Summer is the busiest construction season in Colorado and many historic preservation projects are getting underway.  Building foundations are being excavated, grading is being corrected for proper drainage around buildings, and other “ground-breaking” work is being done, much of which is funded by the Colorado Historical Society’s State Historical Fund (SHF).  Many of these well-planned preservation projects include a common element: the inclusion of “archaeological considerations.”  For most projects, inclusion of archaeological considerations is required in order to meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation, the standards by which all SHF projects must comply.  Remembering to include line items in your budget and professionals in your scope of work to address archaeological issues is a critically important component for any well-planned SHF grant project.  And the better planned your project is, the more competitive your SHF grant application is likely to be.

There are several different ways to include archaeological considerations in your project and appropriate times to plan for them.  Any time ground will be broken during a project one should consider the potential that archaeological resources might be present.  After all, buildings represent the historical record of things we can see, but always remember that there may be important pieces of historical information buried under and around them.

Monitoring, test excavation, and intensive excavation are three different ways to treat potential archaeological resources and each of these treatments have different benefits and costs.  Discussing your plans for ground-breaking activities with a qualified archaeologist or speaking to an SHF staff archaeologist can help you determine the appropriate level of consideration.  Professional archaeologists may be found in the Directory of Cultural Resource Personnel, available at www.historycolorado.org, or by calling one of the professional archaeologist associations.

Monitoring, the least intensive level of archaeological treatment, can mean anything from hiring an archaeologist to be “on call,” to hiring an archaeologist to supervise ground-breaking activities and ensure that any discovered artifacts and the site itself are being treated properly.  For your budget, monitoring is typically the least expensive level of treatment, but it is important to verify the costs and the appropriateness of your plans by calling a qualified archaeologist.

Test excavations or archaeological assessments (included as parts of acquisition and development grants, or individually in the form of survey and planning or archaeological assessment grants) are more intensive than monitoring and are conducted to either determine eligibility of a site to one of the historic registers or to plan for subsequent site excavation and management.  Tests are limited to a reasonably small percentage of the resource in question unless a larger excavation is explicitly requested and justified by an archaeologist.  Archaeological assessments are defined as the evaluation of the condition and archaeological potential of archaeological sites or historic sites with archaeological resources.  Evaluation may include a literature review, the analysis of collections, surface reconnaissance, limited testing, or any combination of these activities.

Finally, intensive excavation may be conducted to preserve specific sites (such as during stabilization), salvage data from resources that will be compromised or destroyed, or to recover information that is not available by nondestructive means.  Intensive excavation is generally the most expensive form of archaeological treatment, and, for designated historic sites, the costs for it may also be covered by an SHF general acquisition and development grant.

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory (RMBL) in Gothic, near Crested Butte, recently learned the value of planning for potential archaeological resources.  In the course of restoring a shed structure, archaeologists monitoring the project uncovered a piece of the site’s history that had been completely lost to records.  Old test tubes, found with other artifacts, showed that the back room of the Gothic Town Hall had actually been the laboratory of Colorado’s first mammologist, E. R. Warren, long before the site became the RMBL.  This discovery was one of the most significant events in the history of the Gothic townsite.  Thanks to RMBL’s careful planning and inclusion of “archaeological considerations” in its grant project, that piece of history will be saved for future generations.

For all questions relating to proper planning for SHF grant projects, please contact SHF applications and outreach staff at 303.866.2825.