Having been involved in both contract and academic archaeology in recent
years, I have heard (and sympathized with) a pervasive lament. It seems increasingly common that even the best contract archaeology is rarely published, but compiled into reports that disappear into state repositories and contract firm offices, never again to be thought of except (maybe) when it comes time to write the next report. There is an increasing body of both gray literature and gray excavation: work that is done in compliance with state and federal laws but which never reaches an audience of more than a dozen or so readers. Given this discouraging trend, the compendious The Buried Past is a welcomed synthesis of several generations of aca­demic and CRM investigations into the historical archaeology of the Greater Philadelphia region.