now housed in the National Museum in Copenhagen, constitute an incomparable record of the state of the cultural heritage in this small country before the advent of modern agricultural techniques and population growth.

When the Ancient Monuments Protection Act came into force in the United Kingdom in 1883, the first inspector of ancient monuments was the redoubtable Major-General augustus henry pitt rivers (1827–1900), considered by many to be the founder of modern scientific archaeological excavation techniques. Like Worsaae, Pitt Rivers traveled the length and breadth of Britain recording and designating protected monuments. He had no funds beyond a token government salary, but he made use of his own great wealth to employ a small team of surveyors and excavators.

After the death of Pitt Rivers, the post of inspector of ancient monuments was vacant for a decade. However, in 1908 three new bodies were set up in England, Scotland, and Wales, and they were charged with the survey of monuments in their respective countries and with the preparation of detailed inventories. It was intended that the work of these bodies, the royal commissions for ancient and historical monuments, would be complete in twenty-five years. However, at the end of the twentieth century, the commissions in Scotland and Wales were continuing their work, and when the English royal commission was merged with English Heritage, the state agency responsible for monument protection in England, in 1999, its survey and inventory work was still little more than half complete.

The same year that Pitt Rivers died, the government of India set up the Archaeological Survey of India, and john marshall (1876–1958) was appointed as its director-general. The survey became fully professionalized in 1906 and undertook responsibility for all aspects of heritage management, including conservation, excavation, epigraphy, museums, and publishing. The regional structure created by Marshall largely survives intact.

In italy, the General Directorate of Excavations and Museums was established in 1872. This organization evolved in 1891 into the General Directorate of Antiquities and Fine Arts, with regional superintendents for archaeology, architecture, museums, and fine arts, a system that has lasted to the present day. The superintendents are responsible for the protection of all monuments within their specialities situated in their areas.

A number of separate entities responsible for museums and monuments were set up in mexico, and these came together in 1939 to form the National Institute for Anthropology and History (Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, INAH), which is responsible for ensuring the application of the strong national heritage legislation. Other heritage organizations, based on the model of Mexico’s INAH, have been set up in most Latin American countries.

Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, monuments or antiquities services responsible for archaeological and historical heritage management grew slowly. Although the term heritage management is relatively recent, it is generally recognized that it covers survey and inventory, excavation, application of protection legislation, interaction with land-use planners, management of protected sites and monuments, and general promotion and presentation as well as museums in a number of countries. Most of these activities were carried out by existing agencies at the beginning of World War II, albeit in a somewhat leisurely, static way. The term cultural resource management, with the dynamic element contained in its final word, was first used in the United States in the 1970s alongside an alternative, public archaeology. However, these terms are gradually giving way to the use of “archaeological heritage management,” which translates more easily from English into other languages.

After World War II, the rate of expansion of activities of this kind increased almost exponentially. Postwar reconstruction and the impact of social and economic development, not least in developing countries, that followed reconstruction placed severe demands on the limited professional services that were available to preserve or record rapidly vanishing heritages. J. Reichstein (1984, 38) has listed five acute and nine chronic threats to archaeological heritage, including