Staying Relevant: Turning Your Sites from Blights to Rights

Summary

One of the hazards of doing archaeology on federal land is being viewed as a roadblock to training, construction and other undertakings. The normal treatment for National Register eligible sites once they are found is to set them aside as off limits to training and other activities. Naturally, this is not popular with those providing funding to keep training lands open and sustainable. The Fort Drum Cultural Resources Program has developed unique methods for protecting sites while allowing them to be used as training assets. In collaboration with Civil Affairs Operations, they have provided site data in the form of no-strike lists to military trainers, allowing sites to be put into play during several large-scale training events. Program staff also served as role-players, representing host nation officials and indigenous peoples in a training scenario. Not only did this approach enrich the training opportunity, designation of off limits areas as sacred properties where incursion would result in violent retribution or command consequences resulted in the best site protection and avoidance in the history of these exercises. As a bonus for the program, it also served the purpose of keeping cultural resources and heritage relevant in an ever-changing political and social environment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 20821