Monthly Archives: February 2013


Speeding Up the Experiential Learning Process

“Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.” Franklin P. Jones How do you know when you’ve hit the “floor” of an Archaic Native American pithouse? How do you keep from digging right through the floor and losing the original context of any artifacts imbedded in […]

Archaeology books are coming from blogs these days

Personal Research: Keeping CRMers Sane Since 1966

The explosion of cultural resource management, heritage conservation, and historic preservation since the 1960s has resulted in a deluge of information on human pasts. Much of this information lies in the various technical reports written by companies around the world. This “grey literature” represents a database much larger than the […]


CRM Report Writing Tips

Here’s a excerpt from my upcoming book on Small Archaeology Project Management. Technical report writing for cultural resource management, historic preservation, and heritage conservation is rarely taught in school. Oftentimes, we are left to fend for ourselves and have to write technical reports without any supervision or suggestions. Here are […]


Archaeology supervisors: explain what you want your employees to do before they do it

New Arizona SHPO guidelines 2

I got to work, sat down, opened my email, and took a sip of coffee. As I waited for my computer to boot up, I jotted down a short to-do list of tasks I needed to complete that day. Then, I opened my email and took another coffee sip “You’ve […]


Why I wrote a book on small archaeology project management 2

“Things don’t just work out right. We have to make things work out right.” Nido Qubien I got my first job in archaeology in 2004. I was a crew chief working for the Idaho Transportation Department on a project in Lewis County, near Lenore, Idaho. Because I was a grad […]


How to Get a Job in Archaeology, Part 2

Ever since I scored high enough on my ASVAB to qualify for military intelligence, I’ve been a fan of spy movies. I’m a really big fan of the Jason Bourne movies. I love the suspense and, second to killer fight scenes, I really love how the movies build to an […]

Are cultural resource management archaeologists just like Wall Street bankers?