Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

This comment, in large measure, is a statement about the present state of knowledge of American archaeology in 1994. The unpublished "gray literature" grows more massive with each passing day. Most of it does not warrant publication, but some of it is critical to our knowledge. I do not know what influence our "dark gray" publications would have had on Catherine S. Fowler, David Rhode, or Brian Hemphill, but I am certain those preliminary reports would have made some impression on their critical thinking about archaeology in the Great Basin. I recognize some of our ideas in print by various subsequent authors. I also think one solution to this problem would be that the State Historic Preservation archaeologists, who do read these "gray" reports, should make a recommendation as to whether these reports should be published.