1. Fred Budinger, Director, recently resigned primarily due to poor health. The new Director is Dee Schroth, Anthropology Curator at the San Bernardino County Museum.
2. Chris Hardaker is presently at the museum working on "Calico's Top 2000" artifacts. A written report should be available next Spring. After that, Hardaker will apparently embark upon a usewear project for selected Calico tools.
According to Christiansen, scientific interest in Calico appears to be heating up with more than the average inquiries coming in for on-site analysis. Maybe the museum getting involved is providing more credibility? There appears to be a push to document and validate tools and dating more carefully, and to take the "Goodyear" approach of refining dates to items that are more current in age - 50Kya or so. Christiansen also told me that Bischoff has already dated Goodyear's Topper Site with thermoluminescence. As most of you know, Goodyear stopped at the limit of radiocarbon dating - 50,000 years old. He is apparently holding back Bischoff's results.
After the meeting I spent an hour at my site and retrieved eight lithics. Even though THERE ARE NO HANDAXES IN NORTH AMERICA I put two nice bifacial handaxes in my bag. Surface lithics at the site are generally dated at 20Kya. Clovis-first my arse.
