Early this year, we fell behind in our quarterly TAC Newsletter schedule. We apologize for that: it’s been too busy around here! We’ve been meeting challenges and exploiting opportunities in our drive to grow and become self-sustaining. This newsletter is tough to produce because there is so much to tell, so you can bet we’ll stay on schedule from now on!

To begin with, I’m now accompanied in the office by three new volunteers. Doug Coffman (see below) came on board as Administrative Assistant in October, Barbara Camin joined us as Office Manager in January and Jack Hughes began as IT Specialist in May. Doug now earns a small monthly paycheck. Our productivity potential has jumped dramatically, but to realize that potential I’ve invested loads of time in training staff to do what I used to do myself. We’ve spun our wheels a lot over the past several months, but now we gain traction every day. The real payoff will arrive later this year, when the training phase is mostly behind us.

Attracting new underwriters is critically important to our success. So it was a huge boost in December when we signed our biggest Underwriting Agreement yet with the Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, who now have a banner on the TAC Home Page. Other new underwriters include Modern Antiquity USA, Michael Balter, Eric Bergland, Astronomical Adventures, University of Oregon, and Maya Research Program.

Early in the year, we focused largely on The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival, which took place March 7-11 (see below) and clearly was our best program ever. But TAC Festival never really stops and now we are preparing and promoting for TAC Festival 2007. Dr. Louise Leakey will be our Keynote Speaker! She comes at no small price, but we already have raised 70 percent of her costs with help from Lane County, the Oregon Council for the Humanities, Bi-Mart, Jean and Ray Auel, Umpqua Bank, Oregon Community Credit Union, and Great Northwest Bookstore. Part of our TAC Festival program now is our mini-festival film series, which will visit six different Oregon cities in the course of a year.

But wait—there’s more! It was an honor to me personally, but more importantly, a big boost to our credibility and stature as an organization, when the Society for American Archaeology in April honored me with their award for Excellence in Public Education (see below). And while that award was being made, I was in Kiel, Germany, as an invited juror for the CINARCHEA International Archaeology Film and Art Festival (see below). Then in May cable TV news network MSNBC asked me to do a live interview about a breaking news story (see below). Maybe now you can understand why the newsletter took a back seat for a while!

Throughout all this, our Web site traffic kept setting new records. In 2005 we recorded 2.7 million sessions and 5.4 million page views, a quadrupling of 2004 traffic. This year we expect to reach more than 4 million sessions and 7 million page views. Owing mostly to our podcast, the Audio News from Archaeologica, which saw 6000 sessions in June 2005, now is approaching 200,000 sessions monthly, reflecting more than 3000 percent growth in one year. In October 2005, we had 64 videos up on TAC, but at the end of May 2006 we have 76 and should top the 100 mark next year. Last year TAC was ranked seventh in a Google search for “archaeology,” but now it is ranked fifth out of 113 million Web sites.

To conclude, let me reiterate what I said last November: we need your help to support the growth and development of these programs. Please respond generously to our fund-raising requests.

Rick Pettigrew
President and Executive Director
Archaeological Legacy Institute

“For his leadership in facilitating public education about archaeology through innovative media formats and technologies, we proudly present this award to Richard M. Pettigrew.” —Kenneth Ames, President Society for American Archaeology San Juan, Puerto Rico, April 2006

ALI: Welcome, Dr. Pettigrew—Rick—and thanks for talking with us. We want to congratulate you on receiving the 2006 Excellence in Public Education Award, in April, from the Society for American Archaeology. We are proud of your achievement and hope that it brings you continued success with ALI and The Archaeology Channel.

ALI: According to the Society for American Archaeology, this award recognizes institutions or individuals “who bring about an improved public understanding and appreciation of anthropology and archaeology.” In your case, this relates to your work in founding the Archaeological Legacy Institute, and in producing The Archaeology Channel Web site and the annual TAC International Film and Video Festival. Would you tell us, please, about the award and why you were chosen to receive it this year?

Rick: Well, the Public Education Award is a way of acknowledging those people who make a special effort and a special contribution in the area of public education. So, I’m naturally very pleased to be awarded this; it’s quite an honor for me. I can’t really speak to the motivation of the committee who selected me. But I can tell you that it’s something I was very interested in receiving, not for my own sake, but for the sake of ALI and for The Archaeology Channel project, because it’s important to get the acknowledgment that this is a worthwhile enterprise.

ALI: What can you tell us about past recipients of this award?

Rick: Well, I can’t repeat a list of all the award winners, but I do know that among the award winners has been [internationally-known author and archaeologist] Brian Fagan, who I admire a great deal. And I’m really happy to be placed on the same list with him because he’s made a lot of wonderful contributions to public education through his authoring of many, many books and other things

ALI: And can you tell us a little about the Society for American Archaeology—what is it, where is it located, and what is your connection there?

Rick: The Society for American Archaeology is based in Washington, DC. It is the principal professional organization for archaeologists in the Western Hemisphere, principally North America. It’s been around for about seventy years, and I’ve been a member of SAA since my graduate school days back in the early 1970s. So I’ve had that connection continuously; I’ve been to a lot of SAA meetings; I’ve contributed to American Antiquity [SAA’s professional journal], SAA newsletters and have established professional relationships with many of the SAA people.

