FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
ABOUT ARCHAEOLOGY
with Special Reference to Cultural Resource Management (CRM)
and Other Good Laws often Maladministered
by Public Agencies

Okay, so what the hell is contract archaeology? Do you take contracts to bury people you don't like or what?

Uh, not exactly, though sometimes you wish you could. Actually, "contract" refers to the fact that you work under a contract with some public or private client who needs to have some archaeological work done.

But who NEEDS to have archaeology done? Isn't it just a rich person's hobby?

Actually, lots of people need archaeology these days. Why? The reasons starts with an E: Environmentalism. Or try Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act or Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. Oh, you say you've never heard of them? Well, try to stick a housing development or a golf course in a wetland, or drill an oil well on federal land, and you will. See, Congress in its wisdom has decided that before certain development projects screw up an area too badly, the area ought to be looked at to see if the project will also screw up anything of historic or even prehistoric value. Actually, that's not a bad idea, because over the last century or so we've managed to bulldoze, pave, loot, and otherwise destroy thousands of archaeological sites that could have told us about our own history and the history and prehistory of the people who lived in this land before us. So it's really not a hell of a lot to ask a developer, whether that person is a private entrepreneur, on the one hand, or a civil servant, on the other, to set aside a few thousands of the millions the project will probably cost to see what's there-that won't be there any more.

Are contract archaeologists at universities, then?

It started out that way, in the early 1970s, but over time most contract archaeologists have established their own companies in the field of cultural resource management, which is government-speak for the whole business of satisfying federal requirements with regard to archaeology and history. The problem with universities is that most just aren't set up to function in the private sector-they have cumbersome and inefficient bureaucracies that make quick response to a client's demands difficult if not impossible. In contract archaeology (or CRM) it is often ordeal enough to have to deal with a top-heavy bureaucracy like the National Park Service without having to fight on one's home ground! So today, believe it or not, most archaeologists in this country don't work in universities at all. And that's the best kept secret in archaeology today.

Would I be right in assuming that not all your clients are happy to have to hire an archaeologist to do their projects?

That's an understatement. The big oil companies and other corporations who've been around for a while are used to the permitting process and working with them is usually trouble-free and even pleasurable. Government agencies also usually accept the need to do archaeology, but the problem is that often more than one public agency gets involved, which means squabbling and confusion among bureaucrats. The National Park Service (NPS) is in overall control of the process and if ever there was an agency needing reform, NPS is it. Individual clients, such as someone trying to build a golf course or a subdivision, vary from the willing to the hostile, from the solvent to the insolvent, from the honest to those who eventually end up in jail. Some accept the need to spend money on archaeologists with good grace while others squirm more than a worm on a hook. The problem is often exacerbated by the fact that nobody told them beforehand that they would have to incur this expense-which can run from a few thousand to over a hundred thousand dollars. One day, after they've applied for their permit from the Corps of Engineers and been told everything is in order, a letter from a previously unknown (to them) government office arrives in their mailbox saying, "We consider it likely that there are archaeological sites on this tract of land and recommend an archaeological survey." I'd be pissed, too.

So what do you do in such cases?

Sympathize and try to underbid the competition. Then, if we're successful, we go out and do the work, write up a report and hope to get paid.

But the work is interesting, right?

Depends. My colleagues and I have walked through so many thousands of acres of pine forests in this state that I'll never willingly visit a Christmas tree farm. We've been in pestiferous marshes where the temperature in the shade is over 100 degrees F. and the bugs come in clouds. We've been cursed by hostile landowners, and torn ourselves up on briars and thorns. There are snakes, ticks, and poison ivy. But every so often we find something that's really neat. How often does anyone get to touch an artifact that was made ten thousand years ago by someone who could never have imagined the world today? Someone who lived in a world of huge animals such as mastodons that would soon become extinct? Someone whose ancestors, in the not too distant past, had made the trek across the Bering Strait land bridge to the New World? Or how often does anyone have a chance to excavate the hearth of a mound building society that inhabited this area a thousand years ago and left a broken pot where it was dropped? Most discoveries in archaeology are personal, because they are not grand finds, but simple insights into the way someone long gone lived, a slice of that life, if you will. And those are the discoveries that make the bugs and snakes and heat bearable.

Does your archaeological work influence your writing?

Sure. One of the best things about the archaeology, aside from actually touching the past, is meeting all kinds of people. When you walk up to a house to get permission to walk across the back pasture, you never know who you'll meet. And some of these folks are more interesting than characters any novelist could ever invent. I've been invited in by total strangers, told tragic life stories (without the violins), cursed, asked to look at UFO sites, brought odd-looking artifacts somebody found years before, been regaled with the dirt on the folks on the other side of town---you name it. All grist for the novelist's mill!

What is the name of your company?

Surveys Unlimited Research Associates, Inc. (SURA), of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, founded by Dennis Jones and me in 1986. Yeah, I know, a pretty grandiose title. Well, we didn't know any better then.

So if I got one of those letters saying I have to do archaeology, I should come to you?

Absolutely. We work cheap. Usually. Well, sometimes. Anyway, we'll hold your hand and advise you (that's free), and if you need more, we'll quote you a fee.

I'm an archaeology student and I'd like to work for you during the summer. Are you hiring?

Depends on how much work we have. Send us a resume at P.O. Box 14414, Baton Rouge, LA 70898-4414. We'll file it and pull it out if the need arises. We're more likely to hire somebody with field experience than someone fresh out of class.

Your description of contract archaeology really sucks. Where can I get a job with one of those government agencies?

First, make sure you have at least a B.A. (or equivalent) in anthropology, archaeology, geography, geology, forestry, paleontology, psychology, sociology, fine arts, education, vocational rehab, general studies, Esperanto, social work, law enforcement, theater, speech, English or kineseology. Second, take a Civil Service test and hope the examiners don't think that archaeologists are people who study the behavior of termites. Third, if you are granted an interview, express the belief that companies in the private sector-especially those with contracts you will administer-are slime balls who are ripping off the public. Stress your belief that a good memorandum is one that covers every contingency, beginning with the possibility of the sun's becoming a supernova. As you make the tour of the working area, admire the hive of tidy cubicles and comment that you're glad there aren't any windows because daylight has always distracted you. Ask the department or section head whether, should your work prove satisfactory, you might look to having an assistant in a couple of months. This will please your leader-to-be, who knows that his power derives from how many flunkies he has under him. Further, it demonstrates that you already know the rules of the game and won't be distracting your boss with naïve ideas about how to save the taxpayers money. Be sure to promise that no letter will leave your desk without everyone in the department having had a chance to comment on and correct it. Assure your interviewer(s) that in the event of disagreements about word usage, you will ask for a full meeting of the department to resolve the matter and will be glad to sit on a committee to rewrite the letter if it comes to that. And, finally, ask to see the organization's Mission Statement. If they don't have one, offer to head a committee to write one. You're in!