vast growth in the discipline since the late 1960s, however, such contributions have almost disappeared from the journal.

Although nearly 20 percent of the signers of the society’s constitution were women, the proportion of female members in the early years was about half that. Occasionally, women such as Frederica de Laguna and h. marie wormington were elected as low-level officers in the society, but the first woman president (Wormington) was not elected until 1968, and the first woman editor of American Antiquity (Dena Dincauze) was not elected until 1981. By the 1980s, more women held elected positions, and in some years, they held a majority of the elected posts.

Participation by women in the society’s annual meeting and in the writing of journal articles began at an equally low level. Women were authors or coauthors of 10 percent or less of the papers at meetings until the 1970s, and it was not uncommon to have no papers by women. By 1983, the number had increased to one-quarter of the papers, and it had reached nearly one-third by 1992 (Feinman, Nicholas, and Middleton 1992). Of the most productive contributors to American Antiquity in its first thirty years only two (Betty J. Meggers and Nathalie F.S. Woodbury) were women (Rogge 1976).

Membership of the society has always been made up predominantly of U.S. citizens with small numbers from canada, mexico, and Europe and almost none from South America. One Canadian archaeologist (Diamond Jenness) and one Mexican archaeologist (ignacio bernal garcia) have been elected president over the years.

One of the primary purposes of the society was to increase communication among archaeologists, and to this end, a variety of regular and one-time publications have been published by the society. American Antiquity (1935 to the present), the society’s quarterly journal, has been the principal medium for technical articles in American archaeology since its founding. The increasing need for a specialized journal for the archaeology south of the United States eventually led to the foundation of the bilingual Latin American Antiquity (1990 to the present).

Early on, there was a need for a less formal periodical to allow for the exchange of ideas among archaeological field-workers, both professional and avocational. The Society for American Archaeology Notebook (1939–1942), published in mimeographed form, contained letters from readers and brief notes on archaeological methods and terminology. Unfortunately, a lack of submissions forced the termination of this publication.

Copies of the Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology (1941–1976), composed of monograph-length studies and symposia, were distributed free to members of the society. In almost all cases, the memoirs were published with outside financial assistance. The memoir series was replaced by the short-lived SAA Papers (1980– 1986), which was made available to members for a charge. To promote the publication of data and other materials too expensive to print by normal methods, the society was a joint publisher, with the University of Wisconsin Press, of the Archives of Archaeology (1960– 1966), which appeared in a microcard format. Increased publication costs and the availability of alternative publication led to the declining involvement of the society in the publication of monographs, collected volumes, and data. Recently, when symposia collections appropriate for the society’s support have arisen, other publishers have been arranged. For example, the Smithsonian Institution Press published the proceedings of the society’s fiftieth anniversary meeting (Meltzer, Fowler, and Sabloff 1986) and a three-volume set from symposia on the Columbian quincentennial, the profits of the latter going into the society’s Native American Scholarship Fund.

Because of the lag between submission and publication, sometimes as long as fifteen months, American Antiquity was never an effective medium for announcements and news needing immediate attention. In the 1950s, the need for a society newsletter was recognized, but cost and administrative difficulties blocked the idea. In the 1970s, the society bought space for news in the Anthropology Newsletter of the AAA but this practice soon ended because of cost. The SAA’s increasing activism in federal legislation created a critical need to get information to members fast and efficiently, and the