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Archaeological Services Inc.

Open-knowledge reference entry

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 19, 2026
Entity authorityQ16240744 ↗
Source-derived summary

Archaeological Services Inc. (ASI) is the largest private archaeological and cultural heritage consulting company in Ontario (Canada), with offices in Toronto and Burlington. The company is a part of the Cultural Resource Management (CRM) industry.

History

In Ontario, all land development projects, from urban condominiums and housing subdivisions, to highway expansions and infrastructure projects, require heritage assessment and mitigation of impacts before approvals are granted. Archaeological Services Inc. was established in 1980 to assist development proponents in meeting these requirements. The company was founded by chief archaeologist and managing partner, Dr. Ronald F. Williamson, with Debbie Steiss (MA), Dr. Robert MacDonald, Robert Pihl (MA) and Martin Cooper (MA) joining as partners in 2002.

The company began primarily with archaeological consultations but expanded to include a Cultural Heritage Division in the late 1990s; the services of that division now are: Built Heritage and Cultural Heritage Landscape Technical Services; Heritage Content Development and Planning; and Heritage Policy, Protocol, and Program Development.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Archaeological Services Inc.” as open-knowledge reference entry. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Archaeological, Services and Open-knowledge.

Editorial reviewA concise reference frame for defining the subject, testing terminology and identifying the institution closest to the evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1980, 2002—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Archaeological, Services and Open-knowledge providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Archaeological Services Inc.”, the useful work is to connect “open-knowledge reference entry” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 19, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q16240744. VIAF identifies the subject as 144192991. The Library of Congress control number is n98080680. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980 and 2002.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Archaeological Services Inc.”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Archaeological Services Inc. primary sources, Archaeological Services Inc. archive and Archaeological research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Archaeological Services Inc.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.