A Cultural Resource Overview of the Bureau of Land Management Coleville, Bodie, Benton, and Owens Valley Planning Units, California

This report represents a contribution to a number of regional (i.e., planning unit) studies commissioned by the Bureau of Land Management for lands under its control in the State of California.

The intent of these various studies is to provide the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) with an overview and synthesis of the existing cultural resource information, including historic, prehistoric and ethnographic data available for the study area, in this case, the Bodie/Coleville and Benton/ Owens Valley planning units of the Bakersfield District Office. The BLM is mandated by the Antiquities Act of 1906, the Resevoir Salvage Act of 1960 (as amended by Public Law 93-291), The National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (as amended), The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), Executive Order 11593 and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (among others) to identify, evaluate and protect both prehistoric and historic cultural resources on public lands under its jurisdiction. The purpose of this report is to provide a compilation and synthesis of data on cultural resources within the various planning units that can serve as background information in BLM Environmental Analysis Records (EAR), Environmental Statements (ES), Unit Resource Analyses (URA), Management Framework Plans (MFP) and other documents that may require cultural resource information.

The data is presented in terms of previous archaeological research, a culture history (or sequence), ethnography, ethnohistory, a narrative history and needs and recommendations for future management (including directed archaeological research) and protection of cultural resources. This compilation and presentation of cultural resource information will, hopefully, encourage long term planning resulting in the conservation and protection of a non-renewable portion of America's heritage.

As defined by the BLM, the Bodie/Coleville and Benton/Owens Valley planning units cover approximately 1.2 million acres (750,000 acres public land, 450,000 acres private land) of variable terrain in Inyo and Mono Counties, California. The planning units are bounded in part by the State of Nevada on the north and east with the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, more particularly the Inyo National Forest, on the west. The eastern boundary is the Inyo National Forest and the slopes of the Inyo and White Mountains. California State Highway 190 forms the southern boundary.

Originally the information in this record was migrated into tDAR from the National Archaeological Database Reports Module (NADB-R) and updated. In 2014, as part of its effort to improve tDAR content, the Center for Digital Antiquity uploaded a copy of the document and further improved the record metadata.