The National Historic Preservation Act ─ Past, Present, and Future

Assessing fifty years of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), passed in 1966, this volume examines the impact of this key piece of legislation on heritage practices in the United States. The editors and contributing authors summarize how we approached compliance in the past, how we approach it now, and how we may approach it in the future. This volume

• presents how federal, state, tribal entities, and contractors in different regions address compliance issues;
  
• examines half a century of changes in the level of inventory, evaluation and mitigation practices, and determinations of eligibility;
  
• describes how the federal and state agencies have changed their approach over half a century; the Act is examined from the Federal, SHPO, THPO, Advisory Council, and regional perspectives.
  

Using case studies authored by well-known heritage professionals based in universities, private practice, tribes, and government, this volume provides a critical and constructive examination of the NHPA and its future prospects. Archaeology students and scholars, as well heritage professionals, should find this book of interest.

Kimball M. Banks earned his Ph.D. from Southern Methodist University. He has spent most of his career in Federal service, first with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and then the Bureau of Reclamation. He has conducted fieldwork in the American Southwest, Southeast, Northern Plains, Texas, California, and in Egypt. While with the Bureau of Reclamation, he administered investigations at the Angostura Site, the McKean site and other sites that the River Basin Surveys and Interagency Archeological Survey Program investigated, which stimulated his interest in the history of the River Basin Surveys. He currently manages the Regional Office of Metcalf Archaeological Consultants, Inc. in Bismarck, North Dakota.

Ann M. Scott is the Director of Cultural Resources at aci consulting, an environmental consulting firm headquartered in Austin, Texas. She earned her PhD in Latin American Studies from The University of Texas at Austin, received a MA in Anthropology from Northern Illinois University, and completed a BS degree with honors from Central Michigan University. Dr. Scott has over 25 years of archaeological experience and has worked for the National Park Service, the State of Wisconsin, the State of Illinois, and various private consulting firms in the Midwest and Texas. In addition to a successful career in cultural resource management, Dr. Scott has a long record of conducting research in Latin America. She has participated in archaeological research in Peru, Bolivia, Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize, and specializes in Mesoamerican cave archaeology.