Holes in Student Education: Policy and Adequate Field Training in Contemporary Archaeology

Summary

Despite the importance of Cultural Resource Management (CRM) in contemporary archaeology, the task of teaching students proper field techniques still largely falls on academic institutions in the form of summer archaeological field schools. Although CRM derives from numerous federal laws and policies, the same laws have made the conduct of field school increasingly difficult as federal, state and tribal land managers impose restrictions on the scope of excavations on lands that were once critical to academic field training operations. These changes have forced many academic programs to either limit their curriculum or have caused field schools to increasingly rely upon private land for field training purposes, often opening an entirely new Pandora’s box of ethical concerns. We suggest that training within this limiting environment cannot adequately prepare students for the complex field situations they will encounter as they embark on careers in Cultural Resource Management.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17432