Impact Assessment in a Tipi City: Cultural Resource Management Contributions to Understanding a Cultural Landscape
Stephen C. Wagner, M.A. RPA
Archaeological Technologist
Bison Historical Services, Ltd.
and
Tommy Y. Ng, M.A.
Managing Partner
Bison Historical Services, Ltd.
Presented at the 48th Annual Meetings of the Canadian Archaeological Association, Whitehorse, Yukon, May 2016
Although data recorded for cultural resource management projects are often regarded as purely descriptive, they can be presented in a way that adds value to landscape-oriented research questions, with little to no changes to the field methods being required. It is the organization of that data that can aid or hinder broader interpretation. This can be demonstrated using a recent example of a Historic Resource Impact Assessment (HRIA) conducted by personnel of Bison Historical Services Ltd. near the Sundial Medicine Wheel in Alberta. Located near the Travers Reservoir on the Little Bow River, the medicine wheel is located on a hill surrounded by a large number of sites. These sites have been identified, revisited, and modified through a large number of cultural resource management and research-oriented projects over the past 50 years. Most of these sites possess stone features, which are often the indicators used as boundary determinations for these sites. The recent HRIA involved revisiting 19 of these sites, as well as identifying three new sites. These were recorded using standard attributes for stone features, including stone depth, feature size, and the number of visible stones. Assuming spatial and temporal relationships between neighbouring sites, we use these attributes to discern spatial differentiation within the landscape.
