ABSTRACT
The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) has revolutionized archaeology in the Southeast and over the entire country. Prior to enforcement of the NHPA, large and destructive projects were funded with pennies, and archaeologists and administrators had to make choices of what to save and what to ignore. Prior to the NHPA, archaeology in the Southeast was, for the most part, practiced by part-time researchers whose primary role remained as academics or museum curators. South-eastern Wildlife Service's was established in Georgia in the late 1970s, and the staff from that firm organized South-eastern Archaeological Services a short time later. Transportation-related projects have contributed meaningful research on all periods of south-eastern prehistory and history in recent years, and have relied more on private-sector firms to conduct their projects. Society of Professional Archeologists (SOPA) became the Register of Professional Archaeologists in 1999, which today represents a significant percentage of cultural resource management (CRM) specialists and a growing number of archaeologists in academic settings.
