Current through Reg. 50, No. 13; March 28, 2025
(a)
Justification for investigation. Investigations undertaken on publicly owned
cultural resources or to locate or discover such resources must be oriented
toward solving a particular research problem, preparation of a site for public
interpretation, or for the purpose of salvaging information and specimens from
a site threatened with immediate destruction.
(b) Eligibility for application. Permits to
conduct investigations of any nature on landmarks or for the discovery of
potential landmarks, or on lands owned or controlled by agencies or political
subdivisions of the state will be issued exclusively by the Commission under
the conditions provided in the Antiquities Code of Texas and in this chapter.
(1) Permits may be issued by the Commission
to scientific and educational institutions, nonprofit corporations and
organizations, investigative firms, and governmental agencies which have
demonstrated their ability to carry out proper archeological investigations
through their own staffs, including one or more professional archeologists who
can serve as principal investigators, and who will supervise the project, or
through a contract with a professional archeologist who can serve as a
principal investigator. Permits may also be issued to individuals and private
corporations who:
(A) retain a professional
archeologist who can serve as a principal investigator for the investigations,
and can be in direct charge of the project from field investigation through
preservation of collections and analysis of data to reporting of results;
and
(B) if required by the
Commission or the terms or conditions of a Memorandum of Understanding, provide
proof that adequate funds, equipment, facilities, and personnel are available
to properly conduct the investigation as proposed to the Commission, and to
report the results. The Commission may require a performance bond to be posted
as part of the application process.
(2) State or local archeological societies
and archeological stewards wishing to conduct investigations on landmarks must
have a principal investigator and be limited to non-compliance, investigation
activities.
(3) Principal
investigators holding one or more defaulted permits are not eligible to be
issued additional permits until all terms and conditions of defaulted permits
are met.
(4) Principal
investigators and investigative firms that are currently censured due to permit
application offenses are not eligible to be issued a permit. Once the censure
period has lapsed the censured principal investigator or investigative firm
will be eligible to be issued a permit.
(5) No permits will be issued if the
principal investigator and/or investigative firm cannot commit to direction of
the permitted investigations by the principal investigator.
(c) Application for permit. Permit
application forms may be obtained from the Commission. Any institution,
corporation, organization, museum, investigative firm, or individual desiring a
permit for investigations must file a completed application with the Commission
prior to the proposed beginning date of the project. Special circumstances may
require that a permit be issued on short notice when a site is threatened with
immediate destruction. When a permit is issued for emergency salvage of a site
threatened with destruction, the same rules apply as with all permits. The
permit application must include:
(1) a
statement of the purpose of the investigation;
(2) an outline of the proposed work and
research design;
(3) the proposed
beginning date for the fieldwork and the length of time that will be devoted to
the entire project;
(4) name,
address, and telephone number of the principal investigator, sponsor, and
landowning or controlling agency;
(5) an accurate plotting of the particular
site or area to be investigated on a 7.5' USGS quadrangle map and locational
data indicating the universal transverse mercator (UTM) coordinates;
(6) the name of the facility where the
specimens, material, and data will be kept during analysis of results of the
investigation; and
(7) evidence of
adequate funds, personnel, equipment, and facilities to properly complete the
proposed investigation.
(d) Research design. Research designs
prepared prior to implementation of a field study and submitted with an
Archeological Permit Application Form are essential to the success of
scientific objectives, resource management decision-making, and project
management. The following points should be considered during formulation of a
research design.
(1) Research designs present
the essential objectives of a project or study and the means by which those
objectives will be attained. As such, the research design is an efficient means
of communicating with resource managers and the professional community at
large.
(2) The research design
provides a logical basis for detailed project planning and assessment of
resource significance.
(3) Research
designs may contain a wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches.
Similarly, research designs may address general research objectives, as well as
more focused types of problem orientation. The following criteria shall be met.
(A) Care should be taken to link the research
design to existing topical and geographical bodies of data.
(B) The nature of the resources under
investigation should be considered.
(C) The need to address a wide range of
cultural and scientific resources should be considered.
(D) Applied research that addresses cultural
resource management and impact-related issues should be recognized as necessary
and incorporated into research designs whenever possible.
(E) The skills of the investigative personnel
must be appropriate to the project goals and specifications in the research
design. In many cases it may be desirable to include provisions for consultants
with special expertise.
(4) Research designs should not be conceived
as rigid, unchanging plans. Although research designs may place relatively
greater emphasis on certain kinds of scientific questions and certain kinds of
data collection, as circumstances warrant, the investigator is not relieved of
responsibility to recognize other research. Whether such alternative questions
and data warrant changes in the ongoing investigation is a question that should
be explicitly addressed and answered in the context of pertinent resource
management objectives and research goals. It is expected that research designs
will be modified as projects develop. A conscious effort should be made to
modify research designs to exploit new information efficiently. It is to be
expected that some research objectives will, for many reasons, prove less
productive than anticipated, while other objectives will become more important
than anticipated or perhaps materialize for the first time. The crucial
objectives in the modification process are:
(A) demonstrated progress in solving stated
problems; and
(B) subsequent
modification of a research design on the basis of explicit, rational decisions
intended to attain stated goals.
(5) Research designs that anticipate
encountering human remains must contain a detailed treatment and preservation
plan developed in consultation with the Commission. Any analytical
methodologies resulting in the destruction of human remains to obtain the
maximum amount of scientific knowledge must be explicitly addressed in the
research design for the Antiquities Permit or must be approved by the
Commission with a permit amendment prior to initiation.