Archaeological Resource Management provides an international comparison of the main practices involved in managing archaeological remains, especially their identification and recording, their evaluation for 'significance,' their preservation and their presentation to the public.

Original research articles show the range of activities, issues, and solutions undertaken by contemporary managers of heritage sites around the world.

Stressing the interdisciplinary, public-policy oriented character of Cultural Resource Management (CRM), which is not merely “applied archaeology,” this short, relatively uncomplicated introduction is aimed at emerging archaeologists. Drawing on fifty-plus years’ experience, and augmented by the advice of fourteen collaborators, Cultural Resource Management explains what “CRM archaeologists” do, and explores the public policy, ethical, and pragmatic implications of doing it for a living.

In a snapshot of 21st century archaeological resource management as a global enterprise, these 25 contributors show the range of activities, issues, and solutions undertaken by contemporary managers of heritage sites around the world. They show how the linkages between global archaeology and funding organizations, national policies, practices, and ideologies, and local populations and their cultural and economic interests foster complexity of the issues at all levels. Case materials from five continents introduce common themes of archaeologist relations with descendant groups, public outreach, national/local relationships, and data and site preservation. Sponsored by the World Archaeological Congress.

Cultural resource management (CRM) involves research, legislation, and education related to the conservation, protection, and interpretation of historic and prehistoric archaeological resources. Kerber's work is divided into four major categories of discussion: theoretical and interpretive frameworks, research methodology, legislation and compliance, and creative protection strategies. The only volume on CRM in Northeastern America since Spiess's Conservation Archaeology in 1978, its contributors are all major participants in archaeology in the Northeast, which includes the six New England states and New York. Because the volume presents successful models and practical advice concerning CRM, it is relevant to regions other than the Northeast and can be helpful in providing a comparative framework for evaluating programs elsewhere in the United States.

This innovative collection of essays from an international range of contributors describes various means of preserving, protecting and presenting vital cultural resources within the context of economic development, competing claims of "ownership" of particular cultural resources, modern uses of structures and space, and other aspects of late twentieth-century life.

By most estimates, as much as 90 percent of the archaeology done in the United States today is carried out in the field of cultural resource management. The contributors hope that this book will serve as an impetus in American archaeology for dialogue and debate on how to make CRM projects and programs yield both better archaeology and better public policy.