PRAIRIE ARCHAEOLOGY & RESEARCH AT
THE FOREFRONT OF COMPUTER TECHNOLOGY 		Issue #3
"...professional consulting documents should look 'Professional'..."
Technological advancements are changing how cultural resource consultants are reporting your projects to the appropriate regulatory agencies. Prairie Archaeology & Research is up to date with the latest Geographic Information System and Global Positioning System requirements and are at the forefront of computer technology. We set the industry standard by utilizing the most recent advancements in computer technology to conduct field surveys, complete artifact analyses and illustrations, and produce detailed and accurate reports.

"As a whole, much of the cultural resource industry has yet to embrace the labor-saving advancements in technology available at this time" says Joe Craig, PAR President. Many archaeological consultants still use World War II era army surplus surveying equipment such as plane tables and theodolites to produce field maps and drawing!"

Prairie Archaeology & Research understands the importance of being able to accurately locate survey boundaries and identify resources and plot them on our client's plans and survey documents. "It is imperative that we coordinate our work with our client's design engineers and architects. To do this, we use the latest computer-aided drafting and design software and laser and global positioning surveying equipment. Too often, we have seen situations where a few feet in the boundaries of an archaeological site make the difference in whether a project is built or whether a project is abandoned," Craig added.

CLIENT ACCOUNT
"Unfortunately for us, we have been forced to rely on other archaeology consultant's reports in which the archaeologists have merely "eyeballed" the resource's location on a large-scale topographic map. Not only does this require additional coordination between the archaeologists and our engineers or land surveyors to resurvey the boundaries-but often the archaeological consultant's report mis-located or over-estimated the size of the resource that we wanted to avoid," reports Donald Becker, project planner for Heritage Real Estate Developers. "Prairie Archaeology & Research archaeologists take care of all that for us. They coordinate with our engineers and we don't even have to be involved."
It is not just in land surveying and locating and relocating cultural resources on project plans at which PAR excels. Because professional archaeologists, historians, and cultural resource specialists review most investigations, project documents and reports need to be accurate and meet both the state and federal agency stringent standards and requirements.

Professionally-produced reports should look professional. PAR uses the latest software advancements in illustration, design, and graphic representation in all of our compliance documents, from phase I to mitigation reports. Prairie Archaeology is not limited to static pictures and figures. PAR is capable of generating dynamic 3-D and animation effects in order to push a client's project through the state and federal review process.

Technological and computer advancements are changing the way archaeologists, historians, and cultural resource consultants operate and Prairie Archaeology & Research is at the forefront of those changes. According to Joe Craig, "long gone are the days where reduced photocopies of field drawings that are cut and taped into reports is acceptable to regulatory reviewing agencies." Today's cultural resource professionals must be able to 'electronically' communicate with everyone on your development team including engineers, architects, and land surveyors. Prairie Archaeology & Research is leading the industry in those advancements.

For more information please contact Susan Vorreyer at (217) 544-4881.