A Voice for Archeology

Throughout its history, the Arkansas Archeological Survey has played an important role in giving a voice to archeology at both state and national levels—especially with regard to the ongoing destruction of the archeological record and the need for public involvement as a major element of any remedy.

Our founders, Charles R. McGimsey III (the Survey’s first Director) and Hester A. Davis (Arkansas’s first State Archeologist) initiated this legacy with a series of key writings. The more extensive works include Public Archeology (McGimsey, 1972), The Management of Archeological Resources (McGimsey and Davis, editors, 1977), and CRM on CRM (McGimsey, 2004).

Equally important, if not more so, are four shorter treatments—two booklets and two magazine articles—that we include as part of our 50 Moments in Survey History web series. Each is treated as a separate “moment” in view of their serial release, but together they represent a trajectory of thinking about the need to preserve our nation’s heritage resources and ideas for the most effective ways to address that need. We present them here so readers can retrace the historical roots of public archeology and cultural resource management debates in American archeology, and we provide links to download PDF copies of both out-of-print booklets.

The following “50 Moments” essays are presented in this order, each one discussing a significant publication and its impact:

References Cited

McGimsey, Charles R.

            1972 Public Archeology (Seminar Press, New York)

            2004 CRM on CRM: Charles R. McGimsey III on Cultural Resource Management. Arkansas Archeological Survey Research Series No. 61. Fayetteville, AR.

McGimsey, Charles R., and Hester A. Davis (editors)

            1977 The Management of Archeological Resources: The Airlie House Report. Special Publication of the Society for American Archaeology.