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14 Heritage Resource Management in the United States Hester A. Davis Heritage resource management in the United States has its roots in the historic preservation movement. The historic preservation movement has its roots in efforts to commemorate the significant events and the men (and they were largely men) who led the way to the successful American Revolution, and to memorialize the events and heroes of our Civil War, no matter on which side one’s ancestors fought. The success of this effort can still be seen in some parts of the South in the statue of a Confederate soldier in the central square of many towns and villages. Much has been written about what is considered a successful effort to give America a sense of history, starting within 50 years of the creation of the United States. That in the process we destroyed, and are continuing to destroy, the history of another people has not been lost on some of us. That this history has largely been recognized by memorializing bloody conflicts is not unique to our country. Battlefields are our sacred sites, and the places where our heroes were born represent the “living memories” of their lives. We began the long road to recognition and protection of our nation’s history in 1906 with the passage by Congress of the Antiquities Act (although some indicate that it could be said to have begun when Congress created its own library in 1800; King 2008:16). The importance and influence of this seminal piece of legislation was recognized in 2006 by a year-long celebration of its centennial (Harmon et al. 2006). A few individual sites in the Southwest had been purchased by the government prior to 1906, but the Antiquities Act was the first broad sweeping protection of sites on all federal land. It includes a permit system for any investigation of sites on federal land, with penalties (strengthened by recent legislation) for disturbance of sites without permits. Of significance, as it turned out, is the inclusion of a section allowing the president to create national monuments without going through Congress. The National Park Service (NPS) was created in 1916 and in essence created the concept of management of significant sites (now called cultural resources) on federal land. In 1935, the Historic Sites Act recognized an ongoing effort by the NPS to establish a record of historic properties, largely at first consisting of buildings, that were of national significance. This legislation also officially established the NPS Heritage Resource Management in the United States 189 as the lead government agency for historic preservation, a position that it still holds. In 1960, the Reservoir Salvage Act recognized the effort that had begun soon after the end of World War II to recover information from prehistoric and historic sites that were being inundated by the huge federal projects to provide flood control and electricity through damming many of our major rivers. So, congressional activity took place about every 30 years starting in 1906, but the 30 years following 1960 saw a rash of legislation that entirely changed the world of historic preservation in the United States. Legislation Effecting Cultural Resources after 1960 The National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA) of 1966 and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1969 provide the foundation for our present approach to historic preservation. The Advisory Council on Historic Preservation was created by the act of 1966, and the Council of Environmental Quality by the act of 1969. Both were required to write procedures by which other agencies were to comply with these acts, but neither had any authority over final decisions of other agencies relative to the treatment of cultural resources. So long as agencies or those using federal permits or licenses document that they will “take into account” cultural resources in their planning and have sufficiently justified to the Advisory Council that they will fully document any property that they will destroy, the agencies can do just that—destroy the property. In reality, of course, this has almost never happened. The public outcry would be too great. When push comes to shove, negotiated mitigation has always been the final choice. The act of 1966 also expanded the National Landmarks program (created by the act of 1935) to create a National Register of Historic Places, providing that registered sites on both public and private land be given specific consideration in any federal agency’s planning. The act of 1966 envisioned a nationwide cooperative preservation program between federal...

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