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Helpful Cultural Resource Information

Questions & Terms Regarding Cultural Resource Management

Projects involving cultural resources can include unfamiliar industry terms, state and federal regulations, and detailed processes. View ACI’s resources, featured below, to learn key concepts in cultural resource management, answers to common questions, how to connect with us, and when our guidance may be needed. 

See Our FAQs

What is archaeology?

Archaeology is the study of past human cultures through the recovery and analysis of material remains and environmental data. The goal is to “reconstruct” or understand what happened in this place in the past.

The process of evaluating a project or property to determine whether archaeological resources are present or are likely to be present — and whether additional studies are needed. As part of a broader cultural resources review, this process may include background research, historical documentation, site assessments, and field investigations like shovel testing or Phase I surveys. ACI’s archaeology reviews help project teams understand potential impacts to archaeological sites and navigate local, state and federal requirements, including Section 106, NEPA, and other regulations.

It’s the study and documentation of buildings, structures, and designed landscapes to understand their historical significance, development, and value to culture overall. As part of ACI’s investigations into cultural resources, architectural historians evaluate properties to determine their age, design characteristics, historical associations, and eligibility for local, state, or national historic registers. Architectural history has an important role in a variety of projects requiring assessments of historic resources, preservation planning, and compliance with regulations such as Section 106.

Cemetery studies are specialized investigations into cultural resources, which are focused on documenting, evaluating, and understanding human burial sites. Studies involve a combination historic research, visual reconnaissance, and remote sensing to identify, document, and record cemeteries. At ACI, our cemetery experts are trained on Cemetery Resource Protection (CRP) and have even served as expert witnesses before regulatory bodies. 

As part of ACI’s comprehensive archaeological services that incorporate innovative technology, ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is a geological survey method we use to identify subsurface features without disturbing the ground. Using radar pulses to detect changes beneath the surface, GPR can help locate potential archaeological resources, buried structures, utilities, and other anomalies that might require further investigation. As part of studies regarding cultural resources, GPR can provide valuable information to support archaeology, cemetery studies, and project planning — all while minimizing any impact to the project site. 

Pre-historic is a conventional term used to refer to the period of time before written records, often misinterpreted to mean no history, but history has long passed through oral tradition. Pre-Contact or pre-Columbian is now used more to reflect that it is not a lack of history — just a time before “written” history or the European recording of history.

Artifacts are objects made or altered by humans, including stone tools, shell tools, pottery, and buildings. 

A place that contains archaeological remains of previous human activity, including artifacts, burials, or soil stains (post molds or fire pits). 

We dig holes. But really — many sites, and sometimes human remains, are initially discovered by accident through plowing, quarrying, construction, or due to natural events (drought, fire, ice thaw, or flooding). When that is not the case, we use predictive models to determine how likely we are to find a site in a particular area based on geography, soils, natural resources, and past disturbances. ACI can also look at historic maps, historic aerial photographs, and LiDAR data.

It helps if ACI understands what type of project you have — whether it’s a residential or commercial development, utility or roadway construction, water storage, mining, or any other undertaking that may require our expertise — along with maps of the project location and details regarding your project timeline and specific needs. 

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Cultural Resource

Archaeological materials or historic structures that are indicators of past human activities. These can include artifacts, sites, buildings, roads, bridges, drainage canals, landscapes, and other objects of importance to a culture or community for scientific, traditional, religious, or other reasons.

The development and maintenance of programs designed to investigate, manage, preserve, and protect cultural resources in compliance with state and federal laws. 

Anything 50 years of age or greater is considered historic.

Any cultural resource listed in or eligible for the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP). This includes a variety of resource types such as historic and pre-Contact archaeological sites, houses, historic districts, engineering features such as roadbeds, railways, or bridges, battlefields, historic and cultural landscapes, and traditional cultural properties.

Pre-Contact refers to the time period prior to European contact in the United States. In some instances, this is referred to as aboriginal or indigenous. The early peoples of the Americas had vibrant, long standing, and well-documented histories that have been preserved in oral traditions and cultural items, as well as archaeological sites.

Cultural aspects of the environment — for example, cultural uses of the natural environment, the built environment, and human social institutions – interpreted comprehensively to include the natural and physical (built) environment and the relationship of people with that environment. This term is featured in NEPA legislation.

Cultural Resource Assessment Survey (CRAS) — typically a Phase I Survey. To learn more, please see our Archaeology page.

Area of Potential Effects — geographic area or areas within which an undertaking may directly or indirectly cause alterations in the character or use of historic properties, if any such properties exist.

Effects that cause alterations in the character or use of historic properties, typically considered to include physical destruction of, or damage to, all or part of a historic property; alteration of a historic property in a way that is not consistent with the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for the Treatment of Historic Properties and applicable guidelines; or the removal of the property from its historic location. Many local and state agencies utilize this definition. However, the 2019 DC circuit court ruling in National Parks Conservation Association v. Semonite shifted or expanded this definition to consider the causality, and not the physicality, of the effect to historic properties. Thus, if the effect comes from the undertaking at the same time and place with no intervening cause, it is considered “direct” regardless of its specific type (e.g., whether it is visual, physical, auditory, etc.). Therefore, in projects with federal review, this expanded definition is considered.

Visual, auditory, and/or atmospheric impacts that may result from a proposed undertaking. Indirect effects may be either permanent or temporary in nature. As with direct effects this is the standard definition used by most local and state review agencies. However, similarly, the 2019 DC circuit court ruling in National Parks Conservation Association v. Semonite shifted or expanded this definition to consider the causality, indicating that indirect effects to historic properties are those caused by the undertaking that are later in time or further removed in distance but are still reasonably foreseeable.