• What's New?
• About SAA
• Careers, Opportunities,
  & Jobs in Archaeology
• Education
  • Archaeology for the Public
• Government Affairs
  • Repatriation
• Meetings
• Membership
  • Members' Section
• Publications
  • The SAA Press
• Public Relations
• SAA Marketplace

Approaches to the Concept of Archaeological Resources Management

Administration and management of the political, economic, educational, and tourism dimensions of Mexico's archaeological heritage has developed, as we have seen, more or less simultaneously with archaeological research. This fact has contributed to confusion at all levels about their relationship to the discipline of archaeology. Internationally differentiation exists at the philosophical, theoretical, and operational levels, a differentiation Cleere (1989: 1) suggests first appeared in Sweden in 1666. Today Great Britain, the United States, Denmark, and Canada, along with other countries, have separated the two, using terminology such as Archaeological Heritage Management, Cultural Resources Management, Public Archaeology, and Conservation Archaeology, respectively, to describe a focus on management, use, and conservation of our archaeological heritage.

These concepts have developed from pioneering work in the 1960s and 1970s by authors such as McGimpsey (1972), Lipe and Lindsay (1974) McGimpsey and Davis (1977), King (1977), Schiffer and Gumerman (1977), and Cleere (1984, 1989). These early efforts have been summarized brilliantly by Lipe in his "Value and Meaning in Cultural Resources" (1984). In Great Britain significant early contributions are associated with Thompson (1981), Cleere (1984, 1989), Thapar (1984), Lowenthal (1985), and Darvill (1987).

In Denmark the conservation of archaeological heritage has been a priority for some time, and it is included as a branch of the environmental agency (Fredningstyrelsen) where it is grouped with conservation specialties such as wildlife, landscape, and others which separate conservation planning from "pure" research in archaeology, biology, and other fields (Kristiansen 1984: 21). In Canada Parks Canada at the federal level and counterpart agencies at the provincial level are charged with devloping management programs for archaeological sites. In addition there exists the opportunity for private consultants to compete for projects under guidelines or standards imposed by government (Province of British Columbia 1995: 22).

Management of archaeological sites in the United States at the national level is distributed across several agencies including the National Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Corps of Engineers, and Bureau of Indian Affairs, all of which are required to develop plans and programs for management and protection of the archaeological resources present on the lands under their jurisdiction (Department of the Interior 1989: 11). Other agencies such as the Federal Highway Administration and the Department of Defense support official programs by taking responsibility for making sure their activities do not damage archaeological resources. They may do this by hiring their own archaeologists or by hiring private firms to do archaeological survey and salvage (Department of the Interior 1989). The official managment of these resources does not present an obstacle for state level agencies, Indian tribes, nonprofit organizations, universities, and even private firms to dedicate efforts to cultural resources management and the formation of specialists. Sometimes this fragmentation leads to uncertainty in the public mind as to who should be doing what, or to disagreements among the various institutional actors.

The Spanish model or "Madrid model" also envisions a wider role for the public administration of cultural heritage, including arrangements which locate archaeological heritage in a context of private participation, conservation of collective heritage, and professional preparation of specialists (Vasquez Leon 1996: 75). This model is in fact another example of how the practice of archaeological heritage conservation and a modern context which includes both tourism and other forms of private exploitation of historic and archaeological monuments can be the subject of specific legislation (Garcia Fernandez 1984). And this can happen without a loss of control and leadership by professional archaeologists over decision-making affecting the integrity of collective cultural heritage.

In this respect it appears increasingly clear that INAH in Mexico needs to take the responsibility for integrated management of archaeological heritage through a conscious and systematic preparation of its personnel and modernizing its institutional infrastructure. Without abandoning its fundamental pupose of scientific research in the general fields of anthropology, archaeology, and history, INAH needs to create room for the development of a new discipline addressing issues which up until now have been handled in an improvisational manner as a "complementary" activity or as a secondary concern of archaeology. Recent research on the operations of INAH in the field of archaeology reinforce this proposal (Vasquez Leon 1996: 79), although without clarifying how it might be realized, or the components necessary in the Mexican context. At a more general level, as government archaeologists we continue to claim, as has been shown, the realm of archaeology as ours and continue to proclaim ourselves as specialists in the conservation and management of archaeological heritage without this being the case (Rodriquez Garcia 1996: 153).