Talk about good fortune. I was informed two days ago that my paper for my research project was chosen to be presented tomorrow at the Michigan Archaeological Society's 2008 Annual Convention. I entered my paper in the student competition call for papers and it was one of four chosen to be presented. My assumption is that these four papers are finalists, out of which one of the papers will win the 1st place prize: a 100.00 award and the paper being published in "The Michigan Archaeologist".

I'm really geeked. I really don't even care about winning the 1st place prize; that's not important to me. I find it a great honor just have been picked out of all of the state wide submissions and to have all of those professionals and professors feel that my paper has enough worth to share with the rest of the community. I'm is still spinning about that.

The site I did work on needs proper preservation. My hope is that my work will finally provide a continuance of preservation efforts started approximately 40 years ago, yet temporally derailed in one way or another by various nefarious people, groups and organizations. During this project, I felt as though I became "close" to some of the past professional and amateur archaeologists who are no longer here and were very passionate about the site and its preservation.

Perhaps I will see some of you there. I will update this thread in the next few days about how it all went.

Cheers!

Welcome to the club and congratulations. It's always cool when you find out that your work is being appreciated. :D

Cheers and good luck,

Richard

Thanks for your kind words, FireArch.

Presentation went pretty well, considering that my technology failed me at every turn. That, combined with the lack of time to get prepared, prevented me from providing a visual component to my audience. I did the best I could under the conditions and it was well received by my peers and the President of the group. The other presentations were very good and it was great to see that the surrounding universities are providing archaeology with some very good future archaeologists.

My work continues on this site. While not actually placing a shovel into the ground just yet, it appears as though support for preservation of the site is growing and addition archaeological work is more of a reality than just a few years ago. There has been no work done at this site for about 30+ years, and the work performed at that time was limited. Just by looking at all of the documentation generated in the past by well-respected archaeologists I have for the research project, I'm very sure that this site has experience heavy spatiotemporal occupations, perhaps dating to earlier times than previously thought. To what extent is still known due to point collectors and other nefarious folks who have temporally stood in the way, or otherwise have derailed previous responsible attempts to procure cultural data.

Cheers!

Glad to hear that the paper was well received. As you have found though technology is bound to make things tricky. I've always viewed presentations like 1980s/1990s computers - backup, backup, and backup again. It never failed, if you were working on the only copy of that word/wordperfect document it was bound to disappear in a puff of computer logic when trying to save, or copy and paste, etc., never to be found again.

A colleague and I gave a presentation in Ensenada, Baja California a couple of years ago. Seeing as how we was over 2 hours away, across a heavily traveled international border, and had no guarantee of an email connection I made sure we brought a back-up computer, a back-up av projector, a copy of the presentation on the computer, copies on two cds, and paper copies of the powerpoint slides to hand out should all else fail. Ya, all that was probably a bit of overkill, but the data we were presenting was particularly relevant to the area in which we work, and represented the first significant test of a long used settlement model for our region, so I wanted to make sure we got our message out.

Nevertheless, it's good to hear that people paid attention and there are opportunities available to protect that site. Good job.

Cheers,
Richard

Glad your presenationa went well in spite of technology failures. I will echo Richards comments about back up. I was at the SHA meetings in Providence RI on 03 and at least 1/3 of the papers had techological problems with power point, ie computer couldnt read the CD, the dog had chewed the CD berfore I came to the meeting etc. This year at the SHA in Albuquerque it was much better. I think the technology has improved and people are feeling more comfortable but there are still problems.

But never trust other people to provide the AV equipment unless you have tested it first. And to be safe bring your own as back up and be prepared to use it. Thers nothing more discouraging than an A + presentation sinking to a C - simply due to technological failures.

That said Im glad yours worked out!

Cheers

CMM

Thanks everyone for your kind words. Good stories, too. I would have had no problem backing up something that could be backed up, but alas, that was not the case. lol

I had textual information good to go in power point, only needed to scan some documents and pictures in -- about 30 or so. After spending Friday getting the text in, I spent all day/night Saturday trying to scan the images in with no luck. Needless to say, my "all in one" is currently in pieces at the road waiting to be recycled.

Sunday morning my wife and I go to her work to get a document camera. Spent about 15 minutes trying to get in and we had to eventually give up. Then, I we went to a relatives house nearby to scan the stuff in. Her scanner worked all right, but was taking 10-15 minutes to scan documents and we only had about 2 hours (with an hour and a half drive to get there) until I had to be there. This is all compounded by the fact that I didn't even know I was presenting until Thursday the week of the presentation, due to my university switching our school email over to gmail, which didn't go smoothly at all and is most likely the reason why I didn't get the email from MAS telling me I was presenting.

It amazes me at times that the stuff that is pulled out of the ground which was produced thousands of years ago is more dependable than current human technology. ;)

DesertRat -- Yes, Sanilac is "my" site. There have been rumors about other glyphs; in fact Don Weston found some stuff that is questionable around the area, but nothing else confirmed ... yet. I have uncovered that there might be more than one set of carvings just off the shore in Lake Huron, but (if true) the location is currently underwater. However, while the glyphs are "sexy", my interest is the spatiotemporal occupation of the site and surrounding area, not primarily "who did what" to that rock. I have good reason (now, at least) to generalize that there are a lot of counterfeits on that rock that are "fooling" some people. E.F. Greenman and W. Hinsdale both visited the site when the rock was in "better" condition and have noted that there were "obviously a lot of fakes", as did a the former caretaker of the site (he was a direct relative of original Euro settlers of the surrounding area).

Cheers!

I was wondering if anyone was going to do any further research at those Glyphs! I first visited them around 10 years ago when I stayed with my girlfriend for the summer in the thumb, Argyle. I was quite stunned to see students being the guides during the summer and they didn't have the slightest inkling about the petroglyphs or the archaeology behind them.

I heard the the U of M did some testing just to the north of the glyphs but found absolutely nothing in terms of artifacts. I know there are some good locations on the other side of the river where there may be probable sites. I have hiked that entire area.

There is actually a small paperback on the petroglyphs. If I can find it I will post the name and the author.

I just remembered that a neighboring farmer to the Petroglyphs found a burial site but never reported it to the authorities or to any school due to the common fear that their land will be taken away by the Native groups. My girlfriend has heard of many people who lived adjacent or in close proximity to the Petroglyphs finding a wide range of artifacts and sites.

Classarch --

Would you mind if I contacted you via email?

No problem, check you PM's!