cultural heritage and its management chaco culture national historical park larry j. zimmerman

Cultural Heritage and its Management

Chaco Culture National Historical Park Larry J. Zimmerman

What does the past mean?

How do we ‘connect’ to it?

San Rock Art, Eastern Cape, South Africa

How do we use it?

What are Heritage Resources?

Chaco Canyon Pottery

What is heritage?

Districts, buildings, sites, structures, and objects significant in a culture’s history, architecture,

archaeology, and engineering, which possess integrity of location,

setting, design materials, workmanship, and feeling and

association

Who Owns the Past?

Is it a public heritage?

Is it owned by those from whose culture it originated?

Crow Creek Massacre Remains, South Dakota, circa AD 1325

Crow Creek Massacre Reburial, 1981

The Struggle for Kennewick/The Ancient One

Does it matter who tells the story?

US?

Or them?

Obviously, many of us have strong opinions about it.

Purposeful Destruction of Heritage

Destruction of the Stone Buddhas of Bamiyan in Central Afghanistan

Taliban Religious Fervor

March 8, 2001

A Plan for Restoration?

Painted ceiling of one Buddha

December 6, 1992

Destruction of the Babri Masjid Mosque, Ayohdya, India

What Happens Next?

Is imitation heritage still heritage?

Lascaux II: The Price of Heritage Tourism

From Stonehenge…

and New Age Solstice Rituals…

England, 2003

… to Foamhenge

Natural Bridge, Virginia

Can heritage be restored?

The Great Sphinx Restoration Project

Angkor, Cambodia Restoration Project

Restoration of Angkor

A multinational enterprise

Closer to Home

Morris-Butler Home

Walker Building

Union StationAngel Mounds, Evansville

In developed nations, heritage management is an industry in its own right.

Same here in the USA

National Park Service oversees the CRM process in the US.

Cultural Resources Management and Archaeology

CRM is approximately a $125,000,000 industry in the US annually.

CRM is largest employer of archaeologists at all levels of education.

CRM is the largest employer of BA level anthropology graduates.

CRM, a free journal from NPS

US Cultural Resources ManagementNational Historic Preservation Act, 1966

and the National Register of Historic Places

What is the National Register of Historic Places?

The National Register is maintained by the National Park Service, Department of Interior.

It is the nation’s official list of districts, buildings, sites, structures, and objects documented as significant to American history, architecture & archaeology, but…

…defined at the local level.

• That are associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history; or

• That are associated with the lives of significant persons in our past; or

• That embody the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, or method of construction, or that represent the work of a master, or that possess high artistic values, or that represent a significant and distinguishable entity whose components may lack individual distinction; or

• That have yielded, or may be likely to yield, information important in history or prehistory.

How do we know what’s significant?

Sites or objects:

Sacred Sites and Traditional Cultural Properties

Bear Butte SD

Traditional Cultural Properties

Eligible for inclusion in the National register of Historic Places because of their "association with cultural practices or beliefs of a living community that

a) are rooted in that community's history,

b) are important in maintaining the continuing cultural identity of the community.

Broadlawns, Burial Mounds, and Cell

Towers

TCPs and CRM:

A Case Study from Iowa

Two Woodland Tradition Burial Mounds Damaged

Taking Down the Tower

The crane alone cost about $120,000!

What’s left to get rid of?

Plenty!

Unfortunately, only one of the mounds

The Hospital, State Archaeologist, Iowa Indian Advisory Board, and the Cell Phone Company agree on what to do…

…rebuild the mounds and restore the area.

Howard Matalba

Maria Pearson, Shirley Schermer, Steve Dasovich

The Process

Selecting Clean Fill

Strip off the ground cover

Cleaning up the site

Jackhammer away the top 3’ of the support

Figuring out the height of the mound

Bringing in Fill

Moundbuilding, 2001

Seeding and installing natural ground cover

Watching the grass grow

The Cost?

About $1,500,000

$85,000 for landscaping $200,000 for ground work $120,000 for the crane $1,195,000 for two new towers