ALI: What are your thoughts upon being honored by your professional colleagues nationally?

Rick: I am very pleased to be honored in this way. I’ve been working for years to demonstrate the value of what we have been doing here. It’s gratifying to know that these efforts are finally paying off in the minds of our colleagues.

ALI: How did you become interested in the public education aspect of archaeology, and why is it important for people to know about archaeology?

Rick: I became interested in archaeology myself because I felt that it was important to understand who we are as human beings. And, to me, archaeology is a chief way of coming to grips with who we really are—where we came from, why we do what we do, how we might be able to solve problems that we have as human beings in our world. So that’s always been a principal connection for me. And that’s how I got into archaeology, really, as well as my natural curiosity about things. And lately its become more and more important to me because I felt that, as professional archaeologists, we really weren’t doing a good enough job of sharing the value that we’re creating, through our research, with the general public. As I’ve told people before, I think we have about six billion stakeholders in this process of learning about our past, and we really need to get the word out; we really need to make that effort to share it. Otherwise, I don’t see the purpose in it. Why do it? It’s not just to satisfy our own curiosity. Well, to a certain extent it may be, but beyond that it’s much more important for us to make a real contribution.

ALI: Would you care to expand on the second part of that question—why you think it’s important for people to know about archaeology?

Rick: It’s not that I think it’s important for people to know about archaeology per se; I mean, archaeology is a method of exploring the human past. And of course it’s useful for people to know how we go about it. But more important, it seems to me, is what we learn by doing it. We learn about our past as human beings; we learn about where we came from; we learn about how things came to be the way they are. And I don’t think we really can understand who we are and the world about us if we don’t know where we came from.

ALI: What does the award hold for the future of Archaeological Legacy Institute and its major projects, especially The Archaeology Channel?

Rick: Now that I’ve been awarded this honor, I can go out to the professional community and elsewhere and let people know that what we are doing has been recognized by our professional peers as something that is worthwhile. And, so, that gives us credibility. It gives us the voice of a very important institution—the SAA—and it’s going to help us to convince people to support what we’re doing. And for me, that’s critically important. So, I think that’s really the greatest importance of this award: that it will provide further impetus to our effort to grow our projects and to have an influence.

ALI: Thanks for talking with us, and congratulations again on your achievements in behalf of public education. By all means, keep up the good work!

Photo: Rick in the ALI video library

By Doug Coffman, ALI Administrative Assistant

It’s a wrap-- The third annual installment of The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival is now history! As you will see below, however, this colorful celebration of human creativity is anything but finished.

Conveying the variety and overwhelming richness of this year’s TAC Festival films and events briefly is a tall order, but we can do it! Such is our attitude, at least, after besting the many challenges of producing, hosting and successfully completing yet another major film event. From the months of planning, organization and promotion which preceded this year’s TAC Festival, to feasting dazzled audience members at the gala, post-film reception, it all came off splendidly. Could it be that we actually know what we’re doing?!

Of course we like to believe that we do know, and a quick review seems to confirm this. Not even an eleventh-hour schedule change—which bumped our February event into the month of March—could shake our footing. Beyond that little pothole, things went just as planned, right down to the timely flight connections of our illustrious keynote speaker: archaeologist and author, Dr. Brian Fagan.

Doors to the McDonald Theatre opened just a few minutes past 5:30 on Tuesday evening, March 7, to a flurry of last-minute activity as we welcomed in the first of six audiences for our five-day Festival. Double showings on Saturday capped the event, allowing us to screen the top seventeen of 56 superb films submitted this year by an international crowd of producers. Audiences, jurors and project staff alike have proclaimed this year’s slate of films—including Festival winner, Queen of the Mountain—the best-ever. We believe these films represent the cream of today’s “heritage film” genre—among the very finest professionally-produced films available anywhere in the world.

Tuesday’s Welcome Address by Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy preceded Brian Fagan’s riveting keynote address and book-signing later that evening. The mayor spoke briefly about the values of broad cultural knowledge in our lives and about the importance of the Festival for the future of Eugene Downtown. Dr. Fagan, in turn, gave a spirited narration with slides outlining the state of knowledge at Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, the subject of his recent book. We are indebted to both Mayor Piercy and Dr. Fagan for helping to build the excitement and festive air which is so important for an event like ours, and especially to its future.

Yes, this year’s TAC Festival has inspired and energized us all in planning for next year. And we must not become complacent: Despite this year’s many successes—including Festival attendance exceeding that of some long-established European film festivals—we still have a long way to go before TAC Festival becomes fully self-supporting.

So we are redoubling our efforts. Already, the call for films has gone out worldwide for next year’s Festival. Planning is underway to implement a traveling “mini-festival” film series which will take the best of each year’s films on-the-road to the far reaches of Oregon. And in headline news, we have just signed Louise Leakey—third-generation heir to the Leakey family “dynasty” which has shed great light on human origins in Africa—to deliver the keynote address at TAC Festival 2007, May 1-5, at the McDonald Theatre. As Director of the Koobi Fora Research Project in Kenya, Louise no doubt will bring us all a trove of fascinating insights about her work and, just perhaps, about ourselves.

