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===Definition=== | |||
Cultural resource management (CRM) decides what sites need saving, and preserves significant information about the past when sites cannot be saved. | |||
===Description=== | |||
CRM is the applied branch of archaeology and heritage practice, and in most countries it is where the majority of professional archaeologists actually work. It exists because development and preservation conflict: roads, pipelines, housing and dams are built through landscapes that contain archaeological deposits, standing structures, burial grounds and places of continuing cultural significance, and some mechanism is required to decide which of those may be destroyed and on what terms. | |||
In the United States the legal framework is chiefly the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Its Section 106 requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties and to consult with State Historic Preservation Officers, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and other interested parties.<ref>[https://www.achp.gov/Protecting-Historic-Properties/Section_106_Archaeology_Guidance Section 106 Archaeology Guidance], Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.</ref> The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (1979) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) supply further obligations. Comparable regimes exist elsewhere — for example, planning-condition archaeology in the United Kingdom. | |||
The characteristic sequence is survey, evaluation of significance, and then either avoidance or '''mitigation''' — excavation and recording in advance of destruction, on the principle that if the site cannot be kept, the information in it can be. This is sometimes called preservation by record, and it is a compromise the field argues about continuously, since a recorded site is destroyed nonetheless and the record is only as good as the questions its excavators thought to ask. | |||
===Grey Literature and Access=== | |||
Because CRM work is commissioned rather than curiosity-driven, most of its output takes the form of unpublished technical reports filed with regulators — the field's "grey literature." This is a very large body of primary data that is difficult to find, rarely synthesised and often effectively lost, which is a preservation problem of its own. | |||
===Digital Cultural Resources=== | |||
The same questions now apply to material that was never physical. Websites, forums, games, social platforms and file formats are cultural deposits with the same properties CRM was designed for: they are significant, they are threatened by ordinary commercial decisions rather than by malice, and once gone they cannot be recovered. | |||
Jason Scott's work is the clearest example of CRM practice applied to this material. Through textfiles.com, the documentary ''BBS: The Documentary'', the Archive Team volunteer effort and his work at the Internet Archive, Scott has organised emergency preservation of platforms scheduled for shutdown — GeoCities, Friendster, Google Video and many others — on exactly the mitigation logic: the site is going to be destroyed, so record it before it is. | |||
The differences are instructive. There is no Section 106 for a server; no consultation requirement, no evaluation of significance, and no obligation on the owner to permit recording. The decision to destroy is a routine business one, the notice period is short or absent, and the work is done by volunteers without legal standing. Formal heritage protection for digital material remains far behind the practice. | |||
===Related Reading=== | |||
* [[Russ Bernard]] | |||
* [[Persistent Paleontology]] | |||
* [[Future Runoff]] | |||
* [[Traditional Anthropology]] | |||
===References=== | |||
<references/> | |||
[[Category:Traditional Anthropology]] | [[Category:Traditional Anthropology]] | ||
[[Category:Digital Anthropology]] | |||
Latest revision as of 12:58, 25 August 2026
Definition
Cultural resource management (CRM) decides what sites need saving, and preserves significant information about the past when sites cannot be saved.
Description
CRM is the applied branch of archaeology and heritage practice, and in most countries it is where the majority of professional archaeologists actually work. It exists because development and preservation conflict: roads, pipelines, housing and dams are built through landscapes that contain archaeological deposits, standing structures, burial grounds and places of continuing cultural significance, and some mechanism is required to decide which of those may be destroyed and on what terms.
In the United States the legal framework is chiefly the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. Its Section 106 requires federal agencies to take into account the effects of their undertakings on historic properties and to consult with State Historic Preservation Officers, Tribal Historic Preservation Officers and other interested parties.[1] The Archaeological Resources Protection Act (1979) and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990) supply further obligations. Comparable regimes exist elsewhere — for example, planning-condition archaeology in the United Kingdom.
The characteristic sequence is survey, evaluation of significance, and then either avoidance or mitigation — excavation and recording in advance of destruction, on the principle that if the site cannot be kept, the information in it can be. This is sometimes called preservation by record, and it is a compromise the field argues about continuously, since a recorded site is destroyed nonetheless and the record is only as good as the questions its excavators thought to ask.
Grey Literature and Access
Because CRM work is commissioned rather than curiosity-driven, most of its output takes the form of unpublished technical reports filed with regulators — the field's "grey literature." This is a very large body of primary data that is difficult to find, rarely synthesised and often effectively lost, which is a preservation problem of its own.
Digital Cultural Resources
The same questions now apply to material that was never physical. Websites, forums, games, social platforms and file formats are cultural deposits with the same properties CRM was designed for: they are significant, they are threatened by ordinary commercial decisions rather than by malice, and once gone they cannot be recovered.
Jason Scott's work is the clearest example of CRM practice applied to this material. Through textfiles.com, the documentary BBS: The Documentary, the Archive Team volunteer effort and his work at the Internet Archive, Scott has organised emergency preservation of platforms scheduled for shutdown — GeoCities, Friendster, Google Video and many others — on exactly the mitigation logic: the site is going to be destroyed, so record it before it is.
The differences are instructive. There is no Section 106 for a server; no consultation requirement, no evaluation of significance, and no obligation on the owner to permit recording. The decision to destroy is a routine business one, the notice period is short or absent, and the work is done by volunteers without legal standing. Formal heritage protection for digital material remains far behind the practice.
Related Reading
References
- ↑ Section 106 Archaeology Guidance, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
