At the 1958 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington, D.C., John L. Cotter chaired a symposium on the Role of Archaeology in Historical Research.
Jelks, following a second such discussion at the meeting of the Central States Anthropological Society in St. Louis in 1966, began to plan an “International Conference on Historical Archaeology."
[4] The conference drew 112 attendees, with 17 papers by scholars including Charles Cleland, James Deetz, Bernard Fontana, J.C. "Pinky" Harrington, and Roderick Sprague.
The SHA was officially incorporated on April 1, 1968, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and John Cotter was elected to serve as its first president.
[5] SHA publishes its peer-reviewed journal Historical Archaeology quarterly with online publication of Book Reviews and Technical Briefs.