Far too often in the ?eld of archeology, the wheel of understanding and insight has a narrow focus that fails to recognize critical studies. Crucial information rega- ing pivotal archeological investigations at a variety of sites worldwide is extremely dif?cult, if not impossible, to obtain. The majority of archeological analysis and reporting, at best, has limited publication. The majority of archeological reports are rarely seen and when published are often only in obscure or out-of-print journals - the reports are almost as hard to ?nd as the archeological sites themselves. There is a desperate need to pull seminal archeological writings together into single issue or thematic volumes. It is the int- tion of this series, When the Land Meets the Sea, to address this problem as it relates to archeological work that encompasses both terrestrial and underwater archeology on a single site or on a collection of related sites. For example, despite the fact that we know that bays and waterways structured historic settlement, there is a lack of archeological literature that looks at both the nautical and terrestrial signatures of watersheds in?uence on historic culture.

For many years, one of my favorite classroom devices in historical archaeology was to ask the students to imagine that they had to make the choice between saving-from some unnamed calamity-all master's theses or all doctoral disser tations in anthropology, but not both. Like good students, they usually looked to their Ph.D. holding professor and chose the dissertations. Much to their surprise, Iwouldrespondthatthetheseswould win withouteventakingtime to ponderthe issue. The issue is clearly one of often naive and rarely eloquent theses full of good primary data versus sometimes more sophisticated and better written works full of irrelevant theory and meaningless statistics. Perhaps this is an overstate ment of the situation, but it is not too far offthe mark. The University Microfilms International efforts to make the titles of disser tations in North America and the English speaking portions of Europe available through Dissertation Abstracts is commendable. With only one minor exception, dissertations in historical and underwater archaeology in the United States are to be found listed in Dissertation Abstracts and thus are available for purchase."

For many years, one of my favorite classroom devices in historical archaeology was to ask the students to imagine that they had to make the choice between saving-from some unnamed calamity-all master's theses or all doctoral disser tations in anthropology, but not both. Like good students, they usually looked to their Ph.D. holding professor and chose the dissertations. Much to their surprise, Iwouldrespondthatthetheseswould win withouteventakingtime to ponderthe issue. The issue is clearly one of often naive and rarely eloquent theses full of good primary data versus sometimes more sophisticated and better written works full of irrelevant theory and meaningless statistics. Perhaps this is an overstate ment of the situation, but it is not too far offthe mark. The University Microfilms International efforts to make the titles of disser tations in North America and the English speaking portions of Europe available through Dissertation Abstracts is commendable. With only one minor exception, dissertations in historical and underwater archaeology in the United States are to be found listed in Dissertation Abstracts and thus are available for purchase.

Far too often in the ?eld of archeology, the wheel of understanding and insight has a narrow focus that fails to recognize critical studies. Crucial information rega- ing pivotal archeological investigations at a variety of sites worldwide is extremely dif?cult, if not impossible, to obtain. The majority of archeological analysis and reporting, at best, has limited publication. The majority of archeological reports are rarely seen and when published are often only in obscure or out-of-print journals - the reports are almost as hard to ?nd as the archeological sites themselves. There is a desperate need to pull seminal archeological writings together into single issue or thematic volumes. It is the int- tion of this series, When the Land Meets the Sea, to address this problem as it relates to archeological work that encompasses both terrestrial and underwater archeology on a single site or on a collection of related sites. For example, despite the fact that we know that bays and waterways structured historic settlement, there is a lack of archeological literature that looks at both the nautical and terrestrial signatures of watersheds in?uence on historic culture.