Preservation or Perseveration: The Cost of Trying to Save Everything

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The National Register of Historic Places Criteria help to guide the valuation and protection of significant archaeological sites. Lithic and trash scatters are often recommended as eligible for the Register based on their data potential or left with undetermined eligibility, though relatively few of these sites are actually nominated for the Register or scientifically excavated. Such sites tend to be the most common on the landscape, though their potential to yield unique and significant data is often limited beyond what might be collected during a thorough initial recording. A case study from Bureau of Land Management lands in Owyhee County, Idaho, provides an estimate of the various potential costs and feasibility of protecting large numbers of sites to preserve presumed data potential. Development of updated regional context documents that detail past investigations and formulate modern research questions can improve eligibility determinations and focus data collection. Applying the National Register eligibility criteria in standardized ways and taking the least significant sites out of management can free up time and funding for outreach, scientific inquiry, and the preservation of sites with greater heritage and data values.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24804