The Society for Pennsylvania Archaeology held its ninety-first annual meeting April 8–10 at Fort Ligonier. Twenty-four current and former IUP Anthropology and Applied Archaeology students attended the meeting. Among the attendees were several alumni who helped organize the conference. These included Susanne Haney (PennDOT), Angela Jaillet-Wentling (DCNR), and Kristina Gaugler (Carnegie Museum). Angela is also the SPA second vice president, while Susanne and Kristina are directors of the society.
Among the posters presented at the conference were three from IUP students. Richard Farley presented the poster titled "Drinking at the County Seat Statistical Analysis," based on his MA thesis on Hanna's Town ceramics. Amanda Filmyer presented "A Precontact Cultural Context for the Lower Lehigh River Watershed of the Central Delaware Subbasin." Ethan Addicott, an IUP chemistry undergraduate working with professors Lara Homsey Messer and Charles Lake, presented the poster "Geochemical Fingerprinting of the South Mountain Metarhyolite Quarries."
Stephanie Zellers, an Applied Archaeology MA program student, presented the talk "Protecting the Unknown in Watershed 18B: The Kiskiminetas River and Beaver Run." Ben Ford presented the paper "A Frontier River Town: Preliminary Results from Newport Site (36IN188)," summarizing recent field school excavations near Blairsville. Taylor Napoleon, an archaeology track alumna now working for PA SHPO, presented "Archaeological Site Recording in PA-SHARE." Ryan Rowles of Markosky Engineering Group, another program alumnus, helped organize the Pennsylvania Archaeology Council Symposium on the archaeology of blacksmith shops.
It was wonderful to see so many students and alumni at the meetings. The presence of so many IUP alumni at the meetings illustrated the important role of IUP in training Pennsylvania cultural resource professionals.