The Insistence of the Letter in the Unconscious

George J. Myers, Jr., BA.
Bronx, NY
718-792-5772

June 5, 2004

Institute for Long Island Archaeology/Anthropology David J. Bernstein, Director IUA

RE: Research REF#: WC-R-1482-03-09-C2 Technician I - Archaeology

Hello. I had field school in Long Island Archaeology taught by R.M. Gramly, Ph.D., of Harvard University (and other classes) in 1977, assisted by Margaret Gwynne, Ph.D., since a Stony Brook faculty member and Sherene Baugher, Ph.D., whose doctoral defense at Stony Brook I attended, who later became the first NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission Archaeologist, now at Cornell University. Since, I have been employed assisting and working with archaeologists in private, public and even in gainful employ.

I have worked on the objectives of archaeology in "cultural resource management" and the possibilities for creative scientific research, though often being relegated to the repetitive manual labor of "tasks completed" instead of research identified and corroborated and/or proposed. I think the safety of work has been overlooked where information about sites is not thoroughly researched along the lines of a "title search" in property records to determine the past uses of a property. An employees' "right to know" should extend into the past workplaces from workplace rules. Whether a site was or is full of lead paint (Chicago Bridge and Steel Co., in the 19th c. West Point Foundry, Cold Spring, NY) or contains "depleted uranium" (from ammo on the A-10 target range at Fort Drum, NY) we should want to know, and the serendipitous finding of illegal dumping should also be treated in a safe manner.

Conversely, it is important that archaeology provide the ecology of a place which may include the recognition of endangered resources that may not be archaeological found in the course of research. For example, next to a National Register nominated schoolhouse site in Farmingville, a nesting pair of hawks were reported to an agency by one crew member, not directly to the owner. That event cannot be regulated, coming from the resident of a place, though may be attributed to archaeologists, who may be from outside a locality, as many of the jobs are done today.

I would like to express that the monitoring of excavations needs to be implemented as often construction plans are changed or finalized and impacts may have unintended consequence and are then in different locations. I feel that would cover the law, where trenches and excavations are concerned, as archaeological testing often only reaches shallow depths, as do other tests, ("percolation tests" for drainage whose formula leads to the excavation of recharge basins or "sumps") and should perhaps be integrated into the planning process.

Sincerely,
George J. Myers, Jr