Bending Corners and What We Choose to Tolerate: A Parable for Archaeology in the 2020s

Abstract

An emerging dialogue in an encounter at a conference exposes tensions between academic ideals and compliance-driven practice among archetypal early cultural resource management (CRM) career practitioners, CRM managers, and CRM business-oriented executives. Although regulatory frameworks such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) were designed to protect cultural resources, their implementation has fostered a system where efficiency, cost, and deliverables often outweigh documentation, interpretation, and stewardship. This article argues that the central problem is not compliance archaeology itself but the normalization of diminished standards under business pressures and weak oversight. The metaphor of “bending corners” illustrates how incremental compromises accumulate into systemic erosion of archaeological knowledge. Focusing on data quality, gray literature accessibility, and professional training, the article contends that archaeology’s future will be defined less by its ethics than by what it chooses to tolerate in practice.