Environmentally transformative human use of land accelerated with the emergence of agriculture, but the extent, trajectory, and implications of these early changes are not well understood. An empirical global assessment of land use from 10,000 BP to 1850 CE reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists by 3,000 years ago, significantly earlier than land-use reconstructions commonly used by Earth scientists. Synthesis of knowledge contributed by over 250 archaeologists highlighted gaps in archaeological expertise and data quality, which peaked at 2000 BP and in traditionally studied and wealthier regions. Archaeological reconstruction of global land-use history illuminates the deep roots of Earth's transformation and challenges the emerging Anthropocene paradigm that large-scale anthropogenic global environmental change is mostly a recent phenomenon.One Sentence Summary: A map of synthesized archaeological knowledge on land use reveals a planet largely transformed by hunter-gatherers, farmers and pastoralists by 3,000 years ago.

Chronology building is an integral part of the archaeological research process, and changing research questions often require the refinement of existing chronologies. This view is illustrated with a description of the derivation, refinement, and confirmation of a ceramic sequence for the Postclassic period in Morelos, Mexico. The joint application of stratigraphy and quantitative ceramic seriation produced a five-phase Postclassic chronology. To deal with problems in distinguishing the stylistically similar ceramics of the final three phases, discriminant-function analysis was employed, resulting in the confident phasing of nearly all excavated contexts at the sites of Capilco and Cuexcomate. Calendar years are assigned to the phases by radiocarbon dating, and the implications of the dated sequence are explored briefly.

Cultural resource management (CRM) work accounts for most of the archaeology conducted in the United States. A diverse and somewhat fragmented field, CRM has nonetheless achieved a degree of institutional and organizational maturity. CRM archaeology has produced important contributions to archaeological methodology and has established and refined knowledge of regional cultural-historical sequences and settlement and subsistence patterns. The current florescence of historical archaeology is attributable to CRM. Yet the maintenance of high quality in CRM is a pervasive and enduring problem. Academic institutions need to reestablish alliances with the CRM community. The future viability of CRM archaeology depends on factors both internal and external to the discipline: regulatory and statutory "reform," agency funding levels, looting and other destructive forces, and Native American and other public involvement.KEY WORDS: cultural resource management; contract archaeology; historic preservation. INTRODUCTIONAmerican archaeology is predominantly cultural resource management (CRM) archaeology. Most U.S. archaeologists are employed in nonacademic jobs; even many in academia earn their livelihoods or otherwise participate significantly in CRM. A comprehensive review of CRM archaeology thus would have to cover the majority of the archaeological work now being conducted. Such a paper is well beyond the scope of a IOffice of the State Archaeologist and Department of Anthropology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242. 2To whom correspondence should be addressed at Office of the State Archaeologist, Eastlawn, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa 52242; e-mail: Bill-Green@uiowa.edu. 1211059-0161/98/0600-0121515.00/0 9 1998 Plenum Publishing Corporation 122 Green and Doershuk journal article. Therefore, to limit this review to a manageable size, we examine selected aspects of recent activity in CRM archaeology in North America, with a strong emphasis on the midwestern U.S. Following a brief overview and historical background, we consider the following topics: (1) the current scope of CRM archaeology on a general level; (2) substantive and innovative contributions of recent CRM archaeology; (3) the struggle to maintain high quality and standards; and (4) the future of CRM archaeology. We devote little attention to the "management" aspects of CRM, which are just as important as the aspects of practice we emphasize. In particular, a fuller consideration of CRM would discuss the stewardship of archaeological resources, a managerial enterprise that accounts for a large segment of government-supported archaeology.Even though most archaeologists rarely see themselves as directly involved in the management of cultural resources, the term CRM archaeology still can be used for the wide array of legally mandated or contracted archaeology. The term CRM has utility because it forces recognition of the fact that this enterprise locates, evaluates, and studies cultural resources including archaeological sites for one principal purpose th...

Public agencies at all levels of government and other organizations that manage archaeological resources often face the problem of many undertakings that collectively impact large numbers of individually significant archaeological resources. Such situations arise when an agency is managing a large area, such as a national forest, land management district, park unit, wildlife refuge, or military installation. These situations also may arise in regard to large-scale development projects, such as energy developments, highways, reservoirs, transmission lines, and other major infrastructure projects that cover substantial areas. Over time, the accumulation of impacts from small-scale projects to individual archaeological resources may degrade landscape or regional-scale cultural phenomena. Typically, these impacts are mitigated at the site level without regard to how the impacts to individual resources affect the broader population of resources. Actions to mitigate impacts rarely are designed to do more than avoid resources or ensure some level of data recovery at single sites. Such mitigation activities are incapable of addressing research question at a landscape or regional scale.

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