SRI first and foremost means service. We provide comprehensive cultural resource management (CRM) services, technical support and services, and continuing education and public programs through the SRI Foundation.
Comprehensive Cultural Resource Management Services
Service begins with a complete understanding of the laws and regulations governing environmental and cultural resources. SRI understands our clients' needs for thorough, rapid, and cost-effective compliance. We serve clients in the private, federal, state, and municipal sectors. SRI leads our clients through the complicated compliance process without compromising our clients' ultimate objectives or our own commitment to historic preservation and sound research. With offices in Arizona, California, New Mexico, and the Pacific Northwest, we are well poised to respond quickly and efficiently.
We offer services tailored to our clients' undertaking, the applicable laws and regulations, and the scope of the project:
Archival Research
- Conduct literature searches and records checks
- Determine if work has been conducted previously, identify recorded sites and those listed in or eligible to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)
- Accumulate pertinent environmental information
- Interview knowledgeable persons
- Check libraries, state and local museums, SHPOs, state and national registers of historic places, General Land Office (GLO) maps, Sanborn Fire Insurance maps, and other documentary resources
- Prepare Class I overviews
Historical and Ethnographic Research
SRI's historic department carries out historical research.
- Conduct literature searches, archival records checks and documentary research
- Interview knowledge persons
- Conduct ethnographic and ethnohistoric research to identify and evaluate traditional cultural properties (TCPs)
- Carry out Native American consultation
Intensive Survey
- Conduct intensive pedestrian survey to inventory, assess, and map cultural resource sites
- Complete site recording
- Prepare and submit appropriate site records
Historic and Architectural Surveys
SRI's historic department coordinates historical overviews and architectural surveys.
- Complete appropriate documentation
- Perform 3D light distance and ranging (lidar) scans of buildings and features
- Prepare and submit appropriate inventory forms and maps
- Comply with all local, state, and federal requirements
Cultural Resource Evaluations and Archaeological Testing
- Evaluate cultural resources
- Assess eligibility to the NRHP
- Perform historic building condition assessments (see below).
- Conduct archaeological fieldwork (surface collection and limited subsurface testing)
- Include plans for appropriate treatment of human remains
- Comply with all applicable regulations including air quality ordinances, state burial laws, and so on
National Register of Historic Places Nominations
- Prepare nominations for prehistoric and historical archaeological sites, TCPs, and historic buildings and districts to the NRHP
- Follow National Park Service guidelines and procedures for TCPs and multiple-property nominations
- Assess site integrity
Impact Assessment and Mitigation Plans
- Assess impacts of projects to archaeological sites, usually when a mitigation plan is prepared
- Prepare mitigation plans (typically as part of an archaeological testing report) specifying how the research values of an archaeological site will be preserved through data recovery when site preservation or avoidance are not viable alternatives
- Include a research design that addresses research issues, presents historic contexts and research questions, and estimates the necessary level of effort
- Plans are consistent with the Secretary of the Interior's Standards and Guidelines and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation's handbook, Treatment of Archaeological Properties
Data Recovery
Data recovery provides an opportunity to investigate a site thoroughly as a mitigation measure and answer research questions. SRI has the capability to conduct large-scale data recovery, including:
- Surface collection, controlled hand excavation, mechanical excavation, and recording
- Hand excavation of architectural features, extramural features, and refuse deposits
- Hand excavation and in-field analysis of human remains and associated objects
- Detailed and specialized analyses of artifacts (ceramics, faunal bone, shell, lithics, historical artifacts) and ecofacts (soils, pollen, macrobotanical remains, ostracodes)
Monitoring
- Monitor construction activities to identify and record any cultural features that may be present
- Conduct work with sensitivity to human remains and Native American concerns
Building Condition Assessments and Rehabilitation
Historic properties not scheduled for demolition may be saved through rehabilitation, restoration, and reuse to maintain or restore building integrity, materials, and appearance. SRI's historic department and consultants conduct these tasks.
- Prepare historic structures report and building condition assessments
- Plan and carry out historic building restoration
Document Preparation
Most, if not all, archaeological services require report preparation as the final task. We prepare and submit all such documents as needed.
- Overviews and cultural resources management plans
- Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs) and Programmatic Agreements
- Local MOAs, such as the Burial MOA required in Arizona
- Treatment plans
- Archaeological testing and evaluation plans
- Survey reports
- Data-recovery reports
- Monitoring reports
- Historic building condition assessments
- NHRP nominations
- Reports of survey and data-recovery projects always are published, usually as part of SRI's Technical Series (occasionally, projects may be published as SRI Press books or Technical Reports)
Technical Support and Services
SRI offers varied types of technical support to clients in the private, federal, state, and municipal sectors as well as to clients in the CRM industry. Several specialized, in-house departments use state-of-the-art technology and highly trained, experienced personnel to provide quality support.
- The Center for Excellence in Geospatial Technologies provides tools for management, law enforcement, in-field data collection, analysis, visualization, and training:
- Predictive modeling
- Spatial data management and real-time resource recording
- Satellite remote sensing and analysis
- Geophysics and nondestructive archaeology
- 3D laser scanning of artifacts, features, buildings, and landscapes
- Virtual visualization and animation
- Tools include geographic information systems (GIS), lidar, balloon photogrammetry, remote sensing, digital cartography, computer-aided design
- The Paloenvironmental and Geosciences Department offers:
- Geoarchaeology and geomorphology
- Soil analysis
- Paleohydrology
- Ostracode and other microfossil analyses
- Geospatial analyses
- The Archaeomagnetic Research Program provides:
- Consultation
- Sample collection
- Measurement and dating analysis to provide calendrical dates
- Chronometric analyses
- Workshops and certification courses
- Visit the Archeomagnetic Research Program home page
- The Historic Department offers:
- Archival research and oral history
- Historic buildings assessment, documentation (HABS/HAER), and restoration
- Historical archaeology
- Hands-on building-preservation workshops and training
- In addition, SRI offers bioarchaeological services, expert-witness services, collections management (including archives management), tribal consultation, editing and publication services, and specialized material-culture analyses (ceramics, faunal, lithic, and historical materials analyses) as needed
Continuing Education and Public Programs through the SRI Foundation
Our colleagues at the SRI Foundation offer workshops for clients in the CRM industry (e.g., Section 106 compliance, CRM writing) and public programs for diverse clients (e.g., interpretative programs, workshops, kiosks and other on-site interpretation, teacher training).
