My post yesterday was inspired by Bill’s post, When archaeology field techs have to teach PhDs how to do archaeology. If you scroll to the bottom you will see a lively discussion occurring in the comments (just like most Archaeology Bloggers wish they had on all their posts). There are a few comments that I would like to discuss:
“First, one must remember that cultural resource management (CRM) is not so much about archaeology, but all about completing a process and making money. CRM, above all, is a business.”-Drew
“I think that, yes, there is a disjunction between academic and field/crm archaeology”- Lindsey
I would say these views might be the consensus among archaeologists, maybe? Tom King has also mentioned on the CRM podcast that CRM is not archaeology, or that is at least my impression of what I thought he said (apologies Tom if I misquote you). You find statements all the time about how “Academic” archaeology is not “Commercial/CRM”. My personal favorite is how your not a real archaeologists unless you can dig. Sara Perry tears that last notion apart better than I ever could.
To be fair, people are right there is a difference between “Commercial/CRM” and “Academic” archaeology. Tom is right CRM is about management of cultural resources, not all of which are material culture, and not about “the study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind”, as Wikipedia defines archaeology.
My problem is that these are imaginary lines we have created, CRM or Academic. Yes, there are differences but are they so great we need to treat them alien entities. Look at the current definition of archaeology according to wiki. That definition has only applied for maybe the last half century. Before that the definition of archaeologist might has well have been the description of Indian Jones- “collector of rare antiquities”. Archaeologists were at best enthusiastic amateurs (rich of course) and at worst cultural thieves and looters of other people’s pasts for far longer than we have been students of the past through material culture. Talk to collectors now and they can’t understand why archaeologists hate them now but when they were kids (in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s) they were all one in the same. The simple reason is because we have evolved and changed with the times. Though we haven’t evolved to be more inclusive, instead we seem to become more and more narrow in our focus. Is this for the better?
Now you can get a degree in CRM, not archaeology but CRM. WHY? Why do we need a separate degree or as it is turning out to be a separate discipline. (Note- I am not saying we need to not teach the skills or concepts of CRM. What I am asking is why do we need to divide it up?). Why can’t it just be studying the past. Why do we have separate Classics, History, or Museum Studies departments? Which according to definitions would mean historic archaeologists are not real archaeologists because they use historical records. At the same time they are not historians because they also look at material culture. Why can’t we all just be called students of the past?
Of course we know the reason for that, the past (not trying to play on words). Universities, guilds, and “professionals” have dived up disciplines which are then transferred to future generations. We emulate the structures of 18th and 19th Century Universities and Medieval guilds. Yet, we don’t ask if there is a better way.
My question for you is, are these artificial barriers helpful?
I personally think they are not. For example, in the debate on Bills post it has been mentioned that a PhD does not train one for CRM. However, what seems to be completely missing is the lack of skills training for the artificially created “academic” side of archaeology. The criticism/excuse I hear a lot is that PhD programs are meant to create other academics/professors. THEY DO NOT. Look at the three things required to obtain tenure in the US:
- Service- usually means serving on a university committee not serving the public
- Publication- technically this is called research but in reality it is the act of publishing
- Teaching
Most PhD programs give no training on how to be a teacher. Nor do they teach one how to publish anything other than a dissertation, like an article or book, or how to be a productive member of a group. I say most because there are of course exceptions to this and I don’t want to paint all programs the same. My point is not to bash Universities and those that work in them. My point is that by separating out CRM from academic archaeology we completely ignore the problem of a complete lack of skills training at Universities, even for University jobs. Then the argument becomes about what is best for only CRM archaeologists, not all archaeologists.
Divided we fall or at least that is how I see it. Maybe you have a different opinion about how we divide ourselves up and what makes a archaeologist an ‘archaeologist’.
Doug's Archaeology 
Jeffrey Baker
February 12, 2014
First, a little background on myself. I have a Ph.D. I went to grad school with plans on becoming a professor. My dissertation was on Maya agriculture. I dabbled in CRM archaeology throughout my grad school experience to help pay the bills. Near the end of my tenure as a grad student, I started working full-time in CRM (my dissertation fieldwork was completed, and the dissertation was about 1/2 written before I landed my first job as a crew chief in the CRM world). The money was good, and I was having trouble finding a job in the academic world. After a couple years, I realized that I would have to take a substantial pay cut to get an academic job, so I quit looking. Until last year, my work had been entirely for private CRM firms, but, I have since started working for the Desert Research Institute, which is part of the Nevada system of higher education. We predominantly do CRM type projects, but, I also have the opportunity to conduct academic-type research projects. I have spent much of my archaeology career straddling or hopping back-and-forth between academia and CRM.
