Large-Scale Cultural Landscapes in Rights-of-Way Management

摘要

Native American perceptions of cultural landscapes are often informed by shared concepts thatenvision large-scale cultural geographies. As a result, scales for cultural landscape assessmentscan range from the relatively local to regional. The appropriate scale of assessment in any givensituation is sometimes not readily apparent to rights-of-way managers, to land-managing agen-cies, or to cultural resource professionals. This uncertainty can be a particular problem for linearprojects, which can traverse a variety of potential cultural landscapes of differing magnitudes.This paper focuses on a very large cultural landscape associated with the Xam Kwatcan trail sys-tem in the desert southwest. In all, this landscape is 160 miles or more in length, encompasses por-tions of three states (California, Arizona, and Nevada), and traverses the traditional territory ofmultiple Native American tribes. It incorporates extant trails, associated ceremonial sites, and el-ements of the natural landscape, including highly revered mountains. The United States segmentof the North Baja Pipeline project ran through this landscape for much of its 80-mile length. Rec-ommendations are made for approaches to identify Native American concerns, document land-scape elements, and develop treatment approaches within the context of Section 106 compliance.