The National Register Of Historic Places

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With its founding during the passing of the Historic Sites Act of 1935 and later developed during the establishment of the National Historic Preservation Act in 1966, the National Register of Historic Places’ mission has been to provide help to public as well as private historical organizations. Through this help, the National Register of Historical Places attempts to recognize, protect, and assesses the country’s antique structures and archeological sites to determine what is valuable enough to preserve. With this mission, the National Register of Historical Places sets up distinct principles, which include several requirements for what qualifies as a historical building or landmark. When evaluating what makes a building or landmark momentous…show more content…
The age of a structure is important because a building must be at least fifty years or older to be eligible for its characterization as a historical structure. Once, the structures meet the requirement, historians then investigate the property and the structure to determine its historical value. When surveying the structure in question, historians use the original building plans or blueprints for the structure only if they are available. By doing this, they look for examples such as unique architecture, construction, and design types. Along with the surveying of the structure, the 4,819-acre plantation it resides upon undergoes archeological evaluations, as well. When conducting an archeological survey archeologist will inspect the surrounding property to look for artifacts that may relate to the history of the structure. An example of this is Thomas Jefferson’s summer home at Poplar Forest in Forest, Virginia. Poplar Forest, which came under the ownership of the Corporation for Jefferson in 1983, experienced an archeological survey that uncovered landscaping and gardening Jefferson himself recorded. With the use of Jefferson’s records, planting stains, trash-enriched soils, and a stone-lined drain, archeologists were able to use a first-hand account to unearth the remains of Poplar Tree trunks planted by Jefferson. Previously, historians…show more content…
Surveying for landmarks is primarily completed in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the landscape has changed over time, perhaps due to farming, erosion, or the growing of forests and underbrush. In the 1607 English settlement of Jamestown, archeologist thought the majority of the fort was originally located underwater due the change in the tide surrounding the site. As time passed, the settlers abandoned the settlement at Jamestown. In the nineteenth century, the fort’s wooden walls that once surrounded Jamestown crumbled, leaving the remains of a church along with several other structural foundations. However, excavation in the mid-1990s into the early 2000s proved this idea untrue. During the archeological digs at Jamestown, archeologist discovered and revealed several artifacts. The most important finding was the discovery of the postholes from where the wooden walls of the fort once stood. With the uncovering of the preserved palisade holes in the ground gave evidence that a large portion of the Jamestown settlement was still on the land and not underwater as previously believed. As in the case of Mesa Verde, historians and archeologists examined the landscape to see if it remained relatively undisturbed over time. Once they completed the examination of the landscape, archeological worked to determine whether there were patterns and layers of artifacts

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