Conferetizing

No, conferetizing probably isn't a legitimate word, but it is descriptive: members of the PTAP team will appear at two venues after the first of the new year. April and I both will attend the Society for Historical Archaeology conference on Amelia Island, Florida. We'll both talk about aspects of our work at Port Tobacco. Hopefully, we'll get those papers on the Internet.

My paper at the conference will be a joint effort with April and Kelley. We'll explore that gap between what long-time residents and local historians have figured out about the community's past and our findings over the past three years.

As I noted in an earlier blog, Pete, Anne and Kelley will collaborate on three papers at the Middle Atlantic Archaeological Conference in Ocean City, Maryland. Those papers will address some work we have been doing on aboriginal sites in the region as well as the work at Port Tobacco. Again, I expect we will post those papers eventually on my website (www.gibbarchaeology.org).

Our technical reports, which are posted on the Society for the Restoration of Port Tobacco's website (www.restoreporttobacco.org), document what we have done and found. The conference papers will explore some of the ideas in those reports and analyze the data in greater depth. Eventually, we will use both sources to publish works in both scholarly and general venues. As I told a client today while driving between sites, science is a slow, methodical process. Earth-shaking news after a few weeks in the field, and with no analysis or reporting, should be suspect, even if it appears in reputable newspapers. If scientifically generated knowledge came quickly, we would have cured cancer years ago.

Jim