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guidelines for archaeological reports, communication, archaeology and Native Americans, and certification (McGimsey and Davis 1977).
The problem of site looting and vandalism was one of the factors that influenced the original founding of the society, and official activities of the society on this issue have usually been in the form of editorials in American Antiquity. Activities on the international level have included authorizing the use of society funds to assist in prosecuting an illegal antiquities case (1972) and a long-term effort leading to implementation of the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Property in 1983. On the national level, the society began a major antilooting project, Save the Past for the Future, in 1988.
During its more than sixty years, the SAA has evolved from a national learned society concerned principally with communication among scholars through meetings and publication to an international professional society concerned with influencing governmental activities and defining professional standards as well as including the interests of non–U.S. Americanist scholars. The archives of the society are located in the National Anthropological Archives of the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution.
References
Collins, Robert B., and Mark P. Michel. 1985. “Preserving the Past: Origins of the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979.” American Archeology 5: 84–89.
Dyson, Stephen L. 1985. “Two Paths to the Past: A Comparative Study of the Last Fifty Years of American Antiquity and American Journal of Archaeology.” American Antiquity 50: 452–463.
Feinman, Gary M., Linda M. Nicholas, and William D. Middleton. 1992. “Archaeology in 1992: A Perspective on the Discipline from the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting Program.” American Antiquity 57: 448–458.
Fowler, Don. D. 1986. “Conserving American Archaeological Resources.” In American Archaeology Past and Future: A Celebration of the Society for American Archaeology 1935–1985, 135–162. Ed. David J. Meltzer, Don D. Fowler, and Jeremy A. Sabloff. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Griffin, James B. 1985. “The Formation of the Society for American Archaeology.” American Antiquity 50: 261–271.
Guthe, Carl E. 1935. “The Society for American Archaeology Organizational Meeting.” American Antiquity 1: 141–151.
———. 1967. “Reflections on the Founding of the Society for American Archaeology.” American Antiquity 32: 433–440.
McGimsey, Charles R., III, and Hester A. Davis. 1977. “The Management of Archaeological Resources: The Airlie House Report.” Society for American Archaeology.
Meltzer, David J., Don D. Fowler, and Jeremy A. Sabloff, eds. 1986. American Archaeology Past and Future: A Celebration of the Society for American Archaeology 1935–1985. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Rogge, A.E. 1976. “A Look at Academic Anthropology: Through a Graph Darkly.” American Anthropologist 78: 829–843.
Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1973. “Report of the Editor.” American Antiquity 38: 521–523.
In early January 1967, an ad hoc Committee of Fifteen, made up of most of the leading historical archaeologists in the Americas, met in conjunction with an International Conference on historical archaeology in Dallas, Texas, and over a three-day period organized the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA). The new society’s origins can be traced back over three decades before the meeting in Dallas. Special symposia at both the society for american archaeology (SAA) and the American Anthropological Association and the 1960 creation of the more-regional Conference on Historic Site Archaeology by Stanley South served as precedents. By the middle of the 1960s, the growing community of historical archaeologists realized that the SAA, which was dominated by New World prehistorians, could not represent their developing interests and that their numbers were now adequate to support an autonomous association.
Independence and formal organization led to visible success and rapid growth, with the SHA
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