THE CRISIS IN AMERICAN ARCHEOLOGY AND THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

Francis A. -Riddell

Cultural Resources Section

State Department of Parks and Recreation

It is no secret that American archeology is at a crisis stage
due to losses taking place at an expanding rate by the development

of lands previously undeveloped or only lightly used. Reference is
made here to urban expansion and renewal, suburban sprawl,

agricultural development, water and power development, expanded
park and recreation facilities, increased timber cutting and
reforestation, and many other such land-modifying activities.

These changes in our landscape are directly due to a very heavy

increase in population as well as to technological advances in all
aspects of our society. There are more people wanting and needing
more things than ever before.

One of the major contributors to changes in California are the
various public agencies -- federal, state and local. The projects
fostered by public agencies, water development for example, set the
stage for a multipicity of subsidiary developments. When water
is made available to a region, development (agricultural and/or
urban) soon follows. This is not to categorically state that

such development is necessarily bad. It is to point out, however,

that such development often damages or destroys cultural resources;
that is, archeologic and historic values. The rate and proportion
of this loss has passed the alarming stage and has entered into
the area of a catastrophy The fact that it is not commonly

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recognized as a problem by the public does not lessen the fact

that we have reached a catastrophic level as regards our historic
and prehistoric patrimony.

What is being done at the state level to ameliorate this

condition? In terms of what was done by the state ten or fifteen
years ago the present state program is outstanding. Expenditure
on archeology for the past ten years by state agencies has

averaged better than $100,000.00 a year, an amount far beyond any
previous expenditure for archeology in California for a similar
period of time. It would seem then that the State of California
had an effective, comprehensive statewide archeological program.
Involved were the big land manipulating agencies -- Highways,

Water Resources and Parks. What more could one want? All was well
in the archeological world, at least as regards the state

government and its concern for archeologic and historic resources.
Those sites within project rights-of-way were found in advance of
construction and were eligible for salvage excavation. Yet, as
rosy as the picture seemed, there were inherent flaws in the

state program that prevented the kind of work which would meet

the commonly-held standards for archeology. This is not to imply
that all of the projects fell short of professional standards.
Rather it is to say that certain statutory and bureaucratic

restrictions prevailed which would not allow, or at least not

financially support, certain phases of a project. For example,
Highways maight fully subsidize field excavation but could not

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provide funds for the initial surveys, for the laboratory work or
for the write-up and publication. Without survey funds the

endangered sites often were not discovered, thus lost to the

heavy equipment used in road construction. Volunteer surveys

were solicited but in some regions of the state the appeal was
ignored.

If surveys were made and sites found salvage costs were
determined and excavations were carried out. In the case of
Highway projects, however, this was the end of the line.

No state funds, that is, Highways' money, could be used to transport

the collections to the laboratory for cleaning, repairing, preserving,
cataloguing and storing. Further, as just noted, if a report were
to be prepared it had to be done gratis by those who did the
field work.

The result of such an imbalanced program of Highway salvage

was the loss of an untold numner of sites which remained undetected
because of no provision for funding surveys. Another result was
the amassing of great collections of artifacts and data which
grew cold when the investigators could not spare the free time
to prepare a manuscript for publication. Then, too, funds for
laboratory tests such as C14, soils, palynology, osteology,

obsidian hydration, shell identification and microanalysis, and
the like, were not funded by the Highways' program. The

administration of this particular program was additionally

complicated by the morass of bureaucratic red tape, some of which
was necessary but a lot of which only seemed necessary.

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The Highway program in archeology, therefore, has done

little to foster a fully integrated and coordinated program in

archeology for California as a whole. In fact, it has served as
a divisive wedge within the archeological community. Until

statutory changes are made it would appear that it will continue
to be controversial and difficult to manage.

The program of salvage archeology fostered by the State

Department of Water Resources had none of the statutory restrictions
that Highways had, thus came close to being a perfect program.

Funds were available for all phases of archeology, from surveys
through publication. This is in marked contrast to the Highway
program. However, in actual funding Water Resources was much

less generous. It was ironic that the archeologist had a greater
latitude and freedom to do a complete job, but with less money
with which to do it. This is accentuated when one takes into
account the fact that in a reservoir there may be several

hundred sites, and the particular highway segment only one or

two, seldom more. The result of this kind of ratio was that in
most water project areas an inadequate archeological sample was
gotten. As regards funding, it early became quite clear that

the reason any archeology was allowed was due to the fact that

it was a requirement in order for the State to receive a federal
power permit to generate and sell power.

The third state agency which has been concerned with
archeology is the Department of Parks and Recreation.

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By statute -it has been permitted to administer programs for other
state agencies, as well as for itself. At one time three
archeological positions were filled, but one has now been

dropped. Up until a few years ago these positions were paid by
reimbursable funds from water projects. Parks had little more
than a token concern for archeology, although on the books

the archeologists were State Park Archeologists. At present,
however, the positions are paid out of the general fund and
the personnel are primarily concerned with Parks archeology.

At present, Water Resources has nearly completed their construction
program so there is no longer a need for archeology. The Highway
salvage program is now managed by the Society for California
Archeology rather than by Parks as in the past.

With the reduction of Water Resource archeology and the
elimination of the Highway program, Parks' archeologists have
begun to bring some kind of order out of a chaotic condition

stemming from years of limited attention to the archeological
resources of the Park System. However, the problem with the

Park program is, as you might guess, inadequate funds. At the

present time archeology has very low budget priority. For this
reason the state agency holding the greatest amount of land in
California is inadequately staffed and funded to manage and
protect the hundreds of archeological sites throughout the

state within its system.  There is no physical way by which the
archeological team of two men can keep up with the workload

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generated by the planning and development teams. In fact, it is
not possible to keep abreast of activities of the operations
staff which include the rangers in the field.

A training program for the rangers at their academy includes
material on cultural resources, but the positive results of this
program have yet to be seen, at least in any effective way.

Collecting and other misuse of the archeological resources by
field personnel are documented.

Whereas the outlook given here for Highways, Water Resources
and Parks has been bleak it is worse in those agencies which have
no staff archeologists at all. Forestry has constructed

facilities on sites, and their field personnel have about the

same concern for archeological resources as do the Park personnel.
The system of fire trails and eu"ergency fire breaks has done

incalculable damage to archeological sites throughout California.

Fish and game personnel in the field share the same general
attitude toward California's archeological resources as do Park
Rangers and Forest Rangers. Fish and Game installations, too,
are documented as being built on irreplaceable archeological

sites. Campuses of the University, including Davis, Santa Barbara
and Berkeley, have built upon and destroyed archeological sites.
The one destroyed at Davis now accomodates a building which

houses the department of anthropology. Camarillo State Hospital
was built at the expense of one large site. And so it goes!

It is quite clear that the State of California is not staffed

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to manage and protect those sites it owns. Further, it also seems
quite clear that it really doesn't much give a damn, either.

Now before one gets overly exercised about the rotten state
of affairs in state government it might be well to analyze the
situation. The lack of any great concern for archeological

resources in state government is nothing more than a mirror image
of the lack of concern for it by the taxpayer. Everyone, or

nearly everyone, is captivated by archeology+-- until it comes

time to pay for it. Our agency heads merely reflect a widespread
attitude toward archeology. To castigate the head of Highways or
Water Resources, or other agency heads, is generally meaningless.
The basic fact is that only when the people of California want
to support archeology through strong legislation will we see
an effective state program.

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