Public archaeology in the United States in the early twenty-fi rst century

In 1968, Salvage Archaeology was declining and CRM was on the horizon. Today CRM is declining and Public Archaeology is on the horizon.

(Moore 2006: 33)

There is no such thing as ‘private archeology’. (McGimsey 1972: 5)

This is an interesting time to be writing about ‘public archaeology’ in the United States. The meaning and scope of the term are in fl ux, driven by practitioners and a wide variety of projects and rhetoric. As the quote by Lawrence Moore suggests, the archaeological landscape is changing. What exactly is on the horizon, however, remains to be seen. As Charles McGimsey strongly argued several decades ago, archaeologists who think they can work without responsibility to the public are fooling themselves.