About the Council....
The Council for West Virginia Archaeology (CWVA) is a West Virginia corporation, operating as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit scientific research and public education organization. The CWVA was founded in 1985, and became a non-profit in 1992. In 2022, the CWVA joined the Register of Professional Archaeologists (RPA), as an Affiliated Society.
The CWVA is a body of professionals who practice archaeology within West Virginia and the surrounding border areas of neighboring states. Most archaeologists practicing in the United States are trained within the academic discipline of anthropology; however, membership is also open to professionals practicing in allied disciplines, such as history or the environmental/geo-sciences. Membership is open to practitioners from the academic, commercial, and government/non-government public sectors. All of our members, including our board of directors, are unpaid volunteers. Our membership dues are kept low; however, our members' annual dues contributions typically form the largest segment of our available programming budget for the year.
We follow the RPA in their concern not only for the conservation of our shared archaeological resources and the general quality of research being applied to those archaeological resources, but also their concern that the discipline of archaeology be an inclusive, safe working environment for all archaeological practitioners, as embodied in the Code of Conduct (PDF).
Organizational Links
Certificate of Incorporation
(1985)
