Hundreds of thousands of archaeological investigations in the United States conducted over the last several decades have documented a large portion of the recovered archaeological record in the United States. However, if we are to use this enormous corpus to achieve richer understandings of the past, it is essential that both CRM and academic archaeologists change how they manage their digital documents and data over the course of a project and how this information is preserved for future use. We explore the nature and scope of the problem and describe how it can be addressed. In particular, we argue that project workflows must ensure that the documents and data are fully documented and deposited in a publicly accessible, digital repository where they can be discovered, accessed, and reused to enable new insights and build cumulative knowledge.

Using examples hosted by the Digital Archaeological Record (tDAR) to illustrate good curation practice, this chapter discusses the problematics of archaeological data curation, management, and preservation as one of the main challenges that archaeology and heritage-related disciplines face in the 21st century. It presents a fact-based discussion of how archaeological data is typically produced in the U.S. and discusses internationally-accepted guiding principles such as the FAIR Principles and the DCC curation lifecycle and other best practices. The chapter defines and addresses relevant themes for this volume: What is digital data curation? Why is archaeological data curation important? Following a description of the work that tDAR and other digital repositories/institutions (e.g., Archaeological Data Service and OpenContext) spearhead to respond to the issue that data produced by older or current archaeological investigations are difficult or impossible to discover, access, and use/re-use, two examples from the American Southwest (the Pueblo Grande and the Eastern Mimbres Archaeological Project (EMAP)) are presented to demonstrate repository solutions for at-risk data sets.

Archaeological resource protection remains an important management concern on public lands in the U.S. Southwest and beyond. While legislation and educational programs have contributed to a general improvement in public attitudes toward cultural heritage, archaeological resources on public lands remain vulnerable to a variety of human impacts. We present results of a condition and damage assessment of 96 prominent precontact sites on the Tonto National Forest (TNF) in central Arizona. We summarize field methods and observations and discuss their implications for the management and protection of archaeological resources on the TNF and other public lands. Sites at varying distances from roads were assessed in an effort to identify potential relationships between damage frequency and road proximity. Field results indicate that (1) unauthorized damage occurs more frequently at sites near TNF roads; and (2) economical measures like advisory signage provide potentially effective means of deterring unauthorized damage to sites in higher risk locations. Our findings add to a knowledge base important for understanding patterns of damage and site vulnerability and for developing practical protection strategies in line with public land missions and administrative capabilities.

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