Values-Based Management of Archaeological Resources at a Landscape Scale

Abstract

Public agencies at all levels of government and other organizations that manage archaeological resources often face the problem of many undertakings that collectively impact large numbers of individually significant archaeological resources. Such situations arise when an agency is managing a large area, such as a national forest, land management district, park unit, wildlife refuge, or military installation. These situations also may arise in regard to large-scale development projects, such as energy developments, highways, reservoirs, transmission lines, and other major infrastructure projects that cover substantial areas. Over time, the accumulation of impacts from small-scale projects to individual archaeological resources may degrade landscape or regional-scale cultural phenomena. Typically, these impacts are mitigated at the site level without regard to how the impacts to individual resources affect the broader population of resources. Actions to mitigate impacts rarely are designed to do more than avoid resources or ensure some level of data recovery at single sites. Such mitigation activities are incapable of addressing research question at a landscape or regional scale.

Investigating the Role of Archaeological Information and Practice in Landscape Conservation Design and Planning in North America

“…As we initiated our landscape cooperative study, the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) published the important findings of its three task forces created to address issues related to landscape-scale cultural resource management and archaeological resources (Altschul 2016; Doelle et al 2016; McManamon et al 2016; Wilshusen et al 2016). These task forces individually addressed three separate but interrelated issues: “1) survey data quality, durability, and use; 2) incorporating archaeological resources in regional land-use plans; and 3) valuing archaeological resources” (Altschul 2016:102).…”

“…In reality, all of the cultural resource databases in our framework exhibited some variability across state boundaries. We concluded that archaeological data offered a unique opportunity to overcome that interstate variability because of emerging trends in practice (Alstchul 2016; Doelle et al 2016; McManamon et al 2016) and deep traditions in landscape archaeology (Crumley and Marquardt 1990).…”

What Makes Some Mitigation Measures and Programs “Creative”? (And Where Does That Leave the Rest of Them?)

“…The first project, the Fruitland Coal Gas program in northwestern New Mexico (Brown et al 2014; Chandler 2009:127–129; McManamon et al 2016), was a massive energy development in the late 1980s and 1990s that resulted in drilling of more than 3,000 gas wells and construction of more than 600 miles of pipeline within an area of some 1,350 square miles. Section 106 compliance for all of this development was complicated by a very high site density (up to 75 sites per square mile), the involvement of multiple independent energy companies employing multiple independent cultural resource management firms, and a soon-to-expire tax credit for development of “nontraditional energy sources” that made everything time critical.…”

Damage Assessment and Monitoring of Cultural Heritage Places in a Disaster and Post-Disaster Event – A Case Study of Syria

“…For the maximum effectiveness of the Syria HER, identifying the most damaged and at-risk sites by itself is not sufficient to prioritize them for protection and conservation activities. In order to go to the next (admittedly challenging) level, components and categories of values need to be developed and a weighting system needs to be adopted on how to rank values assigned to a cultural heritage place (Isakhan, 2014;McManamon et al, 2016). Traditionally in value-based approaches to conservation 6 , different lists of heritage values have been developed (i.e.…”