Heritage Conservation


How we can Buy into Historic Preservation, Part II

(This is the second in a two-part series on how cultural resource management professionals can further historic preservation by purchasing properties with historical buildings or archaeological sites. You can read Part I here.) I started writing these two posts because, as usual, a fellow cultural resource management archaeologist swiftly dismissed my […]


How we can Buy into Historic Preservation, Part I

(This is the first in a two-part series on how cultural resource management professionals can further historic preservation by purchasing properties with historical buildings or archaeological sites.) From its conception, property ownership has always been integral to historic preservation in the United States. The most influential historic preservation groups in […]


The fight for cultural resource management in the Age of Trump

Okay. I just watched the video of the “CRM in the Age of Trump” webinar hosted by the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) and hearing what I already know was shocking (HINT: Conservatives are probably going to do their best to roll back cultural resource management [CRM] regulations). Since I’ve […]


Should Archaeologists break bread with looters?

Cultural resource management archaeologists: Want to hear something that will make your blood boil? Remember that grave-robbing, site-looting show “Nazi War Diggers”? It’s baaaaaack. The most recent rendition is called “Battlefield Recovery” and airs on the UK’s Channel 5. More digging skeletons out of context. More unnecessary burial excavations. More […]


How cultural resource management can illuminate our communities

Whenever I think about how we can transform cultural resource management into a mélange of applied anthropology and heritage conservation that can actually change society, I always think about the candelabra. I remember, as a boy, seeing beautiful candelabras in church around Christmastime and they always filled me with awe. […]

Tumacacori National Historical Monument, Arizona

Public archaeology at Ferry Farm, Fredericksburg, Virginia

Coming out of my Shell: Lessons learned by doing public archaeology

For a person who is building a career based on the study of human beings, I have to confess: I really don’t like other people. The main problem with other people is they aren’t me. They have their own lives, thoughts, experiences, and perspectives that differ with the way I […]