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Office of Contract Archeology

Student working on siteEducation and Research at OCA

OCA is a cultural resources management program (CRM) established in 1973 at the University of New Mexico.  In addition to providing advanced CRM services to clients throughout the region, OCA serves an integral role in the University and Museum missions of research and education.  OCA staff teach courses in the UNM Anthropology Department, and OCA has employed hundreds of UNM students, providing them with invaluable hands-on work experience.  Contracts awarded to OCA results in millions of research dollars for archaeology throughout the American Southwest  and surrounding region.

Beginning in the fall of 2015, OCA entered into a partnership with the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish (NMDGF) to provide UNM archaeology students with a professional opportunity to learn field practices, data processing with real data, and writing skills in actual cultural compliance work while under the supervision of the NMDGF archaeologist.

Through this partnership, the NMDGF is able to maintain compliance with state and federal cultural resource laws while also supporting its own interests in furthering education in the sciences. To date, through this program OCA has provided hands on field experience to five UNM students on three projects in southwest and east-central New Mexico.

 

 

Tradition of Cultural Resource Management Excellence in the American Southwest

Since its inception, OCA has taken a leading role in innovative, multiple task, and interdisciplinary cultural resource studies.  Using simultaneous field and analytical efforts, OCA has completed over one thousand projects throughout New Mexico, the Four Corners Area and Western Texas.  Contact us at 505 277-5853 or https://oca.unm.edu/