Sep 2, 2026 · 55 min · 11 segments
Description: In this episode, Heather, Andrew, and Bill talk about how archaeologists can use their skills to help communities conserve the sites they value. From networking with archivists to…
Bill WhiteHostHeatherHost
Andrew KinkellaHost
We've had a couple of conversations about changes to the laws in the last couple of days.
And one of the things that I wanted, I've written a blog post about this, but I also wanted folks to remember that We started this podcast and most of us do archaeology because we really wanted to help people.
And I think that everyone who does cultural resources is in a unique space because we're the ones who are like the go-betweens between actually identifying resources, evaluating significance and connecting the significance to different contexts and people, but also looking at integrity.
But we get a view that most other people don't get because we're the ones who are out there doing the work.
But we work for communities and, you know, whether we're following the law or whether we're working for consultants, what we're actually doing is trying to make those decisions for the benefit of the state government, right? The State Historic Preservation Office is supposed to, is tasked with doing a statewide survey of historic properties and it's cultural resources folks that go out and do it.
But in the conversations about how things are going to change with Section 1, you know, just in general, like what this could possibly mean, I started to think, you know, this whole thing started off from community advocacy and from, you know, people who were architectural historians and archaeologists who had been working for government agencies like They were the ones who pushed to have these regulations codified into law.
And regardless of what happens to the Section 106 process, those laws still stand.
They haven't negated the National Historic Preservation Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.
And so I thought that today we would do a little bit of conversation about some things that we can do to really help further the historic preservation process.
Because folks who have done cultural resources long enough know that our job is really to just identify and evaluate potentially eligible historic properties or in the state of California, historical resources, right? And our job is not necessarily to save sites, but a lot of times our work does go towards preserving sites.
And I'd say more often than not, we're documenting stuff before it gets ripped by a backhoe, right? Or we're documenting stuff that has been damaged by a hurricane or a forest fire or something like that, right? So a lot of times we're showing up in the aftermath or beforehand.
But all of us are members of communities where there are all different kinds of historical conservation projects going on, a lot of environmental science and citizen activism projects going on.
And we also work with agency professionals that are their own go-between between federal and state agencies and communities.
And so in the first part here, I just want to talk about some of the things that we can do as cultural resources folks to to help preservation, even though a lot of times our job doesn't lead into that.
One of the first things that I would say is to make connections with historic preservation organizations and museums that are in your local area.
As someone who does historical archeology in the United States, my job at the CRM companies was always to you know, look at historic artifacts to do archaeological fieldwork, but also to write the historical contexts.
So I really needed to rely on people at like archives, special collections at university, libraries, and local history museums to get the kind of resources I needed, right? And there's a couple of things, you know, a lot of times these kind of organizations are quite finicky.
In the case of special collections at university libraries, they're loaded with tons of stuff.
However, it's not always there at the actual library on campus, or it's not normally seen by folks.
We've had a couple of conversations about changes to the laws in the last couple of days.
And one of the things that I wanted, I've written a blog post about this, but I also wanted folks to remember that We started this podcast and most of us do archaeology because we really wanted to help people.
And I think that everyone who does cultural resources is in a unique space because we're the ones who are like the go-betweens between actually identifying resources, evaluating significance and connecting the significance to different contexts and people, but also looking at integrity.
But we get a view that most other people don't get because we're the ones who are out there doing the work.
But we work for communities and, you know, whether we're following the law or whether we're working for consultants, what we're actually doing is trying to make those decisions for the benefit of the state government, right? The State Historic Preservation Office is supposed to, is tasked with doing a statewide survey of historic properties and it's cultural resources folks that go out and do it.
But in the conversations about how things are going to change with Section 1, you know, just in general, like what this could possibly mean, I started to think, you know, this whole thing started off from community advocacy and from, you know, people who were architectural historians and archaeologists who had been working for government agencies like They were the ones who pushed to have these regulations codified into law.
And regardless of what happens to the Section 106 process, those laws still stand.
They haven't negated the National Historic Preservation Act or the National Environmental Policy Act.
And so I thought that today we would do a little bit of conversation about some things that we can do to really help further the historic preservation process.
Because folks who have done cultural resources long enough know that our job is really to just identify and evaluate potentially eligible historic properties or in the state of California, historical resources, right? And our job is not necessarily to save sites, but a lot of times our work does go towards preserving sites.
And I'd say more often than not, we're documenting stuff before it gets ripped by a backhoe, right? Or we're documenting stuff that has been damaged by a hurricane or a forest fire or something like that, right? So a lot of times we're showing up in the aftermath or beforehand.
But all of us are members of communities where there are all different kinds of historical conservation projects going on, a lot of environmental science and citizen activism projects going on.
And we also work with agency professionals that are their own go-between between federal and state agencies and communities.
And so in the first part here, I just want to talk about some of the things that we can do as cultural resources folks to to help preservation, even though a lot of times our job doesn't lead into that.
One of the first things that I would say is to make connections with historic preservation organizations and museums that are in your local area.
As someone who does historical archeology in the United States, my job at the CRM companies was always to you know, look at historic artifacts to do archaeological fieldwork, but also to write the historical contexts.
So I really needed to rely on people at like archives, special collections at university, libraries, and local history museums to get the kind of resources I needed, right? And there's a couple of things, you know, a lot of times these kind of organizations are quite finicky.
In the case of special collections at university libraries, they're loaded with tons of stuff.
However, it's not always there at the actual library on campus, or it's not normally seen by folks.
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