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ACRA member firm Davis-King & Associates (DKA) has been working on two California hydroelectric projects: the Phoenix Hydroelectric Project in Tuolumne County and the Kerckhoff Hydroelectric Projects in Fresno and Madera Counties.
DKA was responsible for identifying all resources of value to tribal entities. This included not only traditional and other cultural resources, but also various environmental resources like water, animals, plants, and rocks. Although detailed ethnobotanical and ethnozoological analyses were performed and interviews with tribal elders were conducted, each project ended with two major radiational cultural landscapes evaluated as districts eligible under criterion A.
Contributing resources included archaeological sites, constructed elements, gathering locales, medicine gardens, Indian allotments and more. The California State Historic Preservation Office concurred on the evaluations, resulting in four new traditional cultural landscapes in the region, and hope provided to tribes that their resources, beyond the archaeological, may have support and recognition in the future.