CURRENT ARCHAEOPOLITICS IN CALIFORNIA
Thomas F.-King
"Archaeopolitics" is a sort of slang term for the frankly
political activities that archaeologists must engage in if they
are to cope with the impact of the modern world on archaeological
resources. This may not be the most auspicious time possible to
summarize archaeopolitical activity in California, since we have
of course recently failed in our first attemp.t to obtain passage of
really significant state archaeological legislation. On the other
hand, it may be well to take a look at what we did, at what
happened -- insofar as this can be discussed in polite company --
and what sorts of archaeopolitical trends can be seen developing
at the present time.
The essential problem requiring archaeopolitical attention
needs no elaboration; archaeological sites continue to be ripped off
at an amazing rate, by large-scale urbanization and its concommitant
patterns of non-urban land use and misuse. The most effective
response to the problem, however, is not entirely agreed upon.
Do we need tighter anti-pothunting laws? Better salvage laws?
Establishment of inviolable preserves? More public involvement?
Or simply more money for archaeological institutions? The obvious
and no doubt correct answer is "all of the above," but priorities
and possibilities are not entirely clear or certain.
One idea, however, that seems to command broad agreement, is
that California archaeology needs to become better coordinated if
72
it is to cope. "Lone-wolf" scholarship is no longer justified in
the context of modern theory, no longer effective in the context of
modern interdisciplinary technology, and no longer responsible in
the context of modern archaeological destruction. This recognition
that coordinated team research must now be the order of the day
is widespread in this country and abroad, but nowhere is the problem
of achievement greater than in California. Here we are, in a huge,
geographically diverse state, with massive problems in the control
of land-use, with at least forty institutions and organizations
actively involved in fieldwork, most of them supporting this
fieldwork on a shoestring or less, and with nothing but the SCA to
promote or facilitate cooperative or concerted action. The diversity
of the archaeological discipline in California is potentially a source
of strength, providing the sort of broad base needed for efficient
regional research amid the complications of the present, but to be
strong in this way the discipline has to be able to function as
a system, not as a mere collection of parts rattling around within
the state lines.
Everyone seems to recognize that being able to operate as a
system would be advantageous to all concerned; it was this
recognition that motivated us to form the SCA, and I imagine that
a similar desire for coordination was responsible for the formation
of such earlier organizations as the Archaeological Survey
Association of Southern California. The problem of archaeological
organization, however, is simply too big to be handled effectively
73
by a non-funded, outside-the-system congregation of volunteers like
the SCA. Whatever the exact things that need to be done in
California archaeology, it was clear very early that we needed some
sort of recognized, properly staffed, coordinative "brain" to help
the body of archaeologists to pursue its goals. This need was
articulated in the SCA's general plan outline presented to the
Society in 1970, and it formed the basis for the organization of
last year's archaeological program.
What California archaeologists were asking for in last year's
A.B. 1788 was not a complete, self-contained archaeological
bureaucracy, but an organizational framework that would permit the
present amorphous mass to become better integrated vis-a-vis the
highly structured, effective forces that impinge upon the resources
that it is our business to protect and interpret. We requested
a coordinative center, the California Archaeological Survey, that
would have the job of building interaction among archaeologists and
between the archaeological community and the "outside world,"
including destructuve agencies, the state educational system, and
the general public'. Further, we asked for the establishment of
procedures to insure that the Survey - and through it, the state
archaeological community - was brought in on the early planning of
all projects that could modify the archaeological environment.
The results, we argued, would be a higher rate of site preservation
through more intelligent planning, avoidance of confrontations
betweens archaeologists and builders, and a research program that
74
would really give California something - in terms of scientific
data and public education - for its salvage dollars.
