New Beginnings at Fort Polk, Louisiana: CRM Strategies for the Expansion of Training Lands

Summary

Located in western Louisiana, Fort Polk has an extensive record of cultural resource management with more than 150,000 acres of land surveyed between 1972 and 2002. Over 3,500 sites have previously been identified and 600 of these evaluated for eligibility. Recently, the Army expanded the installation by 42,000 acres of new training lands in less than four years. So a new round of Phase I surveys for cultural resources were necessary. The completion of these surveys will allow natural resources management activities to begin, which in turn will protect training areas against wildfires, encourage reforestation, and integrate endangered species and game management. In coordination with the Louisiana SHPO and consulting Native American tribes, the work of evaluating and protecting significant historic and prehistoric sites is an on-going joint effort between the Army, the National Park Service, private CRM firms, and The Center for Environmental Management of Military Lands (CEMML) at Colorado State University. In this paper we discuss the coordination and cooperation necessary to survey such a large area in a relatively short time frame.

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): 22318