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extent of their interest for none were directed to specifically study the en-
tire area of interest to this project.

As a response, Environmental Research Archaeologists: A Scientific
Consortium drew together from its membership a multidisciplinary team of
scholars who are specialists in each area to be addressed. Thus, there were
specialized researchers for prehistory (archaeologists) , ethnography/ethno-
history (an ethnographer) , for history (historians) , for the environment
(a geophysicist) as well as for the aspects of cultural resources management.
This team was a necessary aspect of this work since a range of expertise is
required.

The multidisciplinary team then set about meeting the requirements and
objectives of the program through their network of facilities, institutions,
scholars, and other knowledgeable individuals with whom they were in contact.

Another important methodological aspect of this program was the
gathering of cultural information from a point of view of the
current state of the art regarding perspectives on the management of cultural
resources developed by the Society for American Archaeology (McGimsey and
Davis 1977). Thus, the data was gathered and assessed with an eye towards
their utility for serving the needs of the Bureau of Land Management as well
as the professional and public sectors as presently defined by the Society.

Special archaeological aspects of methodology for the program were
developed. A major one was the use of special forms to record and organize
site record form data including an indication of the USGS topographic map on
which a site may be located, whether or not a given site has been properly
located with latitude and longitude, UTM coordinates, or with the legal sys-
tem (township, range, section), etc. In this manner, site record data was
organized as much as possible. Each archaeological site was interpreted in
terms of the existing BLM desert site typology in order to provisionally char-
acterize a given site. In toto , 16 pertinent categories of information were
abstracted from the numerous original site record forms which were found to
be highly varied in quality as their data was often problematic. Many in
fact lacked most of the standard information entries. As a consequence, a
site descriptor format was developed (Appendix A on file with the Bureau of
Land Management, Riverside) . This site descriptor format was developed to
facilitate the review of data. The format is considered to be more useful
than the original site forms on which they are partly based because: 1) they
provide a standard format for presenting data as opposed to the variety of
site forms encountered in the original reports; 2) they indicate the present
data gaps in the original forms; 3) they succinctly summarize the most useful
information; 4) they present an interpretation of the site in terms of the
existing BLM site typology; and importantly, 5) they provide those pertinent
references to each site which, for the most part, were not presented on the
original site forms but were compiled instead as a result of this literature
search.

Special problems involved in the ethnographic work for the project are
discussed elsewhere in this report. But some of the major problems encountered
involved finding willing informants and being able to confer with them in a
timely manner, given their own schedules, in order to produce the needed