Florida Department of State
Glenda E. Hood
Secretary of State

MEDIA ADVISORY

For Immediate Release Contact: Jenny Nash
June 19, 2003 (850) 245-6518
Jnash@dos.state.fl.us
 

SECRETARY HOOD THANKS STATE ARCHAEOLOGIST FOR 22 YEARS OF PUBLIC SERVICE
 

TALLAHASSEE, FL – Secretary of State Glenda Hood announced today that Dr. Jim
Miller, the State Archaeologist and Bureau Chief of Archaeological Research, will
be leaving the Department of State, Division of Historical Resources to pursue a
career in private consulting, beginning in July at St. Vincent in the Windward
Islands. "Dr. Miller has had a distinguished career as our State Archaeologist
serving the people of Florida for the past 20 years," said Secretary Hood. "I am
grateful for his hard work and dedication to public service and wish him every
success in his future endeavors."

Dr. Miller became the Division of Historical Resources’ first Chief of the Bureau
of Archaeological Research (BAR) in 1983. The Bureau is responsible for
archaeological resources on state lands; the Mission San Luis in Tallahassee;
Florida’s Underwater Archaeological Preserves; and the cultural resource survey of
Conservation and Recreation Lands (CARL). The Bureau is responsible for management
of shipwreck sites in state waters and cooperative management of submerged
cultural resources with NOAA in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Dr.
Miller is co-author of An Atlas of Maritime Florida, and in 1997 he received the
award for Excellence and Cultural Resource Management from the Society for
American Archaeology.

"Dr. Miller has largely defined the mission of state archaeological programs and
made a profound contribution to the body of knowledge, benefiting future
generations of citizens, visitors and professional researchers." said Dr. Janet
Snyder Matthews, Director of the Division of Historical Resources. "He will be
missed by coworkers throughout state government."

Brenda Swann, currently Archaeology Supervisor for the Bureau's Archaeological
Research Section, will serve as acting Bureau Chief. Since her employment with the
Division of Historical Resources in 1999, Swann has been involved with publication
development, cultural resource management, land manager training, public
relations, law application, and archaeological project planning, research, and
review within the Bureau of Archaeological Research. Swann earned an M.A. in
archaeology from the University of West Florida, where she participated in
cultural resource management and research projects in the Pensacola area.

Dr. David Dickel, currently Supervisor of the Conservation Laboratory within the
Division of Historical Resources, will serve as State Archaeologist. Dr. Dickel is
widely known as an expert in physical anthropology including co-directing FSU
fieldwork at the Windover site. In 1993, following 12 years in private consulting,
Dr. Dickel assumed supervision of collections and conservation, including all BAR
artifact loans and special vault collections. He reorganized and introduced
electronic inventory and information retrieval systems based on programs he wrote.
In addition, BAR operations and data are now tightly integrated with the
conservation lab, Florida Master Site file, NAGPRA and F.S. 872.05 unmarked burial
procedures, 1A-32 permit procedures, ARM monitoring programs, and C.A.R.L.
databases. Dr. Dickel received a B.A. in anthropology in 1972 from San Jose State
University, and an M.A. (1976) and Ph.D. (1980) from the University of California,
Davis, with professional specializations in archaeology and physical anthropology.