GUIDELINES FOR THE USE OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL MONITORING AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO OTHER FIELD TECHNIQUES 3/25/02 (NYAC adopted 4/26/02)
POLICY AND PURPOSE Monitoring has recently become a more prevalent CRM practice. Although many archaeologists are uncomfortable with its use as a method of investigation, monitoring appears in many Scopes of Work and Memoranda of Agreement. Particularly in urban settings, traffic and other logistical considerations have led to a reliance upon monitoring, often as a substitute for archaeological testing, evaluation or data recovery. Because power equipment is so costly, monitoring is sometimes presented to agencies and developers as a means to reduce costs of urban archaeological projects, although to their surprise the actual costs can be substantially larger. Too often there is much pressure upon the archaeological community to use monitoring in the compliance process as an alternative to other archaeological field methods. Additionally, there has been little professional guidance on the subject and its appropriateness as an investigative technique remains an open question.
The existing Standards for Cultural Resource Investigations and the Curation of Archaeological Collections in New York State (NYAC 1994; adopted by the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation) address monitoring in Sections 3.7 and 4.5. Monitoring, according to the Standards, may be acceptable under certain circumstances during Phases II and III as a "supplemental" technique. The Standards caution, however, that "due to the complexities often characterizing projects and sites located in urban settings, [the] guidelines apply primarily to projects situated in non-urban environments" (NYAC 1994:1). This suggests that there may be additional considerations during urban projects, in determining whether and under what circumstances monitoring is an appropriate field strategy.
The following guidelines have been written by a joint NYAC/PANYC subcommittee in order to clarify some of these issues in an attempt to make the existing Standards more explicit on the subject of monitoring. Input on these guidelines has been made by members of both NYAC and PANYC.
DEFINITION Archaeological Monitoring For purposes of this document, we define monitoring as the observation of construction excavation activities by an archaeologist in order to identify, recover, protect and/or document archaeological information or materials. During monitoring, excavation is not under the control of the archaeologist although the archaeologist may be given authority to temporarily halt construction work to do his or her job, as defined in the scope of work. Excavation area, location and depth are determined and directed by contractor(s), or the organization employing them.
The practice of monitoring should not be confused with the use of heavy equipment by archaeologists. In this circumstance, the placement, size and depth of the excavations suit the aims of the archaeological research design and the operation of all mechanical equipment is under direct control of the archaeologist.
WHEN MONITORING IS APPROPRIATE Experience at urban sites suggests that in a limited number of cases monitoring may be an acceptable approach. As stated in the Standards, there are some circumstances during the evaluation and data recovery phases (Phase II and III) where monitoring may be used effectively to supplement other archaeological methods. There may also be situations where monitoring may be used during Phase 1B archaeological testing. In general, however, monitoring should only be considered when all other alternative techniques have been examined (including mechanically-assisted archaeological excavation) and those have been determined to be not feasible. Also, monitoring may be considered an acceptable alternative to other forms of archaeological testing when documentary research shows significant archaeological deposits are likely to be present, but are outside of the project impact areas or beneath the depth of project impacts. In such cases, the appropriateness of monitoring must be thoroughly established before proceeding with contractor excavations.
If a decision is reached to proceed with monitoring, then a written monitoring plan or protocol must be implemented. The contents of such a document are described below. With the exception of extraordinary circumstances (e.g., excavations to permit emergency repairs) an acceptable plan should give the archaeologist the authority to halt excavations under defined conditions.
Specific scenarios based on actual examples are presented here to establish guidance in how and when monitoring is appropriate.
One example occurred in a historic district in Jersey City, New Jersey where construction was planned above the depth of an historic sewer. Monitoring was done to ensure the contractor did not exceed the depth of planned construction and that the historic sewer was not disturbed. Another example was in Philadelphia where park landscaping had the potential to disturb an historic burial place. The archaeologists worked with the contractor to document any exposed remains which were then protected in situ and trench depths modified.
MONITORING PLAN When monitoring is planned, a clear understanding between the archaeologist and construction excavation team (from the management level down to the equipment operator) is required prior to commencement of fieldwork. A protocol for construction work stoppages must be developed to enable archaeologists time for recordation and for any archaeological data recovery that may be needed.
For projects in which monitoring is being proposed, a written protocol or monitoring plan should be prepared and agreed to by the consulting archaeologist, the review agency archaeologist, the undertaking agency representative, the developer (where applicable), and the construction contractor. The monitoring plan should include a number of essential elements:
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