Exciting Projects For Our Cultural Team
Aspen’s Cultural Resources Department continued to grow in 2022. Our full time staff, supported by 20+ on-call staff, located throughout California, were able to complete projects for federal, state, and local agency clients as well as private developers, primarily focusing on renewable energy, transmission, and wildfire management projects. In the summer of 2022, Aspen’s cultural staff completed intensive pedestrian surveys of 150+ miles of transmission line and access roads alone, identifying over 250 cultural resources that could change our understanding of the prehistory of this area of the Mojave Desert.
Other notable projects for the cultural team include the construction monitoring of a solar farm in Kern County, Phase II archaeological testing of a site in the Palms Springs area, and construction monitoring of the decommissioning and rebuilding of a wind farm in the Coachella Valley. We have continued to expand our capabilities and the services offered to our clients. Most recent being our ability to provide GIS predictability modeling of archaeological sites, which helps our clients to better plan for future projects, and our move to digital site recording, allowing us to increase the speed and accuracy of site records in which site records are processed. Also, we are integrating drones into our fieldwork, and are excited to offer this service to our clients.
In addition to archaeology, the cultural resources department continued to grow in the areas of paleontology and architectural history. In 2022, Aspen was able to assist the agency and private clients with conducting paleontological assessments (record searches, surveys, testing and sediment processing, and monitoring) as well as the documentation and evaluation of historic age buildings and structures in support of NEPA or CEQA environmental documents.
We look forward to continuing to assist our clients in cultural and paleontological resource management in 2023, and we are excited about the department’s continued growth in both size and the services we can offer.