Ned has listed some real problems with CRM and its impact on archaeology.
However, many others, like Iain Stuart, have pointed out advantages.
Here's another take. Like Ned, I've been in and around CRM since its
beginning. I think it safe to say I owe my career to it.
 
Let's look at te Virginia case: Before CRM we had ONLY the salvage
archaeology done by the Archaeological Society of Virginia and some large,
reasonably well-funded research projects at Williamsburg, the Governors
Land near Jamestown (NEH), the Yorktown Shipwreck project (NEH), and
Kingsmill (voluntary CRM by Anheuser Busch). Most of the ASV projects were
competent, but not theoretically or methodologically enlightened weekend
"digs." The historical archaeological projects focused entirely on the
Williamsburg-Jamestown axis.
 
CRM came to Virginia in style in 1978 with the creation of eight regional
preservation offices. Over the past 20 years CRM has led directly or
indirectly to identification of 10s of thousands of sites throughout the
state. Evaluations have been done of thousands of these. Excavations,
usually with decent research orientation and results have ben undertaken
on whole regional settlement systems in prehistoric periods about which we
previously knew zilch. Historic sites have included schools, CCC camps,
piedmont farmsteads, free black farms, women-owned farms, tar kilns, poor
houses, etc. etc. etc. We have an excellent comparative study base of
19th-c. sites in Virginia, and without CRM I wager the 19th c. would still
be unknown in this state, excepet, perhaps, in Alexandria.
 
What CRM did was provide money, staffs, equipment and continuity of
research for universities and professional engineering firms. Sure, some
of the more interesting projects have not been CRM projects, but it was
CRM that found them, or provided a system whereby their importance could
be assessed. And CRM made archaeologists and trained students or crews
available.
 
I dislike DOING CRM intensely, because I dislike bureacratized,
politicized game-playing in the name of science and humanity. But CRM
forced archaeologists off the beaten path and gave them resources never
before available. Sure, sometimes those resources have been squandered,
but our knowledge has grown exponentially, and in directions that would
not have been followed except that a highway widening headed that way.
 
Ned, next time you go to a professional meeting like the SHA, look at how
many papers are being given by archaeologists supported in whole or in
part by CRM, whether they come from an academic institution or a
professional or governmental organization. It's true we have lost the
ability and, perhaps, the will to take on those gallant salvage projects
like you used to do back in the 60s here in Va., but then I was able to
spend three years working on the "salvage" of Jordan's Journey with
considerable help from the state and from grants and gifts, as well as
volunteers from ASV and elsewhere. I and my crew only existed because of
CRM. Our equipment, staff and expertise all came from CRM.
 
Someday somebody needs to write a real assessment of the impact of CRM on
our knowledge about the past. I am convinced it has been revolutionary.
Not becuase so much MORE archaeology has been done, but because so much
DIFFERENT archaeology has been done than was done before.
 
Dan Mouer
Virginia Commonwealth University
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http://www.freedomnet.com/~dmouer/homepage.htm