Practicing archaeology

About this book

Practicing cultural resource (CRM) archaeologists bemoan the lack of knowledge, skill, and training of most archaeological field workers. This comprehensive training manual is designed to solve that problem. Neumann and Sanford use their decades of field experience to discuss in great detail the complex processes involved in conducting a CRM project. Dealing with everything from law to logistics, archival research to zoological analysis, project proposals to report production, they provide an invaluable sourcebook to archaeologists who do contract work in North America. After an introduction to the legal and ethical aspects of cultural resources management, the authors describe the process of designing a proposal and contracting for work, doing background research, conducting assessment, testing, and mitigation (Phase I, II, and III) work, laboratory analysis, and preparing a report for the project sponsor. Throughout, the emphasis on real-world problems and issues, the use of extensive examples, and the detailed advice on a host of subjects, make this an ideal teaching tool for novice archaeologists and field schools and a handy reference for experienced CRM archaeologists. The accompanying student textbook by the same authors, CULTURAL RESOURCES ARCHAEOLOGY: An Introduction introduces the basic elements of CRM work to undergraduates.