RC Dunnell

A couple of more recent photos of RCD doing what he enjoyed: talking about archaeology and looking at archaeology. In this case, discussing plummet variability and a mound up on the bluff near Natchez.. Photos from Natchez, 2010 with Tim Hunt. Thanks to Dan Shepherd

RIP Robert C. Dunnell

More later, but just wanted to share the sad news that Robert Chester Dunnell died today. Very sad.

RCD: Lifetime Achievement Award

If only as a gesture towards thumbing the nose at anti-science anthropology establishment you might consider helping us nominate Robert Dunnell for the Society for American Archaeology Lifetime Achievement Award. Diana Greenlee has put the announcement out that Bill Dancey and Janet Rafferty are compiling nomination letters in support of RCD.

I hope you will consider writing a letter of support. Here are the key points:

1. The support letters have to be submitted as signed pdfs, either using an electronic signature or by scanning a signed document.
2. Letters should be on letterhead.
   
3. Please email your letter to Janet at rafferty@anthro.msstate.edu, or send a hard copy via snail mail to Janet Rafferty, P.O. Box AR, Mississippi State, MS 39762. She will convert any non-pdfs and/or scan any hard copy letters
4. f possible, we'd like the letters by 23 December so that everything can be submitted before the holidays..
   
5. Please contact Janet or me with any questions

Another one of RCD

Another photo from Patrick McCutcheon. This one is RCD at Meadowcroft Rockshelter - a stop on a field trip that RCD usually ran during the Society for American Archaeology meetings.

RCD in SEMO

Pat McCutcheon just emailed me an old photo he had of RCD (and Mark Madsen) in the background. It dates to the late 80s, I believe and was taken in one of the fields in southeastern Missouri (Buffalo Slough? Cude Site? Cottonplant?) Mark's outfit has changed - but not RCD's. He wears exactly the same shirt/pants/boots to this day. Ah, those were hopeful times. We certainly know a lot more about doing this archaeology thing now, but we also know that we don't know much and that most folks fight against even trying to know anything.

More RCD

For all of you systematics in prehistory fans, philosophers of archaeological science, and mullers of conceptual frameworks for generating knowledge in the past, I just posted a couple of new RCD lectures. http://darwin.anth.csulb.edu/rcd/497/Lectures.html Enjoy.

New RCD Lectures

Finally, I have freed up enough time to get more of the Dunnell 497 videos converted to DVD and to web-friendly movies. I have now posted Lectures 3 and 4 on my website at: http://darwin.anth.csulb.edu/rcd/497/Lectures.html

At the High Table once again

While Mark was down here in Long Beach we decided to finally invest some energy and money into getting the giant pile of RCD videos digitized and on DVDs. This pile of videos, a product of our mid-90s effort to document Dunnell's classes for posterity, represents several of his most influential classes: Archy 497, 498, 479 and 575. Perhaps of interest to only a small few, the videos capture the essence of what was amazing about graduate school in the University of Washington during this time: a somewhat cantankerous man logically constructing archaeology from first principles to sweeping explanations. Although initially baffling, the lessons learned from those classes provided immense metalevel and philosophical understanding of the practice of science and its conceptual framework. Although there are those who really disliked the class, there are probably few that weren't impacted by it in a deep way. Those were amazing classes. Well, to mark the movement of RCD into the digital world, I am happy to announce web versions of Dunnell. I'll try to get more up as they are finished. But for now, treat yourself to the first two lectures of Archy 497: Formal Theory. http://darwin.anth.csulb.edu/rcd/497/Lectures.html