How many African American skeletons are being kept in museums across the United States? How many of these are from persons who sold their bodies to science? How many are from archaeological sites? How many were procured at some distant time in the past when antiquarians, medical schools, and archaeologists […]
The pain was so great, it took me a few days to digest what happened last week before I could write. The events that went down in Charlottesville have been on many minds. That tends to happen when a massive neo-Nazi and Klu Klux Klan rally disguised as a conservative […]
(This is the second in a two-part series on how cultural resource management professionals can further historic preservation by purchasing properties with historical buildings or archaeological sites. You can read Part I here.) I started writing these two posts because, as usual, a fellow cultural resource management archaeologist swiftly dismissed my […]
(This is the first in a two-part series on how cultural resource management professionals can further historic preservation by purchasing properties with historical buildings or archaeological sites.) From its conception, property ownership has always been integral to historic preservation in the United States. The most influential historic preservation groups in […]
As I complete my PhD studies at the University of Arizona, I’ve been offered a position in a much larger Western city (not Phoenix, thank god). My wife, kids, and I are contemplating taking the job and moving but, as with every move where there’s kids involved, we’re doing what […]
Okay. I just watched the video of the “CRM in the Age of Trump” webinar hosted by the American Cultural Resources Association (ACRA) and hearing what I already know was shocking (HINT: Conservatives are probably going to do their best to roll back cultural resource management [CRM] regulations). Since I’ve […]
In downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia there’s a coffee shop—Hyperion Coffee—at the corner of William and Princess Anne Streets. I used to go there often on the weekends when I worked at George Washington’s Ferry Farm. Fredvegas is hot in summer, but I still hung on to the tradition of drinking a […]
Cultural resource management archaeologists: Want to hear something that will make your blood boil? Remember that grave-robbing, site-looting show “Nazi War Diggers”? It’s baaaaaack. The most recent rendition is called “Battlefield Recovery” and airs on the UK’s Channel 5. More digging skeletons out of context. More unnecessary burial excavations. More […]
Whenever I think about how we can transform cultural resource management into a mélange of applied anthropology and heritage conservation that can actually change society, I always think about the candelabra. I remember, as a boy, seeing beautiful candelabras in church around Christmastime and they always filled me with awe. […]
For a person who is building a career based on the study of human beings, I have to confess: I really don’t like other people. The main problem with other people is they aren’t me. They have their own lives, thoughts, experiences, and perspectives that differ with the way I […]
