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Federal Archeology Program > Secretary's Report to Congress > The SRC Questionnaire

The SRC Questionnaire: Background

Information about the Federal Archeology Program is solicited through a questionnaire that is administered by the NPS Archeology Program on a yearly basis. The current questionnaire instructions and form facilitates federal agencies' response to the annual call for data. We also provide case summary forms for agencies reporting archeological resource law violations on Federal and Indian lands, in support of the Listing of Outlaw Treachery (LOOT) Information Clearinghouse.

The clearinghouse is an important source of information about prosecutions of federal cultural resource law violations. The NPS encourages anyone who has information about cases involving destruction or removal of federal archeological resources to contact the NPS Archeology Program by email (dca@nps.gov) or via regular mail.

The first data collection instrument for the Secretary's Report to Congress was distributed to federal agencies in 1986, and requested information about FY1985. Since 1985, the questionnaire has been revised seven times, the last being in 1998.

These revisions reflect changing priorities for data collection, and refinement of the survey instrument. Correspondence between the most recent questionnaire (FY1998-2006) and earlier questionnaires is illustrated in the Table “Comparable Data Fields, SRC- 1985-2005”. This table identifies the data fields from earlier questionnaires that correspond to data fields in the most recent, FY1998-2006, questionnaire.

Notes on the Questionnaires

The following text describes the changes in the SRC questionnaire over time.

General—Survey Questions. In earlier versions of the questionnaire, separate information was solicited about the number of acres that were completely and partially surveyed for archeological sites. In later versions of the questionnaire, these two variables were combined and correspond to Question D3 Number of acres inventoried in the reporting year in the FY1998-2006 survey instrument.

Early versions of the questionnaire solicited information about prosecuted cases (for example, Question B12 How many cases of vandalism, destruction, theft, etc. of archeological property that were prosecuted under other authorities? (FY1985)). The FY1998 questionnaire requested information about prosecuted individuals (Question L6 Number of individuals prosecuted under authorities other than ARPA).

Early versions of the questionnaire solicited information about the number of prosecutions in all cases of documented vandalism or looting, and about number of prosecutions of non-ARPA cases. The FY1998 questionnaire solicited separate information about prosecution of ARPA (L5) and non-ARPA (L6) cases. While, theoretically, the number of non-ARPA cases subtracted from the number of all prosecutions should yield the number of ARPA cases, a number of agencies reported numbers of non-ARPA cases that exceeded the reported total number of prosecutions.

General—Agency Responses. Several of the agencies underwent reorganization during the past two decades that resulted in name changes (also see this list of agency acronyms). The Department of Agriculture Soil Conservation Service (SCS) became the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS). The Department of Agriculture Rural Electrification Administration (REA) became the Rural Utility Service (RUS). In FY2000, the U.S. Marine Corps began to combine responses to the SRC questionnaire with the Department of the Navy. In order to facilitate comparability, the earlier, separate, responses by the Marine Corps and the Navy were combined in the Excel spread sheets.

It should be noted that the Department of the Interior's Mineral Management Services (MMS) included off-shore submerged lands in the yearly assessment of the number of surveyed acres. The Mineral Management Services is responsible for lands to the edge of the continental shelf.

FY1985. The FY1985 questionnaire solicited information only about ARPA cases (B4 Documented violations of ARPA—Number of cases of documented vandalism; number of arrests? Number of citations?). Later questionnaires solicited information about both ARPA and non-ARPA cultural resource law violations

FY1994-1995. The FY1994-1995 questionnaire solicited information about the number of convictions in all non-ARPA cases of documented vandalism or looting (Question K8). The FY1998 questionnaire solicited separate information about non-ARPA misdemeanor convictions (L8) and non-ARPA felony convictions (L10).

FY1996-1997. The FY1996-1997 questionnaire solicited information about the number of convictions in all non-ARPA cases of documented vandalism or looting (Question K8). The FY1998 questionnaire solicited separate information about non-ARPA misdemeanor convictions (L8) and non-ARPA felony convictions (L10).

FY1998-2006. The FY1998-2006 incorporated a section on volunteer contributions to cultural resource activities in Federal agencies. Several points about the FY1998-2006 data should be noted. The wage equivalents of volunteer hours are given as reported (B4). These reported numbers, however, were standardized by Archeology Program staff by multiplying the number of volunteer hours by a standard wage as reported by the NPS Volunteers in Parks Program. These standard wages are (1998) $14.56; (1999) $15.09; (2000) $15.68; (2001) $16.27; (2002) $16.74; (2003) $17.19; (2004) $17.55; and (2005) $17.55. The standardized figures are presented in B4.A.

Archeology Program staff also separated question H1—Number of items/lots or cubic feet(curated) into two questions: H1A Number of items/Lots and H1B Number of cubic feet.

A spreadsheet, “Comparable Data Fields, SRC 1985-2003”, has been prepared showing which of the questions in the current SRC questionnaire are comparable with questions from earlier questionnaires.

The links below open the PDF copies of past SRC texts to the first page of the SRC questionnaire in most—but not all—browsers. Page numbers correspond to the PDFs' pagination, not that of the original printed reports.

MJB