Since its creation in 1960, the Arkansas Archeological Survey (AAS) has served the citizens of Arkansas by preserving and researching archaeological sites and educating the public via research stations across the state. This volume is a collection of essays adapted from a symposium at the 2014 Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting honoring Dr. Tom Green upon his retirement from the AAS. Green served as AAS director from 1992 through 2013. The essays are broadly divisible into two categories. Six chapters cover archaeological studies that Green supported during his time in Arkansas, and seven summarize his impact and approach in managing the AAS and as state archaeologist in Idaho. The scope of the archaeology essays attests to the wide range of research projects Green supported during his tenure. Case studies considered in the volume range in time from the Paleoindian period to a mid-twentieth-century World War II internment camp, and chapter authors cover such topics as religion, diet, interaction and exchange, landscape use, and daily life.
While they are grounded primarily in research in Arkansas, a number of the essays draw broader comparisons. Juliet Morrow's chapter on Paleoindian spirituality is an exhaustive summary that incorporates data from the Dalton-age Sloan site and cemetery in northeast Arkansas. Nordine and colleagues’ chapter summarizes paleoethnobotanical remains from the Wallace Bottom site, likely the Quapaw village of Osotouy, where French colonists lived alongside the Quapaw during the 1600s and 1700s. This chapter also includes comparisons with plant remains from contemporaneous sites in North America. Trubitt and coauthors use chemical sourcing to determine that thin-walled and grog-tempered vessels and sherds, some with complex engraved designs, found at Mississippian sites in the American Bottom of Illinois were not imports from the Caddo area from Arkansas, as had been previously speculated, and were instead made locally. Etcheison and colleagues incorporate lithic sourcing data from four different North American regions in their examination of raw material choices and the use histories of Arkansas novaculite quarries. The chapter by Johnson and his coauthors seems like a bit of an outsider in the volume, as it is focused on Mississippian landscapes in the lower Yazoo Basin of Mississippi, but it does align with some of Green's research early in his career. Barnes's work on a World War II internment camp is an interesting piece of history and an excellent example of collaboration with a local community in conducting archaeological research.
The essays covering Green's impact at the survey show the breadth of his contributions and the ways he placed the AAS at the forefront of research, collaboration, and preservation. Green led the survey through two immense changes in archaeology—the implementation of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) and the digital revolution in archaeology. The essays in this volume demonstrate that Green embraced both, serving as an advocate for the NAGPRA among an initially reluctant archaeological community, overseeing the creation of a wide variety of digital databases, and developing an extensive archaeological geophysics and geographic information system program. All of the archaeological studies in the volume incorporate geophysical techniques, and Lockhart's chapter further demonstrates the impact that geophysical survey can have on site management and archaeological practice.
Chapters by Rathgaber and Brandon both emphasize how collaboration among the AAS, federal/state/local agencies, and Arkansas citizens fostered by Green have broadened public interest in archaeology, have provided valuable services to Arkansas citizens, and have served to help historically disadvantaged groups. Sabo's chapter provides a wide-ranging overview of the AAS's work now and in the future to conduct research in Arkansas archaeology and to preserve archaeological and historical sites, and he also emphasizes one of Green's most important contributions—his efforts to include descendant communities in archaeological research in Arkansas. Under Green's direction, the AAS began to seek input and participation from descendant communities in all phases of archaeological projects. While this has certainly become a much more widespread practice in recent years throughout the United States, Green and the AAS were on the forefront of these efforts and collaborative approaches to the practice of archaeology.
This volume will appeal to any archaeologist interested in public archaeology and collaborative research projects, which have long been central to the AAS mission. The case studies for collaboration can certainly provide inspiration for members of the archaeological community who want to deepen the impacts of their research and involve a wider group of stakeholders in their projects.