Photo: McDonald Theatre, Eugene Oregon

By Rick Pettigrew

I felt like a pretty lucky guy on April 25 as I flew off to Germany to attend the CINARCHEA International Archaeology Film and Art Festival. During a conversation back in 2004 at the ICRONOS International Festival of Archaeological Film in Bordeaux (see the January 2005 TAC Newsletter), Dr. Kurt Denzer, the CINARCHEA organizer, had invited me to come to Kiel (on the Baltic Sea just south of Denmark) to be a juror for his event

Kiel became a welcoming place when I was greeted at the Hamburg Airport by two smiling CINARCHEA student volunteers, Claudia and Marco. They ferried me to the Festival office in Kiel, where Kurt greeted me and gave me a tour of his facility. After a delightful lunch at the “Beautiful View” Restaurant on the harbor-front, Kurt brought me to the Hotel Astor, a modest-sized establishment where a number of Festival guests stayed near the city center. My room was on the ninth floor, conveniently the same floor where a sumptuous continental breakfast was offered daily.

The hotel was located only one block from the New City Hall, where the Festival took place in a space that contained an exhibit area, a theater with a stage and a deli that served us our evening meals. The first evening, Wednesday, April 26, was devoted to opening remarks by local dignitaries and Dr. Denzer and introduction of the jury to the audience before the first film-screening session. My task as juror, in tandem with Dr. Peter Allen of the University of Rhode Island, was to keep tabs on the audience ballots and tally them at the end for the audience prize. In the remaining days of the Festival, Thursday-Saturday, April 27-29, the schedule provided for three sessions, beginning at 10 am, 3 pm and 7:30 pm, separated by meal breaks and followed by a late snack and drinks. The camaraderie was great and I typically would return to my hotel room well after midnight. Festival participants, including jurors and other guests such as film makers, came mostly from European countries, among them Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Russia, and Switzerland.

The Festival screened 30 films for the competition and set aside special sessions for nine exhibition films from Russia and five from Iran. Interestingly, we had already shown two films in the competition, The Kingdom of the Nabateans and In the Land of the Black Pharaohs, during the previous month at our event, The Archaeology Channel International Film and Video Festival. I saw many good films that I hope some will be submitted as entries to TAC Festival 2007. You can bet we will work to bring the best of the Kiel films to Eugene next year!

One of the big highlights of the trip for me was a Festival-organized excursion on Saturday morning to The Viking Museum of Haithabu (or Hedeby), on the site of the early Viking merchant town of Hedeby, north of Kiel, where three Viking ships have been excavated from the ancient harbor. The excavation of one of these ships is the subject of The Viking Ship of Hedeby, produced by Dr. Kurt Denzer and among the videos currently available for viewing on demand on TAC. I was thrilled to see the remains of this ship laid out with a partial reconstruction in the exhibit hall of the Museum.

As I had hoped, Kiel was a prime opportunity for networking. There I met and renewed acquaintances with many European Festival organizers, film-makers, media representatives, archaeologists, and students. A Greek film-maker that I met there, Eleni Stoumbou, already has provided us new TAC content with her short film, The Amphora of Eleusis. I expect these contacts also will yield new films, for both TAC and TAC Festival, from countries including Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, and Iran. You’ll be seeing those in the months to come.

At the awards ceremony on the last evening, Kurt asked me to announce and hand out the award trophies and certificates. So, with a little help from my friends, I got a chance to dust off my German language skills, which had lain dormant for many years, and deliver a few choice sentences to an appreciative audience. You can see some pictures from that evening and other times during the Festival here.

Even after the Festival was completed, the wonderful CINARCHEA hospitality continued. As I was not scheduled to fly back home until Tuesday, May 2, I had some time on my hands. Kurt invited me to attend on Saturday night a special showing of a restored silent German film from 1922, Das Weib des Pharaoh (The Pharaoh’s Wife) in a downtown Kiel movie hall. Then on Sunday, Kurt invited all the remaining Festival guests to a reception at his summer house on the Baltic Sea coast north of Kiel. And on Monday, Marion Barth, staff member of CINARCHEA, took me and Marguerite Johnson (representing the Kineon International Festival of Archaeological Film in Brussels, Belgium) on a tour of the resort town of Eckernförde on the Baltic Sea north of Kiel. Then she and her husband, Hanno, served us a delightful dinner at their house.

Now, after having seen first-hand both the ICRONOS (Bordeaux) and CINARCHEA (Kiel) festivals, I feel more strongly than ever that our event, TAC Festival, is an important part of an international movement to promote the use of film in conveying the value of cultural heritage. Our Festival compares well with the European events in all respects. In the coming year we intend to build stronger links with the European festivals and to attract international visitors to TAC Festival 2007. Please plan to come yourselves! You’ll enjoy some terrific films and help us build momentum for the continuing development of this event.

Photo: CINARCHEA logo