In my opinion, there are a couple reasons for the divide between CRM and archaeology in the U.S. (1) Most professors have minimal experience in the CRM portion of archaeology. At or near the end of the pursuit of a Ph.D program, a divide starts appearing between those that will end up in academia, those that end up in the CRM world. If you start getting the temporary teaching positions, and/or you can afford to continue getting paid poverty-level wages (because you either have a spouse to support you or family money), you end up going the route of the professor. But, if you don’t get those temporary teaching positions (either because you don’t have the connections, or you can’t survive on a poverty level wage any longer), you start getting employed in the CRM world. In the 70 and 80s, it was not uncommon for people to switch from one track to the other after earning a Ph.D. Today, it rarely happens.
(2) In the 70s and 80s, CRM archaeology was not very good. There were exceptions, but, the overall quality was poor. I know of several professors who have horrible reputations among the CRM community, but, you talk to people who have worked with them in their academic fieldwork, and they are respected for their academic field work. I suspect that these individuals know their CRM work was poor, and blame it on the CRM environment. And, use their experience to look down upon all CRM work. The quality of work done in the CRM archaeology field today is of much higher quality than it was in the past. As one example, Several years ago, I worked on a power-line project that paralleled an existing powerline. The existing powerline was surveyed in the early 1990s. Their report was less than 200 pages. Our report was over 1,000 pages long. The level of detail we provide today is much greater than people provided 20 or 30 years ago, but, not everyone realizes that.
The biggest critique I have of the way that the most prestigious departments teach archaeology is they do not really teach people how to dig. I realize that not everyone archaeologist needs to be able to dig, but, everyone needs to understand how excavation is conducted, and what the strengths and weaknesses of excavated data are.
In some of the larger field schools, the professors have very little day-to-day interaction with the students. The actual teaching of undergrad students is left in the hands of grad students and upper-level undergrads. The grad students and undergrads may have minimal field experience themselves. In my own career, I thought I was a pretty good field archaeologist when I had completed by dissertation fieldwork. But, after spending five years working in CRM, I became a substantially better field archaeologist. And, I still find myself learning new things on field projects.
CRM, as an academic endeavor, should be considered a cross-disciplinary degree. You need to have an understanding of archaeology, history, law and business to really understand all the ins and outs of the CRM world. I see no need to establish separate departments, but, requiring students to take classes outside of traditional anthropology departments would be beneficial to students who plan on having a career in the CRM world. But, for someone beginning a career in CRM, a knowledge of how do identify artifacts on survey (which is much more difficult that in an excavation), how do efficiently dig a unit, and how use a compass and read a map are essential skills.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
February 12, 2014
Thanks for commenting Jeff. A follow up question to something you said- “CRM, as an academic endeavor, should be considered a cross-disciplinary degree. You need to have an understanding of archaeology, history, law and business to really understand all the ins and outs of the CRM world.”
What you not say that applies to all of “archaeology” or most fields for that matter i.e. the idea behind a liberal arts education? Or do you feel that is specific to CRM?
Jeffrey Baker
February 12, 2014
Taking classes outside of a specific major is always a good practice. Having a minor or two (or even taking extra classes) in something other than anthropology/archaeology is probably a good idea for anyone interested in archaeology. But, what fields you take classes in depends on your research interests. In grad school, I took classes in tropical ecology, plant physiology and geomorphology. I do not regret taking any of those classes, and, they have helped me in one way or another with my research interests. But, for other archaeologists that particular combination might be a waste of time.
The specific combination I mentioned above for CRM are the general category of classes that would appear to be useful to me at first glance.
laurenwritesscience
February 14, 2014
I had a coworker ask once, as we started a transect of STP’s, “Are we doing this academic style or CRM style?” The divide definitely exists, but most archaeological excavation in the United States is CRM excavation. And yes, there are some less-than-reputable CRM firms out there. But I think it would probably be beneficial for CRM and academic archaeologists to try to find common ground where possible. To simply ignore one another is to lose insight, knowledge, and learning opportunities.
These Bones Of Mine
February 15, 2014
Another great blog entry Doug! Also I am really enjoying reading peoples responses to your latest posts.
