Cultural heritage is fundamental to individual and group identity, and is therefore protected, preserved, and otherwise managed through legislation and policy at all levels of government. In the past decade, greater attention has been placed on international codes of standards, practice, and ethics specific to heritage and archaeology, created by organizations such as the World Archaeological Congress, the International Congress on Monuments and Sites, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Although these global standards specify different practices and ethics for various activities, one common aspect is their concept of cultural heritage. Specifically, that tangible and intangible cultural heritage is significant for past, present, and future generations through many different values, including aesthetic, economic, historical, scientific, societal, and spiritual values. I define this approach as full spectrum management—the notion that heritage resource management should at least consider a complete range of cultural resources; all the values associated with each resource or resource type; and the needs, preferences, and management actions of all the individuals and groups espousing those values. Full spectrum management needs to be assessed in global and national policies, regulations, and practices, including cultural resource management (CRM).  

Archaeology as a practice and discipline is meaningless without cultural heritage. Cultural heritage creates the aesthetic, historic, scientific, social, and spiritual values that are embedded in sites and objects, rendering them meaningful and important. As different people place different values and significance on archaeological sites and artifacts, it can be challenging to manage archaeological heritage. For most of the history of archaeology, colonial values have determined the values and significance of archaeological site and artifacts, including which sites and artifacts were conserved and which ones were destroyed. As our notions and definitions of heritage shift, we change whom heritage is meaningful for and more importantly, who can take part in the process of heritage management. Full spectrum management requires heritage policies to expand beyond elite cultural narratives and accept the needs, preferences, and management actions of a wider range of individuals and groups.  

The intent of this paper is to understand whether and how full spectrum cultural resource management is proceeding from standards to practice; that is, the translation of cultural heritage policy from global to state spheres. Policy affects different aspects of cultural heritage, including production, reproduction, and governance. I will analyze the production and governance of cultural heritage policy in two late modern states, by comparing international standards to provincial legislation and regulations in British Columbia, Canada, and to federal legislation and regulations in Australia. For each jurisdiction I will determine how cultural heritage is defined in legislation and how those definitions compare to full spectrum management, as defined above. I will assess how the translation of international policies, including those from the Council of Europe, the International Congress on Monuments and Sites, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, occurs in these two jurisdictions, identifying gaps and issues. I will determine how, or if, these jurisdictions are reacting to full spectrum management, and what that means for archaeological practice, including CRM. Late modern states have extraordinary control over the heritage landscape, both in governance, or heritage stewardship, and research, or heritage production. This paper will attempt to understand how states are dealing with the concept of full spectrum management—a model that makes heritage more open and sustainable to the full spectrum of heritage users.