Hi all,
I am doing my best to keep up with this thread, but as it is happening over a wide network of list-serves, this is a challenge. I hope that Allen Dart, Minette Church, and others can forward my reply to those lists that might be interested. I have copied this to HISTARCH and UPAC (and personally to Ron Rood). Please feel free to pass this to various state councils. I also hope that HISTARCH’s international readers will tolerate a bit of USA-focused discussion here.
I am not deeply involved in the CRM process, so as a professional, I will defer to my colleagues on questions about the investments of time and money in recording “non-sites” during survey. Along with other list members, I passed these emails to Joe Joseph and Mark Warner, the current president and president-elect of the Society for Historical Archaeology. The SHA leadership plans to offer a comment sometime soon, perhaps early next week.
These suggestions cause me some concerns and I want to offer some comments.
1. Many of the ephemeral and “non-site” feature types identified in Ron’s list and the Wyoming system are essential elements of water and energy management systems (i.e. Utility lines, pipelines, isolated flood control or water impoundment, windmills, survey markers, rip-rap, nameless and small water channels and ditches, temporary sawmill sites); natural resources exploitation (mineral prospect pits, small mining sites, timber slash and woodpiles, fences and enclosures, ranching- and recreation-related camps); and transportation (reconstructed and unnamed two-track roads, presumably also trails and footpaths, isolated vehicles).
These themes are areas of major intellectual activity right now, and most especially water and energy. Scholars and scientists from archaeology, environmental history, geography, anthropology, sociology, and many other areas are pursuing research on these topics. Don’t people see interesting and compelling questions in human-environmental relationships, seen through the lenses of historical ecology, landscape history, or sustainability? Is this a failing of our intellectual efforts as archaeologists, rather than one of management practices?
More relevant to the needs of management, how does a field worker on survey determine them as lacking significance or call them non-contributing? Even if we set aside all questions from different fields of ecology, which perhaps might link to Criterion D (yielding information important in history or prehistory), what about criterion A, B, and C (contributing to the broad patterns of history, associated with the lives of significant persons, and embodying the distinctive characteristics of a period, method of construction, or type)? while the features may not be old enough to be eligible in 2016, they will have the required age in 2025 or 2050.
Perhaps as the best way I can summarize my feelings on this is to point to Wyoming’s Green River Drift Trail Traditional Cultural Property.
https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/12001224.htm <https://www.nps.gov/nr/feature/places/12001224.htm>
This TCP covers a linear swath of land along the Green River and intersects BLM and NFS property. The TCP includes historic farming, ranching, and homesteads and was designated under Criterion A because it exemplifies cattle trails and land use associated with rural agricultural lifeways. Almost without question, most of the things on Ron’s list are here determined to be contributing to the essential character, making this eligible for the National Register.
This landscape was designated a TCP in 2013 and includes a period of significance up to and including 1960. While that period is older than 50 years, it includes features much younger than 100.
2. I am not convinced that the costs estimates are accurate when projected into the future. We all know that landscapes influence action and thus human land use patterns are not randomly distributed across space and time. The patchiness of land use means that CRM-driven surveys are not always occurring on ‘virgin’ land. CRM surveys follow over footprints of previous surveys. Once recorded and evaluated, these “non-sites” probably will not need additional recording in every new survey to cover that ground. Nor does this account for evolving technological methodologies, since I expect photorealistic aerial LiDAR drones to become a standard tool in surveys, recording and mapping fences, ditches, and sites like these with great cost effectiveness and efficiency.
3. I am not sold on the idea of allowing field crew leaders to make decisions to dismiss entire types of features and sites. Crew leaders and project directors are under the oversight of the director of their contracting firm, which in turn is under pressure from a client. The company has a vested interest in doing rock-bottom minimum work to hold the costs down for the client. This clearly creates a conflict of interest for the crew chief in the field. The field crew records, often the firm’s main office reports, and then the agencies determine eligibility.
If this kind of practice enters the system, I can easily see how otherwise well meaning field directors might skip several site and feature types from my own research. Small size clay pits first exploited in the 1850s, with no associated cribbing or artifact scatters, where the local high school art teacher has also been harvesting clay via a newly blazed ATV two track that ran over an historic foot or wagon path? To a field crew, that might look like a 21st century land use and be skipped without a detailed look.
That is all I have time to write at this week.
Best regards,
Tim Scarlett
Industrial Heritage and Archaeology
Department of Social Sciences
Michigan Technological University
> On Nov 14, 2016, at 11:04 PM, Al Dart <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> I am copying Ron Rood’s Utah Professional Archaeological Council post below to other professional archaeology listserves in Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado, and to the Historical Archaeology list, to seek comments from archaeologists in the Southwest and beyond about Ron’s suggestion that we waste too much time and money recording and writing about historical archaeological sites and features that have no potential to contribute to a better understanding of the past. If any of you would like to contribute your opinions and are not currently a member of all of these listserves, I encourage you to become a member of each before replying (see below*) and to post your opinion to all of the lists so we can broaden this discussion.
