The standard assessment shall proceed in accordance with the plan for undertaking a standard assessment. The date of commencement should be included in the CHMP.
- The objective of the plan for undertaking a standard assessment is to answer research questions relevant to a CHMP approval decision, document the extent, nature and significance of any Aboriginal cultural heritage discovered, and to determine if a complex assessment is required in accordance with the Regulations.
Aboriginal places shall be recorded in accordance with VAHR standards and guidelines.
Absolute place extent definition may be unachievable. Place extents are often a compromise integrating theoretical perspectives and field conditions. Given the actual extent of an Aboriginal place is open to interpretation, Aboriginal places can’t be ‘perfectly’ defined in many cases.
The HA may submit predicted place extents to the VAHR, but only where the HA assesses the predicted extent as very likely (e.g. probability greater than 0.7 - greater than 70% probable). Aboriginal places for which an extent cannot be likely predicted will normally justify complex assessment (subsurface testing).
Predicted and observed place extents should be differentiated in place registration submissions.
Place extent determinations require a clear understanding of relationships between geomorphological and anthropogenic processes. This work should be done at the desktop stage, but will be informed by survey during the standard assessment. HAs must use professional judgement to determine the density and spatial relationships of cultural material necessary for a specified area to be considered a discrete “place”.
Off-site or non-site archaeological approaches1 may be adopted for surveying as these may be more suited to answering questions about past human activity patterns when confronted with unbounded, low-density distributions of artefacts and associated material. These approaches must also account for surface redistribution of material and geomorphological processes acting both temporally and spatially. Predictive models for standard and complex assessment and conclusions about human activity patterns will not be useful unless these adequately account for geomorphological and other taphonomic processes (see Appendix 12).
The VAHR will consider likely predicted place extents to be confirmed place extents for the purposes of registration. For clarification, please refer to the Standards for Recording Victorian Aboriginal Heritage Places and Objects. The VAHR will require justifications for predicted place extents, so correspondence with the VAHR should be expected. However, the balance of any doubt shall be in favour of the HA, noting Principle 5.
- Any relevant assessment of Aboriginal intangible values in relation to a place may be conducted at this step, if necessary, and documented in accordance with any IDA.
Note Appendix 4 regarding low density artefact scatters and diffuse coastal shell scatters, and that a complex assessment is not usually required if only these place types are located by the desktop or standard assessment. It is already known that a low density of stone artefacts extends across much of Victoria including below the surface, and these can generally be appropriately managed through conditions and contingencies.
Complex assessment in such a scenario can and should still occur, however, if there are sound archaeological or cultural reasons for predicting likely (again, probability greater than 0.7) intact stratified cultural deposits underneath the surface. Complex assessment can also be an agreed recommendation in circumstances where no surface material is discovered by standard assessment (see example in Appendix 4). These Guidelines simply request reasons to be explicit and documented in the CHMP.
Reasons for not recommending proceeding to complex assessment in this scenario should be documented, as should the reasons for recommending proceeding to complex assessment.
While agreement with the RAP is desirable, the HA has the responsibility to decide whether to advise the Sponsor a complex assessment should or must occur, consistent with section 58 (see Appendix 2). RAPs may not agree with this advice.
However, DPC does not expect a complex assessment to proceed without RAP agreement, considering this would violate Principles 1, 2 and 3. Also note if the CHMP is finalised and submitted for evaluation after the standard stage, the RAP may refuse to approve the CHMP if it is not satisfied it is adequate to address section 61 matters.
- If the RAP and HA disagree on the question of whether a complex assessment is required, DPC and alternative dispute resolution are available to assist.
- Off-site or non-site archaeology is a research approach focusing on analysing continuous, low-density distribution of artefacts across a landscape, rather than focusing on demarcating and investigating discrete ‘sites’. By recording individual artefacts (point plotting) across a region, this method interrogates spatial relationships and human behaviour at a landscape level, reducing bias from arbitrary site boundary definitions.
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