As most of you are well aware, A.B. 1788 passed the legislature
only to meet a veto at the hands of the Governor, though S.B. 215,
creating a task force to develop further legislation, was approved
and is now in force. Actually, until the last moment when we
apparently ran afoul of a political situation quite beyond our
capacity to control, it looked as if the Governor would sign both
bills. As it was, however, the fact that we got as far as we did,
with a legislature that before we began hardly knew that archaeology
existed, was remarkable in itself. It is neither possible nor
necessary, in this company, to recount in detail our adventure
through the political wonderland, but it is worth looking a bit
at what happened to see what it reveals about trends that may
continue into the future.
First, we found politicians generally receptive to the idea
of archaeological preservation, once they knew what it was about.
This is not to say that a horde of archaeological partisans was
created in the legislature, but we did find that lawmakers -
presumably primed by the environmental movement - were quite
open to our arguments.
Second, we were able to demonstrate that - for awhile at
least - California archaeologists were able to overcome their
quite deep-seated suspicions, philosophical divergences, and
fears of each other to work in unison. Following the lead of
75
Arkansas 's successful campaign for its Archaeological Survey,
we organized ourselves into a rather elaborate system. At the center,
of course, was the group of archaeologists and their allies with
direct access to Sacramento - primarily the group centered at
Sacramento State College - who were responsible for most direct
contacts with legislators. In each urban center - Sacramento,
the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, and San Diego - a group
was organized including, insofar as possible, archaeologists
residing in each legislative district of the area. In the non-urban
areas one or more persons were found who could represent the cause
in each legislative district; it was one of my jobs to communicate
with and coordinate these people. Finally, there was a considerable
group of people who happened to have personal or professional contact
with legislators and other policy makers, who volunteered themselves
and were integrated into the system for action when needed. Once
the bill was moving through the legislature, the system enabled us
to identify and contact the members of each committee that was to
review it, through their own constituents, and advance arguments
for passage. It also made it possible to identify legislators
who needed more convincing, and provide the data and personnel
necessary to do it; it enabled us to generate publicity in appropriate
places at appropriate times, and to muster the right testimony
before the right committees. The system was certainly not 100%
effective, and we certainly made plenty of mistakes, but the
demonstration that archaeologists could climb out of their holes
76
and work together as an explicitly political entity was really
impressive, and generates hope that another attempt can be made
that will meet with success.
Shifting away from the fight for A.B. 1788, there is another
trend that is worth examining; this is the intimate association
between archaeology and the environmental movement. This is a
pretty complex, growing, and multifacetted relationship, but
there are two things going on that I recommend to your attention.
First, anyone who is not familiar with the National
Environmental Policy Act of 1969 and its California equivalent of
1970, should certainly look into them. Steve Colgrove of
Archaeological Research Inc. has made a very thorough study of
these laws and can direct anyone's interest. Beyond establishing
protection of the environment as a basic national and state policy,
the NEPA and its state version require all public agencies and
agencies requiring public permits to conduct an "environmental
impact study" prior to any action that is likely to affect the
environment. On the basis of this study, means must be developed
for mitigating the expected impact of the action. Ideally construed,
this would mean that the effect of any legislation, construction
project, or public policy on the environment - specifically
including the "cultural" environment represented by archaeological
values - would have to be thoroughly studied prior to action being
taken. Both immediate local impacts and long-range, long-term
regional impacts of the proposed action are supposed to be considered,
77
and the action, if taken, must allow for modifications to protect
the environment insofar as is possib-le; presuumably, in archaeological
cases this would mean preservation and/or excavation. The Act has not,
of course, been ideally construed, and no impact statement that I
have had an opportunity to review has been much better than a
whitewash job for the proposed action. There are signs, though,
that this is changing. The Council on Environmental Quality is
planning to set up new and tighter guidelines for the preparation
of impact statements, and the various federal agencies that
maintain their own guidelines. are expected to modify them to fit.