>
> Personally, I agree with Ron that we waste huge amounts of time and money recording and writing about the kinds of “non-sites and property types” that the Wyoming SHPO and BLM suggest should require no formal documentation because, in my opinion, these property types have no potential for meeting our most basic guidelines for being significant, i.e., National Register eligibility. Spending time recording them and, in some cases, insisting that they be avoided by ground-disturbing practices or subjected to archaeological mitigation reduces our credibility to members of the public who wonder why their tax dollars have to be spent on such frivolities.
>
> I don’t necessarily agree with Ron’s suggestion that we also shouldn’t have to record prehistoric isolated finds and small sites in deflated contexts, because even a single diagnostic artifact (e.g., a prehistoric projectile point) can be used to identify the extremely rare locations that were utilized during the Paleoindian and, in southern Arizona, protohistoric (post-Hohokam) periods. If we don’t at least thoroughly examine scatters of prehistoric artifacts – especially flaked stone scatters – we risk missing evidence of those occupations regardless of whether the sites may be determined ineligible for the Register.
>
>
> * I believe these are the current email addresses to contact for inclusion in or removal from the lists cited above:
>
> Arizona Archaeological Council: Walter Duering <[log in to unmask]>
> Colorado Council of Professional Archaeologists: Greg Williams <[log in to unmask]>
> Historical Archaeology: <[log in to unmask]>
> New Mexico Archaeological Council: David Phillips <[log in to unmask]>
> Utah Professional Archaeological Council: <[log in to unmask]>
>
>
> Regards,
>
> Allen Dart, RPA, Executive Director (Volunteer)
> Old Pueblo Archaeology Center
> PO Box 40577
> Tucson AZ 85717-0577 USA
> 520-798-1201
> [log in to unmask]
> www.oldpueblo.org
>
>
> Disclosure: Old Pueblo Archaeology Center's Executive Director Allen Dart is a USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service cultural resources specialist who volunteers his time to Old Pueblo. Views expressed in Old Pueblo Archaeology Center communications do not necessarily represent views of the U.S. Department of Agriculture or of the United States.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
> Sent: Friday, November 11, 2016 12:20 PM
> To: UPAC <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: [UPAC] what we record and why
>
>
> November 10, 2016
> UPAC Members,
> For a long time I’ve been thinking about our profession as archaeologists and specifically – as public archaeologist. Most of our work in the CRM industry is ultimately funded by the public and that fact illustrates the significance of public outreach and education. I think we’re doing an o.k. job on that but we will always need to do more. As long as what we do is significant and important to the public at large, I think our profession will remain strong. Right now, I’m not sure the public, and that includes our clients in the CRM industry, are getting their monies worth. Frankly, I think we are spending much time and money on things that overall, are not important (e.g. Rood 2012). I also believe we’ve become overly concerned with an arbitrary moving target of 50 years driving what we end up recording (Yoder 2014).
>
> When we are out in the field, we record a lot of sites and isolated finds. We believe are contributing to the science of trying to better understand the past – and we are. The mandate under which we work has us evaluate sites based on the National Register Criteria. Some sites meet those criteria, some do not. Our whole approach to CRM is based on a simple template; some sites are important to understand the past and some are not. Some sites are “eligible” and some are “not eligible.” Some sites may live, some sites will die! (maybe a bit dramatic but essentially true).
>
> In some places where we work, professionals have taken this a step further in making sound and rational decisions that take this simple template one step further. Sites can be “eligible” or “not eligible” and there are some sites that simply offer nothing that will contribute to a better understanding of the past and for that reason, there is no need to record them or expend funds recording them.
>
> The costs can be staggering. Yoder (2014:351) points this out and even using conservative estimates, an estimate of $2,019,150 was spent between the years 2000 and 2009 recording historical sites with no features in the state of Utah. Most of that was spent recording sites that were not recommended as eligible to the NRHP. Did that expenditure of 2 million dollars contribute to our understanding of Utah's past? His projections for the near future are frankly mind-blowing! Can we seriously justify this type of expenditure to the public we work for? If you have not read David Yoder’s piece, I strongly encourage you to do so.
>
> Just to get this out of the way, I am not “anti-historical archaeology.” I would add to the list Wyoming uses some prehistoric resources as well; yes prehistoric resources…..isolated finds, small sites in deflated contexts and probably others.
