Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society (PNWAS) News Bulletins, 1989

Dale R. Croes

doi:10.7273/000007800

These are the 1989 Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society (PNWAS) New Bulletins with activities of the Society for that year In 1988 the director, Dale Croes, got a grant to conduct an international archaeology conference as part of the 1989 State Centennial Celebration: The Circum-Pacific Prehistory Conference: Bringing a Million Years of Human Heritage to Washington State, Seattle, Washington, August 1-6, 1989. In 1989, the PNWAS members engaged in an international conference that reflected the whole Pacific Basin Prehistory, and the society formed a volunteer group to coordinate this international conference. Updates on the conference development were published in the 1989 PNWAS News Bulletins. As a warmup, the group held focused presentations on this topic to involve the overall public in the preparation for the August 1989 international Circum-Pacific Prehistory Conference (see spread sheet and news bulletins). Overview Conference Results: As the first comprehensive gathering of researchers from throughout the Pacific Basin to consider over a million years of collective human heritage along the Pacific shores, this conference was subtitled: "Bringing a million years of human heritage to Washington State." The conference was part of Washington State's centennial celebration of statehood and coordinated in large part by the volunteer members of PNWAS. As Conference Coordinator and Director of PNWAS, Dale Croes spent two years on grants obtained through his Washington State University base as a Centennial Staff member in downtown Seattle where most of PNWAS members were located. PNWAS brought together 800 attendees to the Seattle Center to hear 225 presenters from August 1 - 6, 1989. Presenters hailed from 18 different countries, and they outlined human evolution and archaeology in 40 countries from around and within the Pacific Basin. PNWAS volunteers managed the conference presentation rooms, ran the projectors, and made sure all stayed on schedule. PNWAS also helped coordinate a five-day session on Indigenous People's perspectives of their own origins from throughout the Pacific--all organized and conducted by Native Peoples. The program in the link above shows the many events, exhibits, and evening talks. Included in the conference was a banquet reached by boat at Tillicum Village Cultural Center, Blake Island, off Seattle. A distinct aspect of the program was the gathering of the draft papers before the conference. WSU Press printed the program & abstracts, presenter bibliographies, and publicity in six spiral-ring volumes which were sold at the actual conference (they sold very well on site and for years through WSU Press; the original six volumes are currently held in Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections (MASC), WSU Libraries). PNWAS commercially tape recorded ALL of the sessions to sell after the conference, and a complete and unused set of audio cassettes are also on file in MASC. Two WSU Press-compiled publications from the conference were prepared by the leads of these sessions and are still available through WSU:

PACIFIC NORTHEAST ASIA IN PREHISTORY, Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers, Farmers, and Sociopolitical Elites, edited by C. Melvin Aikens and Song Nai Rhee (1992) [includes several Korean archaeologist who attended the conference, bringing Korean archaeology to a professional audience.
PACIFIC LATIN AMERICA IN PREHISTORY, The Evolution of Archaic and Formative Cultures, edited by Michael Blake (1999).

Overall, with the six pre-print conference papers volumes, tape recordings of all sessions, and two resulting prepared WSU Press volumes, the Washington State Centennial Pacific Basin Conference was well preserved for scholars and indigenous peoples into the future. It could not have happened without the volunteer help of the Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society membership. Included here is a spreadsheet compiled by Dale Croes showing PNWAS activities for 1989. As originally stated at its founding in 1985, the Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society (PNWAS) is a membership organization that “offers a means for individuals and organizations to declare their support for the preservation of the rich archaeological resources in our region and help to bring public archaeology programs to people of the Pacific Northwest. Benefits of membership include timely information on Northwest archaeological research, a bi-monthly lecture series and opportunity to participate in professionally supervised research in the Northwest.” PNWAS was incorporated at that time as a non-profit organization in the State of Washington and has remained true to these original objectives. Dale Croes has been the Executive Director throughout these 40 years, with a President, Vice-President and other Officers on the Board. The best way to view the overall history of PNWAS activities is to review its News Bulletins scanned and compiled for 1985-2025.

Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society (PNWAS) News Bulletins, 1989

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