PREFACE

There are two major shortcomings to this management strategy. First, although progress towardanswering lower-scale research questions could be relatively rapid in the southernmost parts of the region,few of the questions posed at the regional/integrative scale – including most of the major culturalhistorical questions – are addressable until basic chronological, subsistence, and settlement data areobtained from most or all of the regional sampling units. Second, implementation of the research designwill require adaptive management of cultural resources in all of the management units, even those inwhich there is little or no ongoing development.At a minimum, there should be an initial assessment of previous surveys and excavations in each RSU todetermine base-line data currently available. A GIS database should also be developed for each RSUshowing the areas surveyed and the locations of known sites by temporal period and site type, as well asgeoarchaeologic units and other environmental strata (e.g., vegetation, geomorphology, soils, hydrology).The latter data can then be used to develop a stratified survey design to sample environmental variabilityin the RSU. Finally, a sampling matrix should be developed for known sites in the RSU with annotationsconcerning which site types from which temporal periods have been investigated by previous excavations.With these baseline data, managers can monitor progress toward the basic management objectives listedin Table 5.1.For the few RSUs/management units with intensive ongoing development, active management will benecessary. Most of the RSUs, however, will probably require only annual reviews by the culturalresource manager to track progress toward the management objectives, and to update the GIS databaseand sampling matrix to incorporate any work completed during the year as well as any refinements to thetemporal periods and site types.The modeling projects proposed as part of the research design are intended in part to compensate foruneven progress of research in the region. Development of the diet breadth model, in particular, willallow predictions about the kinds of food resources likely to be targeted in a particular area and the mostlikely season or season of resource procurement activities. Predictive models of site locations developedto inform cultural resource management decisions in the RSUs can also be used to provide clues aboutsettlement patterns in the region, particularly as refinements to the temporal periods and site typesresulting from excavations in areas of ongoing energy development are applied to the other RSUs. Thesuccess of this approach will depend heavily on the quality of the survey data, however, since survey datawill have to be substituted for excavation data for most of the RSUs in order to address any of theregional research issues in anything like a reasonable time frame. For that reason, the final section of thischapter provides recommendations for improving the quality of the data during surveys in the region.The management strategy proposed here presents a number of challenges if the research design is to beimplemented successfully. First, southeastern New Mexico and the individual RSU encompassed landsfalling under multiple jurisdictions including the BLM lands, Forest Service lands, State Trust Lands,tribal lands, and private landholdings. Close coordination among these various stakeholder is necessaryto ensure that all parties are working toward common objectives. Second, sustained funding is needed forthe proposed research. Although much of the survey and excavation can probably be completed in thecontext of developer-funded cultural resource management studies, separate funding may be needed forthe model development projects, geomorphological studies, and paleoenvironmental research that arecritical components of the research design. Third, assuming that most of the research is conducted in thecontext of compliance-driven projects, the research strategy must be fully integrated into the Section 106compliance process. Finally, there must be some single entity that is responsible for coordinating andsustaining the long-term research effort, which could be either a lead agency or an oversight committeewith some institutional support.5-6