Abstract

In 2002, the City of Toronto initiated a comprehensive planning and management study for archaeological resources within the City. The Archaeological Master Plan has four major goals including the compilation of detailed, reliable inventories of registered and unregistered archaeological sites within the City, the preparation of a thematic overview of the City's settlement history as it relates to the potential occurrence of additional pre-and post-contact archaeological resources, the development of an archaeological site potential model, based on known site locations, past and present land uses, environmental and cultural-historical data, and assessment of the likelihood for survival of archaeological resources in various urban contexts and assessment and the provision of recommendations concerning the preparation of archaeological resource conservation and management guidelines for the City. The study began with a comprehensive review of archaeological conservation policies in major cities around the world focussing on Europe, Asia and North America. The resultant design for this study represents one of the most effective approaches to archaeological resource conservation currently employed by a major city anywhere in the world.