Douglass Scoville, of the National Park Service, has drafted
guidelines for archaeological impact reports that would require
really comprehensive archaeological studies prior to all activities
covered by the Act, and would make excavation the very lowest of
acceptable options for mitigation of impact. That adherance to
such guidelines is not impossible is demonstrated by the case of
Southern California Edison Co., which has recently let a contract
to the University of California, Riverside, for an impact study
on its proposed Fry Mountain generating plant, whose archaeological
element approximates Scoville's guidelines. Another vastly
encouraging sign is that some California counties - notably Orange
and possibly Santa Barbara - are adopting ordinances similar to
the Environmental Policy Act, which in Orange county at least
are to apply to all kinds of construction, public and private.
It is not too much to suggest that genuinely effective implementation
78
of these environmental policies on all levels would virtually
bring an end to the destruction of archaeological values without
full pre-destruction research. I avoid calling this research
"tsalvagett advisedly; the sort of shoestring, mindless, "grab-it-
and-run" activity that even with the best of funding we have been
inclined to think of as salvage has no part in this picture of
the future. As Don Miller, who is developing archaeological
policies for the U.S. Forest Service in California, has said,
under the developing environmental policies "salvage archaeology
is dead."
The millenium, however, is not yet quite upon us, and there
are battles to be fought. This brings us to another element in
the archaeologists' alliance with the environmental movement:
direct involvement in politico-legal pressure. Mr Hallinan will
no doubt discuss this in much greater detail, but it is worth
noting here that a difficulty that environmentalists frequently
have in confronting destroyers in the courts is the demonstration
that they actually have standing - that their interests are
directly impinged upon by the actions of the destructive agent.
Inasmuch as any land-disturbing project that touches an
archaeological site at all impinges upon our ability to do research
there, archaeologists should always have standing to sue.
Environmental groups, after what seemed to me an initial period
of wondering what in the world we were about, are beginning to
see archaeological participation in their activities, and we can
79
expect our involvement in the effort to save the environment
to increase over time.
A final trend that I would like to mention is closely
related to the archaeological move into the environmental battle:
the ability of archaeologists to organize, and the recognized
need for coordination and team research, but it is slightly
differently expressed. This is the trend toward the development
of regional cooperatives. The basic idea behind the cooperative
in archaeology is the recognition that archaeology is no longer
a pedantic hobby for slightly peculiar dilletantes, but a
complex scientific research system. No longer can the field be
simply divided into the professionals, who always dig good,
and the amateurs, who dig gooder or badder depending on how
closely they approximate the way the professionals dig.
As a system, archaeology is composed of a large number of
interacting parts - pure cerebration, research design, excavation
mechanics, analytic techniques, community relations, team
organization, relations with funding and destroying agencies,
and so on.   Obviously, some people and some institutions are
better equipped to be some kinds of subsystems than are others;
a regional cooperative seeks to develop these subsystems and the
pathways between them, so that a group of instituions, agencies
and individuals in a given region can work effectively together
on mutual problems. As far as I know, there are two explicitly
recognized cooperatives in California at this time - the Bay Area
80
Archaeological Cooperative on San Francisco Bay and, a bit less
explicitly, the California Desert Archaeological Committee of
the SCA. The group of individuals and schools that cluster around
the UCLA Archaeological Survey constitute the beginnings of
another cooperative, and initial steps in this direction can be
seen in Orange, San Diego, and Ventura Counties. Each co-op
links a number of kinds of institutions and agencies - museums,
universities, colleges, community colleges, high schools,
avocational groups, historical societies, and so on. To a greater
or lesser extent, each recognized to have a unique something
to offer and a unique need to be fulfilled, and it is the purpose
of the co-op to make these needs and offerings complement one
another, while making the activity of the whole co-op complementary
to the research and service needs and opportunities advanced by
the region and its modern-day communities. The cooperative is
a fragile entity, but I think it is an idea whose time has come.
Increasingly, I think, if archaeology is to survive and grow
as a contributing member of the social sciences, regional programs
that encourage the growth and operation of cooperatives must
replace the particularistic contractual support for piecemeal
research that characterizes present-day public supported salvage,
and I think that the kinds of things that are growing out of
environmental bills pertaining to archaeology are steps toward
such a replacement.
81