News
R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. featured in Professional Surveyor Magazine for work at White Sands, New Mexico and in Lake Pontchartrain
Link: Protecting America's Heritage Article in Professional Surveyor Magazine
Click here to see the full "April 2011 Volume 31 Issue 4" at Professional Surveyor Magazine's website
Martha Williams Receives Outstanding Professional Archeologist Award
Our own Martha Williams, M.A., M.Ed., who joined the Goodwin team in September 1989, received another prestigious award on October 25, 2011, when Martha was named Outstanding Professional Archeologist by the City of Alexandria, Virginia. In addition to a trophy showing a stratified archeological deposit, the award reads:
WHEREAS, a 2011 Brenman Award for Outstanding Professional Archeologist is presented to Martha Williams in recognition of her nearly 40 years of outstanding teaching, historic research, and archeological investigations in and near Alexandria, for her excellence in completing numerous investigations and reports in her career as archeologist with R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., for writing several superb histories of Alexandria and Fairfax County, and, while most places about which she has written are now redeveloped, for her archeological work and written materials that allow past incarnations to live on for the community.
The Award was presented by William D. Euille, Mayor, on behalf of the City.
Martha also has been named Professional Archeologist of the Year by the Archeological Society of Virginia, and she received the Award of Merit from the Society for Historical Archeology (SHA) for her efforts in the field of public education in archeology and for bringing the concept of public education into the SHA.
Dr. Goodwin Co-authors Article on Wind Energy and Transmission System Development on the Continental Shelf
In the Fall issue of North American Wind Power, Dr. Goodwin co-authored an article on permitting and development challenges for subsea cabling and backbone transmission lines that will connect wind-turbine generated power to onshore grids. The article was co-authored with Daron Threet, Esq., an energy attorney and partner with the prestigious firm Holland & Knight in Washington, D.C. The article reviews the regulatory framework for the development of offshore cable arrays, issues pertaining to marine archeological survey requirements, the need for active consultation with regulatory agencies and other stakeholders, and the need for careful project planning and site evaluation. Click here to see the full article.
Clovis Lithic Technology Co-authored by Charlotte Pevny Released by Texas A&M Press
A new book on Clovis lithic technology, co-authored by Dr. Charlotte Pevny, Project Manager and Director of the Lithic Useware Program at R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., with Drs. Michael R. Waters and David L. Carlson, has been published by Texas A&M Press. The book, entitled
Clovis Lithic Technology, is available at
www.tamupress.com. It presents the results of a decade of research on Clovis artifacts recovered from a portion of the Gault site known as Excavation Area 8. The Gault site is one of the most important Clovis sites in North America. This quarry-campsite contains more Clovis artifacts than any other 13,000-year old site west of the Mississippi River; these artifacts occur in primary contexts within undisturbed late Quaternary deposits. Dr. Pevny’s dissertation at Texas A&M focused on Clovis lithic technology and tool use, specifically on understanding the intricacies of Clovis blade and biface manufacture and the byproducts of these reduction trajectories. She examined the extensive debitage assemblage recovered from the workshop at Excavation Area 8, conducted a usewear analysis of the expedient tools, and performed experimental studies to determine how flakes were used expediently by Clovis hunter-gatherers. The book jacket states:
Some 13,000 years ago, humans were drawn repeatedly to a small valley in what is now Central Texas, near the banks of Buttermilk Creek. These early hunter-gatherers camped, collected stone, and shaped it into a variety of tools they needed to hunt game, process food, and subsist in the Texas wilderness. Their toolkit included bifaces, blades, and deadly spear points. Where they worked, they left thousands of pieces of debris, which have allowed archaeologists to reconstruct their methods of tool production. Along with the faunal material that was also discarded in their prehistoric campsite, these stone, or lithic, artifacts afford a glimpse of human life at the end of the last ice age during an era referred to as Clovis. The area where these people roamed and camped, called the Gault site, is one of the most important Clovis sites in North America.
Dr. Pevny heads the lithic usewear program at R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. and currently is working on a study of five Paleoindian and Early Archaic sites in Florida. Congratulations, Charlotte, Mike, and David!
Kathryn M. "Kate" Kuranda, Senior Vice President for Architectural & Historical Services, Authors Lead Article in Wiley-Blackwell Book on Cultural Resource Management
Kate Kuranda, Senior Vice President for Architectural & Historical Services at R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc., is the author of Chapter 1 of the new book A Companion to Cultural Resource Management (Wiley-Blackwell 2011), edited by Thomas F. King. Kate's chapter, entitled "Studying and Evaluating the Built Environment," examines the process of assessing the built environment from an expert architectural historian's point of view. The chapter encourages "thoughtful and responsible professional practice," and provides a framework for documenting and evaluating architectural properties. This chapter should be a "must read" for architectural historians in training, for students, and for those seeking to understand the rationale for and the structure of proper cultural resource practice in the built environment. The book, which also offers important perspectives on archeological sites, cultural landscapes, shipwrecks, and other classes of cultural resources, can be ordered online by clicking the link below.
http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1405198737.html
Rock Camp 2011
During the summer, Dr. Charlotte Pevny and Brian Ostahowski, M.A. of R. Christopher Goodwin & Associates, Inc. directed a paid internship program for students and recent graduates interested in lithic analyses at our New Orleans laboratories. Over a dozen interns learned how to analyze lithic tools and debitage and to conduct refit analysis. Interns participated in various experiments designed to replicate thermal alteration of lithic raw materials using our industrial kiln and practiced flint knapping, a key component to understanding lithic reduction. Interns were selected from a number of universities with programs that have a focus on lithic technology in their anthropology/archeology departments. In addition to Dr. Pevny, the co-director of "Rock Camp" was Brian Ostahowski. Brian joined the Goodwin team in May of this year as a Lithic Analyst and Assistant Project Manager after receiving his M.A. from the University of Wyoming under Drs. Robert Kelly (his commitee chair) and Todd Surovell. Brian's thesis focused on hunter-gatherer mobility in the Big Horn Basin, and specifically on lithic debitage analysis and implications for prehistoric mobility strategies. In addition to lithic technology and hunter-gatherer societies, Brian really likes quarries. Graduate students at Rock Camp included Jennifer Gandy (Texas State), Haley Holt (Tulane), Harlan McCaffery (Eastern New Mexico), and Angelique Theriot (University of New Orleans). Undergraduates and recent baccalaureates included Lauren Chapman (Colorado), Laura Dicks (LSU), Hillary Innes (Colorado), William Johnson (Millsaps), Kate Kay (Millsaps), Kyle Langley (Colorado), and Melanie Wing (LSU). Thanks to all for a job well done!
