Booknotes
by Arthur Spiess

    This Booknote is on Cultural Resource Archaeology by Thomas W. Newmann and Robert M. Sanford. The book was published by Altimira
Press 2001, and is available in paperback for $24.95. You can call 1-800-462-6420 for more information. This paperback book is an introduction to the process of doing cultural resource management (CRM) or contract archaeology. It is written for the advanced undergraduate or graduate student in a CRM course, but it would be useful for any amateur or professional archaeologist who is not familiar with the subject. Throughout the book the authors provide an interesting historical perspective, drawing much of modern cultural resources management archaeology practice from lessons learned ( often lessons learned how not to do it) during WPA archaeology of the 1930?s. There is, thus, a substantial history of archaeology contribution in this book. The book is in seven chapters with a glossary, appendices and index, and approximately 240 pages long. The first chapter provides background and history, again tracing modern cultural resources management of government archaeology to history beginning in the 1930?s. Chapter 2 is an overview of cultural resources management laws and guidelines, mostly at the Federal level with reference to some variability among the states. Chapter 3 discusses how to prepare background for CRM archaeology projects. Chapters 4, 5, and 6 each address the Phase I, Phase II, and Phase III stages of archaeological work, respectively, with Phase III archaeology being the most extensive excavation. And Chapter 7 deals with the production of archaeological reports. Appendix A is a handy reproduction of Federal regulations and guidelines, and Appendix B is a glossary. Overall, the book would be quite useful as an introduction to CRM. If I were teaching a cultural resources management course I would assign it and then also assign particular case studies for variety. Mostly it is clearly and simply written, but Chapter 2 on laws and regulations was pretty hard to follow, even for this reviewer who is familiar with the subject (Upon reflection, I don?t know whether it is possible to write a clear simple introduction to these laws and regulations). Scattered throughout the text are occasional pages of examples usually entitled ?What We Learned From This? where the authors present an experience of theirs that helped them learn what or what not to do in cultural resources management archaeology. Some of these anecdotes were useful, and some of them left me perplexed. By the way, the second author, Rob Sanford, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Southern Maine and the Department of Geography and Anthropology. It is nice to have Rob in Maine, and we all hope he can use some of his experience in teaching cultural resources management archaeology.