What do we mean by overview and assessment?
This report describes and assesses the known and potential archaeological
resources in a park area. The overview
reviews and summarizes existing archaeological data; the assessment
evaluates the data. The report assesses past
work and helps determine the need for and design of future studies.
It is undertaken in a park or regional geographical framework and may be
a part of multi-agency planning efforts.
-Cultural Resource Management, NPS-28, pg. 25.
What is a cultural resource?
The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 recognizes five property
types: districts, sites, buildings, structures,
and objects. As called for in the act, these categories are used
in the National Register of Historic Places, the
preeminent reference for properties worthy of preservation in the United
States. To focus attention on management requirements within these
property types, the NPS Management Policies categorizes cultural
resources as:
-Archaeological
Resources
-Cultural
Resources
-Structures
-Museum
Objects
-Ethnographic Resources
-Cultural Resource Management, NPS-28, pg. 7.
The University of Maryland's inventory and assessment of the Petersburg
National Battlefield is scheduled to take
three years to complete. The Petersburg National Battlefield
is divided into three separate units: Main, Five Forks,
and City Point. One year will be spent examining each unit.
The first year, 1998, was spent examining the Five
Forks unit, and this year the focus is on the Main unit, which includes
the visitor center, Fort Stedman, and the
Crater. The last year of the project is slated for the City Point
unit. The main goal of this project is to identify and
describe known and potential archaeological resources within the park.
By identifying and recording these
resources, it will give the National Park Service the information needed
to help determine future development on
the battlefield and guide future research.
In the following sections let's look at the work which has been completed at the present time:
Five Forks Main Unit City Point