by Bernard K. Means

The coming year should see a number of publications related to New Deal archaeology published or close to being published.  These include David Dye’s edited volume New Deal Archaeology in the Tennessee Valley: 1933-1942 from the University of Alabama Press.  I’ll have a chapter in there assessing TVA archaeology relative to work conducted in the remainder of the U.S.  This volume largely arises out of a History of Archaeology Interest Group (HAIG) session at the 2012 Society for American Archaeology (SAA) annual meeting.  HAIG also sponsored a session on geographical approaches to the history of archaeology at the 2013 SAA meeting.  My paper on the spatial distribution of New Deal archaeology projects will be published along with other papers from that session in the Bulletin for the History of Archaeology.

Over at the Virtual Curation Laboratory that I direct, my students and I will continue to make 3D models and printed replicas from archaeological sites, including some investigated as part of work relief archaeology.  One of the recent objects that we scanned is this pierced turtle shell recovered by a Work Projects Administration (WPA) excavation at the Powel No. 1 village site, a Monongahela tradition village, from January 31, 1938 to March 9, 1938.

Happy New Year to All!