Job Tips


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 […]


CRM Archaeology Podcast Recap: March 2013

In case you didn’t already know, there’s a new archaeology podcast online. It started in late 2012 and, after some remodels and improvements, the CRM Archaeology Podcast has stormed into the Year of the Snake. And just like the Chinese zodiac Snake sign tells us, the podcast is keen, cunning, […]


Archaeology Job Search Aides

“No man was ever wise by chance” Lucius Annaeus Seneca Finding a job in archaeology can be tough. Because there are so few of us, CRM archaeology is a tightly knit field where, in order to find a job, you have to know something, know how to network, and know […]


How to get a job in Archaeology, Part 3 2

In case you didn’t already know, I’ve been helping a friend find a job in archaeology. Writing a résumé was covered in Part 1. Targeted online networking was covered in Part 2 of the series. Here’s what happened in the first 6 weeks of the search: Since I hadn’t talked […]


Archaeology and Work Life Balance

In 2012, I was given a 100% hours reduction/ furlough– my company’s chicken sh*t way of laying me off. I had a wife, a young son, and am guardian to my teenage sister. There wasn’t too much archaeology work going down in my part of the country either. With bills […]


Archaeology books are coming from blogs these days

Speeding Up the Experiential Learning Process

“Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.” Franklin P. Jones How do you know when you’ve hit the “floor” of an Archaic Native American pithouse? How do you keep from digging right through the floor and losing the original context of any artifacts imbedded in […]


Personal Research: Keeping CRMers Sane Since 1966

The explosion of cultural resource management, heritage conservation, and historic preservation since the 1960s has resulted in a deluge of information on human pasts. Much of this information lies in the various technical reports written by companies around the world. This “grey literature” represents a database much larger than the […]


CRM Report Writing Tips

Here’s a excerpt from my upcoming book on Small Archaeology Project Management. Technical report writing for cultural resource management, historic preservation, and heritage conservation is rarely taught in school. Oftentimes, we are left to fend for ourselves and have to write technical reports without any supervision or suggestions. Here are […]


Why I wrote a book on small archaeology project management 2

“Things don’t just work out right. We have to make things work out right.” Nido Qubien I got my first job in archaeology in 2004. I was a crew chief working for the Idaho Transportation Department on a project in Lewis County, near Lenore, Idaho. Because I was a grad […]


Are cultural resource management archaeologists just like Wall Street bankers?

How to Get a Job in Archaeology, Part 2

Ever since I scored high enough on my ASVAB to qualify for military intelligence, I’ve been a fan of spy movies. I’m a really big fan of the Jason Bourne movies. I love the suspense and, second to killer fight scenes, I really love how the movies build to an […]