The Central Archaeology Group Inc. (CAGI)

Joseph Schuldenrein-Principal and President of Geoarcheology Research Associates. In Part I of this two-part series on geoarchaeology in cultural resource management (CRM) that appeared in the November issue of The SAA Archaeological Record, the general concepts and principles of geoarchaeology were discussed, and fieldwork and sampling were introduced. In this final article, a detailed assessment of geoarchaeology’s utility for compliance work in CRM is provided. Geoarchaeology can and should be integrated in each phase of the compliance process. Reference here is made to the discovery/survey (Phase I), testing (Phase II), and data recovery (Phase III) stages of an undertaking. Withinthese broad parameters, the degree to which earth science approaches are applied varies by specific Scopes of Work (SOW), regulatory requirements (federal, state, and municipal), and even by contractor. In this brief summary, I touch on some of the more critical elements of geoarchaeological application a...

Joseph Schuldenrein-Principal Archeologist and President of Geoarcheology Research Associates. Since the early 1970s, the trajectories of geoarchaeology and cultural resource management (CRM)have followed contemporaneous if somewhat independent courses. As a widely applied strategy, geoarchaeology emerged in the wake of the “New Archaeology.” It was a logical vehicle for incorporating scientific methods to a theoretical orientation that emphasized human ecology. Perhaps the signature work that placed the discipline on the academic “archaeological map” was Karl Butzer’s second edition of Environment and Archaeology: An Ecological Approach to Prehistory (1971). At about the same time, the expansive reach of the National Historic Preservation Act (1966) mandated archaeological investigations across landscapes, environments, and contexts heretofore unanticipated across the U.S. In hindsight, geoarchaeology’s landscape perspective and the preservation ethic would appear to be natural allies...