Monthly Archives: April 2013


CRM Archaeology is driven by passion

I couldn’t find a job in CRM archaeology when I first graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in Boise, Idaho. Not only did I not know where to look, I didn’t know anyone that could help me. Most of my professors had no idea where the entry-level jobs were. My grades […]


Goal-setting and cultural resource management careers

While writing some of the curriculum for my course on archaeology career professionalism on Landward.org, I was reminded of a recent slideshow that was sent to me by an esteemed peer, Alison Morris. The slideshow focused on goal-setting and how bad we all are at following through. I am a […]


Lingering problems in the CRM archaeology industry

Call it fortune or misfortune, but I just ran across one of the most amazing articles/critiques of the CRM industry that I’ve ever seen I print. It’s called “Archaeological Research in the Context of Cultural Resource Management: Pushing back in the 1990s” by Robert G. Elston. This article was published […]

Don't be that desperate archaeology job seeker

Job Descriptions are Central to a CRM Archaeology HASP

I realized how hard creating a CRM archaeology-specific health and safety plan (HASP) can be while talking about improving archaeology workplace health and safety with my friend (the President of Northwest Safety and Risk Services in Boise, Idaho). In our conversation, I described some of the situations I found myself […]


Developing Independent Research Topics from CRM Projects

 With the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) conference just behind us and the call for papers for the 2014 Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) conference just around the corner, I started thinking about all the CRM archaeology projects I’ve worked on that I turned into academic presentations at these two […]


Why do Archaeologists Care about Looters, Part 2

(In Part 1 of this series, I discussed how the field of archaeology is negatively affected by its portrayal in the national media, specifically on NatGeo’s Diggers and Spike TVs Savage Family Diggers. I also addressed some relevant questions regarding why archaeologists may be angry with these “archaeology looter” shows—coming […]


Why do archaeologists care about looters?–Part 1 2

Recently, I read Paul Mullins’ blog post “Historical Archaeology will be Televised” on the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA) Blog. Among other salient topics the SHA has chosen to address, this article discusses efforts taken to revise/ alter the new popular shows that glorify archaeological site looters: NatGeo’s Diggers and […]

10 unwritten rules for professional archaeology