The California Environmental Quality Act (or "CEQA") is a state law that requires all local governments to review local construction projects to determine if the project will pose a significant impact on the environment. One of the environmental resources considered under the law are "cultural resources," such as archaeological deposits.

Since the Santa Clara University campus contains such a wealth of cultural resources from different time periods, all of which are protected under CEQA, the Archaeology Research Lab is charged with the duty of mitigating (excavating) any and all archaeological deposits.

The archaeological material, once mitigated, is collected and stored at the Archaeology Research Lab for analysis.

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