2014 Blogging Archaeology eBook

This essay is a reflection on what I have learned about the role ofblogging as a Cultural Resource Management (CRM) professional, as ablogger, and as a reader of other blogs. It should also be noted that, as Iwork in the United States, and the relationship between CRM (whether itis called “heritage management”, “public archaeology”, “contractarchaeology” or any other name in your locale) and academicarchaeology varies from country to country. So, what I write here isspecific to the United States, and is informed by my own experiences inthe western United States. In other words, your mileage may vary. Otherperspectives are available from CRM bloggers, and I recommendDoug’s Archaeology (http://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/ lxxxi ) andthe DIGTECH blogs (http://www.digtech-llc.com/blog/ lxxxii ) as beingespecially worthwhile.The ValueIt will come as no surprise to anybody that archaeology ismisrepresented in the general media. What is, perhaps, less wellunderstood is that archaeologists do as much to misrepresent our field asdo television and radio producers or print media writers and editors. Ifone focuses on mass-media outlets where archaeologists discuss theirwork, one walks away with the impression that: all archaeologists work inuniversities or museums; that we teach classes most of the year andperform fieldwork only during summers or while on sabbatical; that wededicate our time to “digs”; and focus on individual archaeological sites(usually ones with huge temples and impressive statuary) for years ordecades at a time. This is true whether the archaeology is beingdiscussed on a respected radio news show (All Things Considered 2008;Talk of the Nation 2008), larger news papers and networks (Germaine2008), on an internet comedy site (Evans and Levine 2014), or even theNational Science Foundation (National Science Foundation n.d.)(though this makes sense for the NSF, as it primarily funds academicresearch). And, while archaeologists who are interviewed by, or write for,media outlets stress that archaeology is not the action-packed fielddepicted in adventure films, the association of archaeology with “faraway” and exotic locales is nonetheless typically played up.Blogging Archaeology Page 21