30 The SAA Archaeological Record • May 2001 NETWORKS AN EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES: SITIO CONTE ONLINE John W. Hoopes John W. Hoopes, associate editor for Networks, is associate professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. T here’s something about archaeologists and gold, especially when there is a lot of it. On the eve of World War II, between 1930 and 1940, the site of Sitio Conte, in central Panama, yielded one of the largest assemblages of gold ever to be scientifically excavated in the New World. It remained unsurpassed for almost half a century until Walter Alva’s 1987 excavations at Sipán, Peru. Samuel Lothrop’s two-volume report on Sitio Conte (Lothrop 1937, 1942) is one of the most lavish publications in American archaeology. Digital technology has now taken documentation of the site to a new level as the result of a project funded by the National Science Foundation to create a comprehensive, Web- accessible, digital archive of the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropolo- gy’s expedition to the Sitio Conte in 1940 (www.museum.upenn.edu/SitioConte). The digital archive, produced by Alessandro Pezzati with the assistance of Douglas Haller, Sonia Bazán, and Kevin Wiley, stands as one of the best examples of how digital technology can provide ready access to a wealth of pri- mary archaeological documents. The archive plays a critical role in providing access to primary data for a project that, after 60 years, remains incompletely published. It is also a window into the history of our discipline at a time when there were, in fact, colleagues whose modus operandi sometimes actually did resemble that of Indiana Jones. The 1940 Sitio Conte expedition was directed by J. Alden Mason (1885–1967) four years before he was elected president of SAA. It followed work at the site directed by Samuel Lothrop of the Peabody Muse- um of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard between 1930 and 1933. Mason’s four-month expedition focused explicitly on recovering large quantities of gold and tumbaga (gold-copper alloy) artifacts from controlled contexts. Sitio Conte, about 100 miles west of Panama City, was discovered in the late 1920s when the shift in a local river course revealed the existence of a rich Precolumbian cemetery. The site, since dated to ca. A.D. 450–900, has provided the largest assemblages of gold artifacts ever found in Central America. In addition to goldwork, it yielded hundreds of polychrome ceramics as well as unusual objects of shell, resin, whale ivory, fossil shark’s teeth, stingray spines, agates, and emeralds. The site is a valuable source of information on the emergence of social complexity in the area between Mesoamerica and the Central Andes. The online summary by Douglas Haller notes: The expedition dug a main trench 54 ft in length, 27 ft in width, and 13 ft in depth at its maximum. . . . About 30 burials and/or caches were encountered, ranging from grave lots with a few vessels to burials of 10 ft square containing hundreds of pottery vessels as well as objects of stone, carved bone, gold, and other materials. In the most elaborate burial, No. 11, there were 23 individuals, one supplying at least half of the gold objects found as well as the finest in quality . . . . Over 120 troy ounces of gold were found. Many gold objects are of exquisite workmanship made by casting (cire perdue), hammering, and depletion gilding. Gold objects included large plaques or disks, ear-rods, nose ornaments,