ABSTRACT
The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) identifies and protects cultural resources through the forest management planning process . The problem that presents itself to cultural resource managers in northern Ontario , as well as much of the rest of the Canadian boreal forest, is one where the resources arc known to exi st, but their exact locations are unknown. So how do we manage a resource that we know to exist but we don' t know where it is? In the late 1 980s , OMNR identified archaeo logical predictive modeling as a means of addressing this situation and, given available knowledge, providing the best statement regarding the likelihood of archaeological resource existence . The OMNR sponsored three years of research and development that led to a first-generation predictive model . This \vas followed by three years of pilot projects which served to expand the applied base of the model from the orig inal research and development area in northwestern Ontario and also to develop various means by which existing Ontario government digital databases can be incor porated into the archaeological predictive modeling process . The OMNR is now at a stage where it is ready to employ archaeological predictive models as a cultural
resource management tool in all new forest management plans - an area encom passing 45 million hectares of forested land.
