Practical Heritage Management

This comprehensive updated edition of Practical Heritage Management addresses updates in laws and new practices in heritage management, using perspectives from archaeology, history, and architecture.

Cultural heritage management (CHM) is the identification, protection, and interpretation of archaeological sites, historic structures, cultural artifacts, and other elements of cultural heritage both tangible and intangible. In this thoroughly updated and expanded second edition, Scott Anfinson presents a comprehensive overview of American heritage management, as well as a new chapter on international heritage management. This second edition also includes discussion of new guidelines for traditional cultural properties (TCPs) and new regulations implementing the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). It has an expanded discussion of Indigenous aspects of CHM including US Pacific Island and Caribbean territories. It also expands the discussion of intangible cultural resources. While emphasizing that the American CHM system in law and practice is currently focused almost exclusively on tangible aspects, intangible aspects are critically important to many communities and help explain the nature of tangible manifestations and how they are deemed significant.

The main purposes of this second edition remain the same as the first edition: to help teach the basics of CHM to the next generation of professionals and to provide current professionals with a detailed overview of the American system. Anfinson’s perspective is based on extensive and continuous research, as well as 40 years of practice as a survey archaeologist, a State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) archaeologist, a state archaeologist, and a university instructor teaching CHM. Unlike other textbooks, Anfinson’s book covers all three major CHM professions: archaeology, history, and architecture, as well as presenting a full chapter on the history of American CHM.

The book’s 15 chapters are made to fit a 15-week teaching semester typical of many American universities. The introductory two chapters include definitions and an explanation of what the author thinks CHM is meant to be and do, as well as the historical background to provide essential context. The next nine chapters present the legal and procedural framework of the American federal CHM system, followed by three chapters concerned with the principal professional players in American CHM. Chapter 13 discusses Indigenous aspects. Chapter 14 is the new chapter on international CHM. The final chapter summarizes a practical perspective and critically evaluates some of the important aspects of and problems with the current American CHM system, offering suggestions for improvement. Finally, there is a discussion of the implications of the Trump effect.

Scott F. Anfinson is a former Minnesota State Archaeologist. Prior to that he directed a highway archaeology survey for the Minnesota Historical Society and was the archaeologist for the Minnesota State Historic Preservation Office, helping to implement the National Historic Preservation Act Section 106 and nominating properties to the National Register of Historic Places. He taught cultural heritage management at the University of Minnesota for 15 years. He has been awarded two Fulbright Research Grants to study Norwegian heritage management at the University of Oslo.

Anfinson has written and edited numerous publications including Practical Heritage Management: Preserving a Tangible Past (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019), Manual for Archaeological Projects in Minnesota (office of the State Archaeologist 2011), Southwestern Minnesota Archaeology (Minnesota Historical Society Press 1997), The Archaeology of the Central Minneapolis Riverfront (The Minnesota Archaeologist 1989, 1990), and A Handbook of Minnesota Prehistoric Ceramics (Minnesota Archaeological Society 1978). He has served as president of the Council for Minnesota Archaeology, editor of The Minnesota Archaeologist, director of the Minnesota Shipwreck Survey, and principal director of the Minnesota Statewide Survey of Historical and Archaeological Sites.