Amelia Earhart Archaeology?

Some twenty-plus years ago, as I was preparing to get out of a job in historic preservation with the U.S. government, I got a call from Ric Gillespie, head of The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR). Ric said that TIGHAR had decided to launch a search for the long-lost aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart, on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific. I said I'd done archaeology in the Pacific, had some time on my hands, and if he needed an archaeologist, I was his man. I've been involved in TIGHAR's quest for Amelia ever since. Many of our adventures are documented in Amelia Earhart's Shoes (http://www.amazon.com/Amelia-Earharts-Shoes-Mystery-Solved/dp/0759101302),which I co-authored with three other TIGHAR members. Ric has summarized good deal of evidence that's background to our hypothesis in Finding Amelia (http://www.amazon.com/Finding-Amelia-Story-Earhart-Disappearance/dp/1591143195), published by the Naval Institute Press. And there's a tremendous amount of information on, and opportunities to interact with, the project on TIGHAR's web site, www.tighar.org.

So why a blog? Because we're going back to Nikumaroro -- the island where we think Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, breathed their last -- next May for one of our most focused efforts yet to bring a definitive conclusion to the mystery; I'm motivated to think and write about what we plan to do, and am interested in others' reactions. And because I've written a novel based on some of the results of our work, which I'm self-publishing through Dog Ear Publications (http://www.dogearpublishing.net), want to make it known, and am interested in reactions to it, too.

So what I propose to do here is write about preparations for next year's expeditions, respond to queries, challenges, and comments, and shill my novel.