Mississippi Administrative Code › Title 16 - History, Humanities and Arts › Part 3 - Historic Preservation Division › Chapter 12 - Mississippi Standards and Guidelines for Archaeological Investigations › Rule 16-3-12.6.5 - Phase I Field Documentation Standards

Current through June 25, 2024
The choice of methods for recording Phase I survey field
				  data are to be based on a research design and enable independent interpretation
				  and recordation. At a minimum, the following information shall be recorded:
STP documentation is to include the following:
1. Identifier;
2. Name of excavator;
3. Date;
4. Description of cultural material;
5. Soils;
6. Profile; and
7. UTM coordinates (for both positive and
				negative STPs).
8. Project maps
				are to include the following:
1.
				Orientation and scale (written and scale bar); and
2. Location of all STPs and all above-ground
				cultural features, including cultural landscape features and any previously
				disturbed areas.
Photographs are to be taken of:
1. All site locations;
2. All cultural features/items extant on the
				surface (for example, mounds, cellar depressions, chimney falls, etc.); and
3. All cultural evidence beneath
				the surface (for example, hearths, pits, clusters/concentrations of diagnostic
				artifacts, or significant stratigraphy).
Monitoring, Phase II, and Phase III Mitigation
				  Projects
In compliance with NHPA standards, which consultants should
				  be familiar with, research designs and project completion for all monitoring,
				  Phase II, and Phase III Mitigation projects should contain a public outreach
				  component. This component will include a redacted report for public consumption
				  or a report specifically edited for the general public. It will also include at
				  least one group of printed/web materials that includes things like posters,
				  brochures, lesson plans, coloring pages, webpage, podcast, YouTube video, etc.
				  for the general public. This component will be turned in to MDAH with the final
				  report and archaeological site cards.
Oral History Interviews
Formal Interviews:
Should be conducted whenever possible, especially for 20th
				  century sites, for sites whose occupants may still have living descendants in
				  the area, that are associated with identified living community traditions, or
				  with strong community involvement (like TCPs or Mound Bayou, MS). Oral
				  histories recorded should include information about the location and time of
				  the interview as well as the interviewer and interviewee. A digital recording
				  along with a transcript of the interview should be turned in along with the
				  report to MDAH. This recording should be on archival materials (archival CD).
				  The interviewer shall adhere to the professional qualifications used by the
				  NRHP for Professional Qualifications: Ethnography (Bulletin 38, Appendix II
				  Professional Qualifications: Ethnography).
When seeking assistance in the identification, evaluation,
				  and management of traditional cultural properties, agencies should normally
				  seek out specialists with ethnographic research training, typically including,
				  but not necessarily limited to:
1.
				Language skills: it is usually extremely important to talk in their own
				language with those who may ascribe value to traditional cultural properties.
				While ethnographic fieldwork can be done through interpreters, ability in the
				local language is always preferable.
2. Interview skills, for example:
a. The ability to approach a potential
				informant in his or her own cultural environment, explain and if necessary
				defend one's research, conduct an interview and minimize disruption, elicit
				required information, and disengage from the interview in an appropriate manner
				so that further interviews are welcome; and
b. The ability to create and conduct those
				types of interviews that are appropriate to the study being carried out,
				ensuring that the questions asked are meaningful to those being interviewed,
				and that answers are correctly understood through the use of such techniques as
				translating and back-translating. Types of interviews normally carried out by
				ethnographers, one or more of which may be appropriate during evaluation and
				documentation of a traditional cultural property, include:
i.semi-structured interview on a broad
				topic;
ii. semi-structured
				interview on a narrow topic;
iii.
				structured interview on a well defined specific topic; open ended life
				history/life cycle interview; and
iv.genealogical interview Skill in making and accurately recording
				direct observations of human behavior, typically including: