Passport to Texas

This is Passport to Texas

Before Texas Parks and Wildlife starts projects on its nearly 50 wildlife management areas, they call this man:

04— My name is Chris Lintz, and I’m the culture resource specialist for the wildlife division.

As an archaeologist, Chris ensures the agency complies with federal and state laws around preserving cultural resources.

10— Cultural resources constitute both the prehistoric Indian sites, and historic sites up to 50 Years of present, according to both federal and state laws.

Think: ancient campsites, rock art, and Indian burial mounds…. With more than three quarters of a million acres of public lands, Chris says there is plenty of history to protect and preserve.

17— And that’s true. There’s an awful lot of buried cultural resources that exist out there. Our goal – before we develop projects on our WMAs—is to go out and take a look and see what’s out there. And if we can, we try to redesign projects to avoid impacts to cultural resources.

Whether TPW is building a structure or an oil and gas company requests access to lay new lines on public lands, Chris says protecting the past has value in the present.

16—The folks that made these artifacts at various times in the past going back 11,000 years, are no longer with us. So the sites that they’ve left behind are finite. Our job is to identify which resources are the most important and save those for future generations.

That’s our show for today…funding provided in part by Ram Trucks. Guts. Glory. Ram.

For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.