Comment from Joshua Vallejos

The Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis (CfAS) hereby submits comments on OMB-20260034, proposed Regulation for Federal Assistance. CfAS is a nonprofit organization incorporated in the State of Arizona with 78 partner institutions and 775 individual associates, most of whom are professional archaeologists. The mission of CfAS is to foster synthesis in archaeology to expand knowledge and benefit society. Through our associated University of Colorado Center for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology, we have applied for and received funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). For more than 50 years, a large fraction of the academic and museum-based archaeological research in the US—that is, research not associated with compliance with Federal historic preservation law—has been funded by NSF or the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Sources that would be affected by the proposed rule. Archaeological research enriches our knowledge of past peoples and cultures. Independent polls over the last 25 years have shown archaeology to be of great interest to the American public, with overwhelming majorities of respondents consistently stating that the federal government should support such research. Archaeology helps Americans understand the places they live in and how we as a people came to be. Less obviously, it contributes to addressing the social components of contemporary problems by providing insights into universal social processes and into the long term outcomes associated with different social configurations. Our comments are based on the experience of CfAS and our partner organizations, and individual associates in applying for and executing grants, and in peer-reviewing grant proposals primarily with the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, but also with research and development programs in the Department of Defense and cooperative agreements with the Department of the Interior.