Surveying the Field: Finding Common Cause in the Three Archaeologies

The three major employers of archaeologists in the US--the academy, the government, and cultural resource management (CRM) firms--agree on very few things. Archaeologists in each of these three groups have become increasingly specialized in particular practices: Federal, state, and tribal archaeologists specialize in planning and reviewing archaeological matters, CRM archaeologists are great at doing archaeology, and the academy considers that it is far better at thinking about archaeology and training students than the other two groups. We do not communicate nearly enough across these boundaries and consequently our planning, doing, and training archaeology suffer. I want to explore some of the ways in which we might find common cause in the future, and to consider ways in which the three archaeologies might benefit from drawing upon each others strengths.