How are survey goals and priorities established?
Ideally, survey goals should be based on historic contexts. For example, suppose that a community (a) was the probable location of a prehistoric Indian village near the confluence of two streams; (b) was a port during the 18th century; (c) experienced substantial commercial development in the late 19th century, during which many buildings designed by practitioners of an important school of architecture were constructed in the central business district; and (d) experienced growth in the early 20th century as Italian, German, Hispanic, and rural Black immigrants established row house neighborhoods ringing the center city. Goals for a first-stage, reconnaissance-level survey effort might be (a) to determine whether soil strata that might contain the archeological remains of the Indian village still exist under the modern streets and houses that overlie the old stream confluence; (b) to determine the boundaries of the 18th century port, identify major buildings still standing from the peri
