fifty year rule (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only David Yoder.

For over 40 years some archaeologists have labored under a distorted interpretation of the fifty-year rule in which anything over 50 years of age becomes ‘archaeological’ and therefore must be recorded and evaluated for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places. A re-examining of federal law shows that this is a mistaken interpretation. Data from the Intermountain Antiquities Computer System indicates that if this practice continues the number of featureless historical sites...