On a related note I had one lecturer who, just before I started my Masters course, said I was an archaeologist even though I was just volunteering at the time. As I head back into working in administration, and only partaking in archaeology via volunteering/writing for the blog, I start wondering about his definition more and more.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
February 16, 2014
Aye, it is a post I have been meaning to write for awhile. When does an archaeologist become an ‘archaeologist’.
g
February 16, 2014
“[CRM is]…all about completing a process and making money”
I find this somewhat twisted. Academics typically are not working for free. Nor are universities dispensing their knowledge for free. They are both, in fact, completing an process and making money. If one distinguishes academia from commercial services by pointing out that the former do not actually have to show value to those who fund them, then that would be little more than a backhanded compliment. The idea that there is a class of people focused purely on the acquisition of knowledge without cause to consider the primitive urge of exchanging their labor for financial compensation is as vacuous as it is condescending.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
February 16, 2014
I was going to mention that but the post was already long and it didn’t make the cut. Essentially, both are in the business to make money, as last I checked lectures needed to teach to pay the bills. Though editing made sure that point was missed. Thank you for bringing it up.
Tom Goskar
February 19, 2014
From a European perspective archaeology, be it commercial (CRM) or academic, you do not need to understand the process of excavation to participate in archaeology or be called an archaeologist. Many aspects of archaeology do not involve what happens in the ground at all, and both ‘sides’ cover all bases.
It is not about the length of reports or theses, but about quality and accessibility. Both sides can produce great works or terrible ones, long and short.
However, one of the major divides in the UK is about access to information. In the past, one of the major fuelling factors to an academic/commercial divide is access to specialist books and journals. Small commercial archaeology units (even if they have charitable status) cannot afford to subscribe to many journals and do not have the resources of a university library. Thus they have not always been up to date with the latest knowledge or theory, which has drawn contempt from time to time (“the interpretation in their report is *so* processualist!”). The web and Open Access movement are improving things.
Another divide is software. Have you any idea how much an ArcGIS license with all of the extensions is? Thousands. To PhD students at university, and quite often, staff, that’s nothing to worry or even think about. To a ‘commercial’ archaeology unit that struggles to break even let alone turn a profit, it is a big issue if your data is expected to be interoperable with construction firms.
Then there’s the other way around – the Institute for Archaeologists (IfA) in the UK insinuate that if you aren’t a member then you aren’t a professional archaeologist. It was set up to raise standards in initially fieldwork, and now covers most branches of the profession. Interestingly very few university archaeologists are members.
Being an archaeologist is a state of mind – there’s no real or fake. I’m a specialist in archaeological computing, and I’ve had my fair share of “he’s not a proper archaeologist”. I used to call myself a digital archaeologist, and I’ve heard diggers call theselves “dirt archaeologists”. I now say that I’m just an “archaeologist”. The trowel is a specialist tool, the same as software on a computer.
Doug Rocks-Macqueen
February 20, 2014
“Being an archaeologist is a state of mind”- love that, might have to put it on a T-shirt.
Software- ESRI is very smart. It actually is not thousands of pounds for Universities or students. You can get a “student version” of ArcGIS for less than 100. They give it away cheaply to Universities in students so that it is all they learn how to use. Then when they leave University they only know how to use ArcGIS and are stuck with the very expensive licences. Brilliant piece of marketing.
IfA= Professional. mmmmm… I know I am being nitpicky here but I don’t think even the IfA, soon to be CIfA, believes that they dictate who is a professional.
Anonymous
March 3, 2014
I work for a CRM firm in Canada. We mainly do archaeological assessments, but also do cemetery projects, built heritage, and community heritage research. There are a few people that work here that also posts in the nearby university, and in the field methods course they teach and practice fundamental field techniques, from survey through to excavation.
I am also completing a Master’s in Applied Arch, a program that includes within its mandate the professional development of people who already work in the CRM field or wish to. In many cases there may be a divide between CRM and acadmics, but at least in my case I find there are many ways that the chasm is routinely transcended.
And for the record, I know I am an archaeologist because its what I do, and I have a licence that says I am legally allowed to. In this province, anyone can claim to be an archaeologist, but if you are doing it without a licence (or without the supervision of a licensee) , you are in contravention of legislation, and in the eyes of the law you are a looter.
CRM accounts for over 90% of excavated sites that were occupied in the past- I would argue this is the current manifestation of archaeology. If this is not archaeology, trying to learn about the practices and processes of the past based on digging up what is left of it, I am not sure what it is.
Sorry for digging up an old post, but its comes natural to me- I am an archaeologist.