Cultural resources management

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Cultural resources management (CRM), also referred to as Cultural heritage management (CHM) is a branch of archaeology concerned with the identification, maintenance, and preservation of significant cultural sites. The subject typically receives most attention, and resources, in the face of threat, where the focus is often upon rescue or salvage excavation. Possible threats include urban development, large-scale agriculture, mining activity, looting, erosion or unsustainable visitor numbers. CRM also stresses the importance of heritage interpretation and presentation in communicating the value of heritage to government and the public.

It has its roots in the rescue archaeology and urban archaeology undertaken throughout North America and Europe in the years surrounding World War II and the succeeding decades. Salvage projects were hasty attempts to identify and rescue archaeological remains before they were destroyed to make room for large public-works projects or other construction. In the early days of salvage archaeology, it was nearly unheard-of for a project to be delayed because of the presence of even the most fascinating cultural sites, so it behooved the salvage archaeologists to work as fast as possible. Although many sites were lost, much data was saved for posterity through these salvage efforts.

In more recent decades, legislation has been passed that emphasizes the identification and protection of cultural sites, especially those on public lands. In the United States, the most notable of these laws remains the National Historic Preservation Act. The administration of President Richard Nixon was most instrumental in passing and developing this legislation, although it has been extended and elaborated upon since. These laws make it a crime to develop any federal lands without conducting a cultural resources survey in order to identify and assess any cultural sites that may be affected. In the United Kingdom, PPG 16 has been instrumental in improving the management of historic sites in the face of development.

The legislation of individual nations is often based upon ratification of UNESCO conventions, such as the 1972 World Heritage Convention and the 2001 Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. Specific legislation is sometimes needed to ensure the appropriate protection of individual sites recognized as world heritage sites.

1 CRM techniques
2 The effect of CRM
3 Archaeological Field Technicians (the workhorses of CRM)
4 See also
5 References
- 5.1 Further reading
- 5.2 External links

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CRM techniques

While archaeological sites remain the primary focus for most CRM archaeologists, other work such as ethnohistorical projects and public outreach also fall within their purview. A recent concept introduced in CRM is the Traditional Cultural Property or TCP. These are places with cultural importance to a group that may not be either particularly historical or an archaeological site. An example would be a location used for contemporary Native American religious events that has no archaeological remains.

A phase of evaluation is considered important in assessing the significance of a possible cultural heritage site. This can comprise a desk-based study, interviews with informants in the community, a wide-area survey, or trial trenching. In North America, survey normally includes either walking ploughed fields in 5-10 metre transects or digging shovel test pits at the same intervals. The soil from the test pits is sifted through 6 mm mesh to look for artifacts. If artifacts are found, the next stage of investigation is usually digging and sifting a spaced grid of test pits (1 m by 1 m trenches) to determine how large or significant the site is.

For a site of proposed development, if no significant archaeological or other cultural property sites are found in the impacted area, construction may proceed as planned. If potentially significant remains are found, construction may be delayed to allow for evaluation of the site or sites found within the impacted area. This is done to determine the archaeological site's true significance. If archaeologists determine the site contains important/significant cultural remains, the adverse effects on the site must be mitigated. Site mitigation can involve avoiding the site through redesigning the development or excavating only a percentage of the site. In the U.S., these restrictions involve any federal project involving the possible disturbance of cultural resources and can also extend to state and private developments if they involve public waterways or federal funds.

If archaeologists determine the site contains highly significant cultural remains, the adverse development effects on the site must be mitigated through a structured programme that is often long and expensive. Alternatively an important site may be designated as being protected by the state so that no development at all can take place. In the United Kingdom and Canada, all forms of development, public and private, are subject to archaeological requirements, while in the United States this work can only be undertaken in federally-funded projects or those on government-owned land, except in a few states that have laws that apply also to private land.

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The effect of CRM

CRM has been a mixed blessing for archaeology. Preservation legislation has ensured that no valuable site will be destroyed by construction without study, but the work of CRM archaeologists is sometimes controversial. Some academic archaeologists do not take CRM rescue or salvage work seriously because of its emphasis on site identification and preservation rather than intensive study and analysis. Where CRM is motivated by proposed development, the archaeological contracts are placed through a bidding process. The choice of archaeological contractor typically lies with the developer and there is little incentive to prevent the company responsible for construction selecting the bid with the lowest price estimate, or shortest investigation time, regardless of the archaeological merits of the submitted bids.

The impact of CRM rescue and salvage work has been considerable; given the large amount of construction, and that the bulk of archaeological work in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom is conducted through CRM channels. Unfortunately, the large number of reports written on the thousands of sites dug each year are not necessarily published in public forums. So-called grey literature is sometimes difficult for even archaeologists outside the developer or the CRM organisation that performed the work to access. Some initiatives, notably the OASIS project of the Archaeological Data Service in the UK, are beginning to make the reports available to everyone.

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Archaeological Field Technicians (the workhorses of CRM)

Whereas the organizations that take on CRM contracts are stable entities, the Archaeological Field Technicians who perform the actual field work are, in the main, an army of mobile workers. The Archaeological Field Technician works in all types of weather and terrain. Conservation, excavation, artifact curation, field survey often in difficult conditions (such as dense woodland), and typically working to tight deadlines; these are just some of the jobs done by CRM Field Technicians. Given that the outputs of much of the CRM work that is undertaken in advance of development work is not published in peer reviewed journals, the people that perform the actual research are often anonymous and unrecognized.

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