>
> In Wyoming, the State and BLM have developed what they call “Defined non-sites and Property Types requiring no Formal Documentation.” I believe the Wyoming approach is a good approach and the purpose of my note to UPAC today is to recommend that UPAC strongly consider adopting a similar protocol and encourage state and federal agencies in Utah to adopt a similar approach to Cultural Resource Management work in our state. The Wyoming document can be found at www.wyoshpo.state.wy.us <http://www.wyoshpo.state.wy.us/> and I have copied it here:
>
> DEFINED NON-SITES AND PROPERTY TYPES REQUIRING
> NO FORMAL DOCUMENTATION
> The appropriate lead agency cultural resource specialists must review and approve any
> deviation from this list. In most cases, formal documentation of the property types listed
> below is not required. Existence of these defined non-sites and property types
> within the survey area, and justification for their exclusion, must be discussed in
> the project report. If any of these property types exhibit significant architectural or
> engineering features, or are associated with a National Register-eligible site or district
> (either within the boundary, or clearly related to the significance of a NRHP-eligible site
> or district), they should be recorded on a Wyoming Cultural Properties Form.
> Professional judgment and common sense should be applied. In general, Smithsonian
> numbers will not be assigned to the following property types:
>
> 1. Utility lines (i.e., power lines, towers, telephone lines, fiber optic cable, etc.)
> 2. Pipelines (i.e., water, gas, etc. This does not include early wooden pipelines.)
> 3. Isolated stock dams, troughs, spring boxes, and associated windmills.
> 4. Elevation, bench, and section markers (i.e. all survey or cadastral markers).
> 5. Car banks (i.e., the use of abandoned cars, farm machinery, appliances, etc. to
> stabilize riverbanks, stream banks, or drainages.
> 6. Rip-rap (i.e., the use of cobbles, rock, or wood to stabilize riverbanks, stream banks,
> or drainages)
> 7. Isolated abandoned motorized vehicles, appliances, and mobile homes.
> 8. Fences and exclosures (i.e., barbed wire, chain link, buck-and-pole, or other types of
> pasture fence.) This does not include corrals, roundup or load-out facilities.
> 9. Unnamed two-track roads (i.e., ranch roads, seismic roads, etc.). This will require
> standard historic research to determine if the roads are named. Named roads need to
> be formally recorded; generally, unnamed roads do not need to be recorded. Discuss in
> the report the historic research conducted (i.e. GLO check, county records, historic
> maps, etc.)
> 10. Recent trash (i.e., highway trash, etc.)
> 11. Producing oil/gas wells and dry hole markers.
> 12. Water control channels, laterals, spreaders, canals, and ditches that are not
> designated by name on the USGS Topographic maps. (Water records can be found on
> the SEO’s website at https://seoweb.wyo.gov/e-Permit/ or in the “tabulation of
> Adjudicated Surface Water Rights of the State of Wyoming: Water Division Numbers
> One-Four.”)
> 13. Samples of defined lithic landscapes. Approval from the lead agency cultural
> resource specialist must be obtained for the cultural resource permittee to apply this
> exclusion.
> 14. Short-term camps associated with stockgrazing and recreation that provide no
> significant information.
> 15. Temporary sawmill sites, slash piles, and isolated woodpiles.
> 16. Prospect pits associated with mineral exploration or mining with no associated
> features, cribbing, and/or less than 50 associated historic artifacts.
> 17. Roads that have been reconstructed within the last 50 years do not need to be
> recorded. Abandoned segments that are not associated with an eligible road do not
> need to be recorded.
>
> I think this topic is important enough to warrant a discussion at the next UPAC meeting. The way the wind is blowing there may be a bunch of important discussions for the next UPAC meeting and we should all be proactive, thoughtful and serious about the future of publicly funded archaeology.
>
> I commend the movement toward the creation of context documents for the state of Utah but I don’t believe that in itself can address the larger issues of what we record and why, and the ultimate justification of costs.
>
> I had the opportunity to work with several current undergraduate and graduate anthropology students this past summer. It amazed me how smart these folks are and the cool things they are doing – a lot of it based in CRM derived data - for honors theses and MA’s and PhD’s and the amazing technology they have to work with. They’ll greatly contribute to the discipline. But, while digging, screening and drinking beer after work, the discussion usually turned to the future of CRM and their future as archaeologists.
>
> I would like to suggest the UPAC leadership include a discussion on these topics for the next UPAC business meeting. I would also like to propose some draft language for UPAC members to vote encouraging/urging state and federal agencies in Utah to adopt a protocol similar to that in Wyoming that would require no further recording of certain property types.
>
> I encourage feedback and thank you for your time.
> Ron
> [log in to unmask] <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>
> References
> Rood, Ronald J.
> 2012 The End of Cultural Resources Management: Is There Time to Save It? Paper Presented at the 2012 Great Basin Anthropological Conference, Stateline, Nevada
> Yoder, David T.
> 2014 Interpreting the 50-Year Rule: How a Simple Phrase Leads to a Complex Problem. Advances in Archaeological Practice 2(4), pp. 324-337.
>
>
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