CULTURAL RESOURCES

The term "cultural resources" includes prehistoric and historic sites, districts, buildings, structures, or objects. These may be archaeological, historic, traditional Native American, or paleontological in nature, and may include artifacts, records, remains, or culturally-modified landscapes that are related to and located on such properties. Although exact dates vary from region to region within Alaska, "prehistoric" sites are generally those that pre-date A.D. 1725, before the first written records about Alaska (Antonson and Hanable 1985). In the remote Tanana Valley of interior Alaska, the historic period didn't really begin until about 1875, when the first non-Native explorers entered the area.