VALUE CLASSES: 

 Value Class 



1. Class I. 



2. Class II. 



3. Class III. 



All of the river segments are classified into one of these categories based 

 on the below- listed criteria. 



CRITERIA: 



Class I. Sites listed in or determined eligible for listing in the 

 National Register of Historic Places have been recorded on the river 

 segment. 



Class II. Sites have been recorded on the river segment and are thought 

 by both the Montana State Historic Preservation Officer and a responsible 

 Federal Agency to be eligible for listing in the National Register of 

 Historic Places (this is known as a "consensus determination" and does not 

 involve the Keeper of the National Register at the earliest stages). 



CLASS III. The river reach probably contains sites eligible for listing 

 in the National Register. Consultations with other professional 

 archaeologists active in Montana (see attachment A for an example) suggest 

 that almost all reaches not assigned to either Class I or Class II 

 will fall into this category. 



STUDY METHODS: 



The first stage of the cultural resources assessment began with a comparison 

 of the the Montana State Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks list of 

 rivers and streams against the cultural resource information maintained at 

 the Department of Anthropology, University of Montana. This comparison 

 resulted in a table that lists reported cultural resources by stream or 

 river (see attachment B for an example). Next, we used the results of this 

 comparison to test whether we could make meaningful predictions about 

 cuitural values on river segments not yet inventoried by professional 

 field archaeologists. On the negative side, the results indicate that such 

 predictions are probably premature. However, on the positive side, they 

 indicated that when a National Register quality site is recorded there is 

 a strong likelihood of another site of equal stature within 10 kilometers. 



Armed with this information, we anticipated recommendations made in the 

 National Park Service Summary of Cultural Features Assessment published in 

 May, 1986 by two years and decided to classify stream reaches using a 

 descriptive system based on National Register criteria. The procedure 



