Most CRM laws and policies, however, emerged after World War II and established the foundation for current compliance or rescue archaeology and other CRM practices (see Historic Preservation Laws). Legislation and funding for these practices vary widely throughout the world. Thus, Germany instituted a variety of laws between 1953 and 1993 that both required the state to fund CRM projects and required developers proposing projects with impacts on cultural resources to pay according to the ‘polluter pays principle’. In England, several modifications to the Ancient Monuments Act culminated in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act of 1979, followed by the creation of English Heritage in 1983 as an institution to fund CRM projects. The establishment of the polluter pays principle in 1990 shifted the primary mission of English Heritage away from funding to serving as an advisor on CRM projects. At the same time, competitive tendering, which involves bidding by several competing archaeological contractors for each project, emerged as the principal management system for the current practice of CRM.
In the United States, the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and the Reservoir Salvage Act of 1960 authorized ‘salvage’ archaeology of antiquities threatened by the construction of highways, dams, and reservoirs. The passage of National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) in 1966 (and later amendments), however, established the foundation for the modern practice of CRM. The act mandated that all federal agencies take into account the impact of their activities upon significant historical properties and established the existing regulatory framework and institutions for the management of cultural resources in the United States. NHPA created the National Register of Historic Places, the Advisory Council for Historic Preservation, and a system of state officers (now known as State Historic Preservation Officers or SHPOs) to administer federal historic preservation grants to the states. Later amendments to NHPA further stipulated that federal agencies must inventory and evaluate for national register eligibility all cultural resources under their jurisdiction, allow the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation to review and comment upon the potential impacts of proposed agency projects upon cultural resources, and mitigate any adverse impacts to significant cultural resources.
In 1969, Congress passed the National Environmental Protection Act of 1969 (NEPA). NEPA established a national policy for preserving the environment and mandated that the impact of federally funded projects upon both natural and cultural resources be evaluated through the preparation of environmental assessments and environmental impact statements, a process that involves the public. Executive Order 11593, issued by President Richard Nixon in 1973, ordered federal agencies to treat cultural resources potentially eligible for the national register as if they were listed. The Archaeological and Historic Preservation Act of 1974 (the Moss-Bennett Bill) amended the 1960 Reservoir Salvage Act and provided funding for federally mandated CRM projects. Congress passed the Archaeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 (ARPA), which required federal agencies to issue uniform procedures (e. g., permits, ownership, penalties) for the treatment of archaeological resources on federal and Indian lands. In 1990, Congress passed the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA); NAGPRA requires federal agencies or repositories that receive federal funds to repatriate human remains and cultural objects to Indian tribes who can show historical or cultural connections. Compliance with NEPA and Section 106 of NHPA is the cornerstone of the practice of CRM in the United States but also includes practices associated with NAGPRA, ARPA, historic buildings and structures, landscapes and places, and other cultural resources.
World History
