimine that if a toolstone source was farther that 30-40 kilometers that a tool would be retouched more than a tool made out of stone that was closer. His theory being that the more rare a toolstone is, the more it is consvered and recycled. Andrefsky also discussed the problem of retouch in lithic analysis and pimped his retouch index paper that will be showing up in Am. Antiquity next month.
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Now, for the HBE stories. The first involves O'Connell, Andrew Ugan, and a skeptical woman. Ugan had a poster on prestige and ranked hunting on display. A woman (who looked like a professor or high up mucky-muck) was arguing with Ugan and his flowing mane of hair. O'Connell was quick to jump in and Ugan, his hair, and O'Connell did all they could to convince the woman that their theory was correct.

The other story involves Steve Simms. After Kim Carpenter of Far Western gave a paper on return rates and subsistence strategies, Simms got in her face (which was cute cause he was shorter than her) and began to blast her interpretation. She countered by saying she was confused and did not understand how Simms could invest everything in ranked strategies. Simms tried to blow her off and started to walk away two times, she asked him to come back and talk about why he was angry and explain his model better. He did, only to walk away for good the third time with a dimmisive wave of the hand. Such is the Elven rage of Steve Simms (that should be his power if we ever do GB trading cards..."ELVEN RAGE")

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Finally, an inspirational note. This GBAC saw an entire session devoted to essays in honor of Don Fowler. Joel's paper was part of this session. During the session, I sensed a camaraderie between Fowler, his colleages, and students that I do not always sense around Joel. I thought this was interesting. I wonder if it's just due to the fact that Fowler was everybody's drinking buddy...

In the final paper of the session, Dave Thomas (founder of Wendy's) brought up an excellent point. DT shared an experience about Fowler that I really liked. In the past, Fowler has written several glowing letters of rec for Dave Thomas. Once, as Dave was thanking Fowler for helping him so often, Fowler told him that it was his pleasure, and that "Archaeology is a team sport."

Out of all the papers, that concept, however optimistic, was one of the most important shared at the conference. We're all on the same team.