CORRESPONDENCE - 75A SEXLINGER FARMHOUSE

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Case 13. Boundary Reduction of a Large National Register District. Listed on the National Register in the early 1970s, a large district in a northwestern state contained over 400 archeological sites across more than 400,000 acres. Sites within the district represented all periods of human occupation in North America, from Paleoindian through the early twenti- eth century. Only 10 percent of the entire district had been the subject of archeological investigations at any level. Site distribution in the district appears to have been influenced by a variety of environmental factors, including topographic and hydrologi- cal setting. Most of the recorded sites are wholly on the ground surface or are shallowly buried, while many of the sites are threatened by natural forces (wind and water erosion) and degradation by human activities. Discussion: After 20 years of archeological studies, the district's boundaries were reduced in the early 1990s by 50 percent in order to more accurately reflect the distribution of known sites and areas with high probability to contain additional important sites. A very few of the previously identified sites were excluded from the revised bound- aries, now totaling over 200,000 acres. Excluded from the district were areas with the highest elevations and slopes greater than 20 percent that were unlikely to contain any archeological sites. Revision of the boundaries also removed unnecessary "buffer" areas from the district. Because of the large size of the district and the amount of new archeological information, a completely new nomination was prepared rather than a simple amend- ment to the existing nomination. Case 14. Continuous Artifact Distri- bution: Multiple Prehistoric Sites Located on a Flood Plain: The flood plain of the river is a broad, flat plain with little topographic relief. The known distribution of prehistoric sites located in the floodplain derives principally from the mapping of numerous artifact collecting areas, representing the past 30 years of surface collection activities by numer- ous individuals. To date, there has been no systematic subsurface testing survey of the floodplain, chiefly due to the presence of deep alluvium deposits which prohibit cost - effective testing. Many of the artifact collecting areas overlap and indicate an almost continuous pattern of prehistoric land use on the homogeneous floodplain (See Figure 9.) Assignment of a polygonal bound- ary is appropriate in this case, since it encompasses the area of a known Late Woodland- Contact Period Settlement within a broad, featureless expanse generally known for its almost continuous distribution of prehistoric cultural remains. The polygonal area may be replaced by more precise site boundaries as site formation pro- cesses and improvements in archeo- logical methodology provide further data regarding the floodplain's prehistoric land use. Boundary Description: The boundaries of the site are defined by a polygon. The polygon is square, measuring 500 meters on a side, covering 25 hectares. The boundaries of the site are defined by LrfM coordinates which mark a polygon s corners. The unit includes land in private ownership on a bend of broad floodplain of the river in an area known for its very high density of 061 150^ RIVER �♦ \� PREHISTORIC O RIVER BANK INTERSTATE HIGHWAY O 250 KEY RIVER �Q N UNIT OKNOWN ARTIFACT COLLECTING AREA 1 --t METERS 0 300 500 Figure 9. (Case 14). Numerous circles on this figure illustrate the location of recorded archeological sites located on this broad floodplain area. The National Register property is shown by the rectangle, which encompasses four known sites. A reasonable boundary was assigned to this property. 59