The publications have been well received by both the art historical/archaeological/museum communities as well as the scientific, and have helped inspire increasing interdisciplinary cooperation. Since previous to ASMOSIA, such cooperation was minimal, this has indeed been a great accomplishment. We have also been fortunate in receiving financial support for our meetings and publications from national and international agencies, such as NATO, and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.
The aim of AMOSIA is clear: to unite archaeometry closely with archaeology. A practicing archaeometrist is an accomplished scientist with a hazy knowledge of archaeology; the archaeologists should understand enough about the physical sciences to suggest methods and to question alleged precise scientific measurements. The happy result of a knowledgeable archaeologist-scientist pair is that each will know enough about the discipline of the other to identify meaningful problems and then suggest methods of analysis and interpretations to test possible solutions. The archaeologist should learn to question scientific methods that yield results with high precision but low accuracy. The archaeologist need not know how to operate a stable isotopic ratio mass spectrometer nor measure bursts of neutron activity, but should know enough about scientific techniques not to be intimidated by his fancy talking colleague. And the archaeometrist should always strive to keep the archaeologist "honest". ASMOSIA is helping to insure a fruitful future for the archaeometrist-archaeologist pair by offering them the means to communicate with each other and the medium to disseminate the results of their collaboration.
Norman Herz
First Past-President of ASMOSIA