10 Year Heritage Program Plan Hoosier National Forest Prepared by
Heritage Program Managed to Standard
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- Components of Heritage Program Planning
- Synthesis of known cultural resources, traditionally known as a Cultural Resource Overview
Heritage Program Managed to StandardIn Federal Fiscal Year 2012, the Forest Service instituted a new way to measure the strengths, weaknesses and accomplishment capacity of each national forest Heritage program. The measure is called Heritage Program Managed to Standard and is based on the guidance written and accepted as practice in Forest Service Manual 2360. The goal of the Heritage Program Managed to Standard (HPMtS) is to have a program evenly balanced between proactive heritage program work (Section 110 of the NHPA) and support for other resource programs such as timber, lands and realty, roads and facilities engineering, watersheds and wetland restoration, as well as public visitation and recreation (Section 106 of the NHPA). This new accomplishment target comprises seven measures that when scored along a continuum reflect the overall health and performance of the program. Forests accumulating 45 points (out of a possible 80) are defined as meeting the minimum stewardship level. The seven measures of the Heritage Program Managed to Standard are: 1. A Heritage Program Plan exists to protect cultural resources and chart management actions to realize the most important cultural resource benefits on the unit as listed FSM 2362.3. This document contains seven components which fulfill the requirements of the measure (1 complete plan=10 points) 2. Section 110 of the NHPA field surveys occur where there is the greatest likelihood of finding historic properties. The goal is to gain an understanding of the cultural context of the lands we manage so we can protect important sites and maximize their benefits to the public and the agency. (.05 points per acre/200 acres=10 points) 3. Formally evaluate cultural resources for eligibility to the NRHP and nominate for listing. (.5 points per evaluation/20sites=10 points/1 nomination=10 points) 4. Condition assessments of Priority Heritage Assets (including heritage collections) are current and include allocation to management categories to guide protection and use. (1 point per 10% PHA MtS/100% MtS=10 points) 5. Cultural resource stewardship activities occur through direct protection, and conservation and maintenance to protect and maintain Priority Heritage Assets. (2.5 points per project/4 projects=10 points) 6. Offer opportunities for study and public use including scientific investigation, public dissemination of research results, adaptive reuse, tradition use, interpretation and other public outreach Windows on the Past projects. (2 points per project/ 5 projects=10 points) 7. Volunteer hours contribute to activities that enhance cultural resource stewardship and conservation and expand the capacity, visibility, and delivery of the Heritage Program. Involve volunteers to promote public ownership of our non-renewable resources and foster a stewardship ethic. (.025 points per volunteer hour/400 hours=10 points) Although fully meeting all of the measures is a lofty goal in these days of declining budgets, the new target allows us to consistently measure broader program accomplishments and the delivery of the program services across the agency and the public.
Each of these goals will be discussed in the sections below. This Heritage Program Plan ambitiously lays out the activities of the heritage program for the next 10 years. It was designed specifically for the Hoosier National Forest in south central Indiana but will contribute to historic preservation goals for the State of Indiana and the broader Ohio Valley region. A general timeline is presented in this document to identify projects and activities that can be performed in the foreseeable future to move the forest towards meeting and maintaining a heritage program that is managed to standard.
Cultural resources are the physical remains of past human activity. They can be sites or districts and are prehistoric or historic. They must be at least 50 years old. The oldest sites are upwards of 12,000 years old. They are important reminders of the ways people have coped with their world through time. They are fragile and non-renewable. The Cultural Resource Management Program on the Hoosier began in the 1970’s with contract surveys prior to timber sales, and creation of wildlife ponds. The program has been overseen by numerous people beginning with Colin Hastie in 1980, Dan Haas in 1981-1985, Judith Proper in 1982, Janet Brashler 1985, Mary Wilson 1987-1989, Ruth Brinker 1989-1991, and Angie R. Krieger 1992-Present. The earliest field work was conducted primarily by paraprofessional archaeological technicians and contractors. The paraprofessional archaeological technician program has declined over the years. Of the 17 individuals trained, four currently participate. Although the number is small, the paraprofessional program as a whole has allowed us to reach not only our own employees about the protection of cultural resources and the potential impacts our projects may have on them, but other forests and agencies as these people evolve in their careers and/or relocate. Since the program began, two overviews (Fitting 1979, Seiber et al 1989) were written. Attention was placed on describing the types and numbers of cultural resources present and the survey methods used to locate them in the heavily forested terrain of southern Indiana. They provided an overview of the environmental setting, prehistoric and historic periods, and recommended survey and evaluation strategies. The 1989 (Seiber et al) overview made six general recommendations: Investigate and interpret the Buffalo Trace (12 Or 0600), Kibbey’s Road (12 Mn 0065), Cox’s Woods (12 Or 0001), rockshelter sites, and historic homestead/farmstead sites; compile documentary source information and historic locale maps; document cemeteries; research history of the Hoosier National Forest; and protect and evaluate rockshelters. Later, two popular publications were developed to illustrate the historic contexts of southern Indiana. Seiber and Munson (1992) developed Looking at History: Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest Region, 1600 to 1950 and Justice (2006) developed Looking at Prehistory: Indiana’s Hoosier National Forest Region, 12,000 B.C. to 1650. These were distributed to all Indiana K-12 schools, colleges and universities, libraries, museums, historical societies, and professional archaeologists. The themes identified in these documents will be used as historic contexts for both prehistoric and historic sites as we concentrate future efforts towards NRHP evaluations and nominations. Using data from Justice (2006) and Jones and Johnson (2008), Table 1 presents an overview of the Cultural Traditions in Indiana.
Table : Indiana Prehistoric Cultural Chronology In the entire Great Lakes area, dramatic changes occurred in the Native American groups prior to the arrival of the first European traders and explorers in the 17th century. Indian populations were displaced by those on the east coast who in turn displaced other groups who sought refuge elsewhere. We don’t know for certain which Native American groups were present in the area during specific time periods. Miami, Wea, Piankeshaw, Shawnee, Delaware, Wyandotte, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi groups lived in Indiana in the 17th and 18th centuries though the details of time period, scale, and length of occupation in southern Indiana is not clear. See Sieber and Munson (1992) for further information. Early pioneer settlers of Indiana came from Europe. After Indiana became a state in 1816 more people came into the area from the upland south (Kentucky, North Carolina, Virginia, and Tennessee) and northeastern Yankee states (Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Maryland, and New England). Many settlers belonged to a middle class of land-owning “plain folk” who cultivated corn and raised hogs for subsistence and market export along the rivers (Sieber and Munson 199). Early industries included logging, farming, tanning, milling, quarrying of whetstone, and salt making. Later industries include mining of coal and clay, and furniture manufacture. As defined in Seiber and Munson (1992) the historic period in southern Indiana can be divided into the following four categories: Cultures in Transition: Native Americans, 1600-1800; Transplanted Cultures: Pioneer Settlement, 1800-1850 (Upland Southerners, Yankees, German-American, and African-American); Regional Distinctiveness: Tradition and Change, 1850-1915; and Twentieth Century Changes, 1915-1950. These categories are the historic contexts that will be used in the future as a research framework. These contexts will allow us to narrow down the pool of sites that best represent the identified temporal, functional, and ethnic categories. As we assess integrity we can identify a handful of sites in each category to pursue formal evaluations and ultimately nominate to the NRHP.
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