Plains Anthropological Society (PAS)

The Plains Anthropological Society’s “…membership includes individuals from all branches of anthropology and related disciplines. Traditionally archaeology has been the focus of most of the society's activities and publications, but ethno historians, ethnologists, linguists, physical anthropologists, and geoscientists also make major contributions. Students and private citizens as well as professionals enjoy membership in the society.  The two primary functions of the society are to hold an Annual Conference, the Plains Conference and publish a peer-reviewed quarterly journal, the Plains Anthropologist.   Both activities are dedicated to communicating and disseminating information about past and present human cultures on the North American Great Plains.” 
(Plains Anthropological Society, http://www.ou.edu/cas/archsur/plainsanth/index.html)

“The first Plains Conference was held in Vermillion, South Dakota in August of 1931. The meeting took place only three additional times (1932, 1936, and 1940) over the next 16 years. It became an annual conference in 1947. From 1947 through 1959, the meeting was held in Lincoln, Nebraska, the Missouri Basin Project headquarters of the Smithsonian Institution - River Basin Surveys.  Since the early 1960s, The Plains Conference has been held in all Great Plains U. S. States and Canadian provinces. It has grown from a small, informal gathering of scholars to a major regional three-day conference with attendance generally over 500 people. The Plains Conference and the journal Plains Anthropologist have always been linked under the same organization that was officially named the Plains Anthropological Society in August of 1982. The conference and the journal are operated under the auspices of the Plains Anthropological Society Board of Directors.” (The Plains Anthropological Society Conference: A Guidebook for Hosts and Organizers; Adair, Bozell, Larson and Lees, 1992)

“Plains Anthropologist, a quarterly journal, publishes original papers on the anthropology of the Great Plains and adjacent areas of North America. Manuscripts of a more general nature, or those concerned with other areas, will be considered if they are of theoretical importance or if they bear upon problems of humans in Plains environments. Memoir issues of the Plains Anthropologist are published depending on availability of manuscripts and funding.”

(Plains Anthropologist web site)