Abstract
This chapter discusses the realities of life as “commercial” cultural resource management (CRM) archaeologists. The authors compare and contrast their experiences with different projects, and generally describe what “works” and what does not in the present-day archaeological “marketplace.” Drawing from their varied professional experiences, the authors highlight those aspects of archaeological work that tend to go smoothly – and also where problems arise. This includes discussion of who decides how archaeological work is designed, and how much flexibility there is in the cost, time frame, and approach of commercial archaeological fieldwork in relation to different sizes and scales of project. The place of different legal and management frameworks used in archeology is considered, as is the role of different types and size of organization, including in particular the place of freelance archaeological contractors.
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Acknowledgements
Thanks are due to Reuben Thorpe and Helen Wickstead for their direct contributions to this paper and to Paul Blinkhorn, Duncan Brown, Adrian Chadwick, Colin Merrony, Shaun Rylands, to my colleagues on the council of RESCUE: The British Archaeological Trust and to others who must remain anonymous for more general discussions of the subjects covered in this paper. The views and opinions expressed in the paper are entirely my own as are any errors and inaccuracies.
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Cumberpatch, C., Roberts, H.M. (2011). Life in the Archaeological Marketplace. In: Rockman, M., Flatman, J. (eds) Archaeology in Society. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9881-1_2
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