Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

This collection contains the abstracts of the papers presented in the session entitled "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The Willamette Valley of western Oregon is a unique geographic region shaped by millennia of Native American land management practices, including the use of fire to enhance and sustain the Valley’s prairie habitats and oak savannas. Historic and current industrial, agricultural, and urban development have further altered the landscape; these changes also drive a significant volume of cultural resource management activity in the Willamette Valley. Despite this, the region is rarely a focal point for archaeological research. This session aims to bring together a broad group of researchers, cultural resource management practitioners, and Tribal experts working in the region to share current work, identify knowledge gaps, and to discuss future directions for research focused on the Willamette Valley.

Other Keywords
Cultural Resources and Heritage Management • Paleoindian and Paleoamerican • Landscape Archaeology • contact period • Ethnohistory/History • Geoarchaeology • Remote Sensing • Zooarchaeology • Predictive Modeling • Cultural Resource Management

Geographic Keywords
North America: Pacific Northwest Coast and Plateau

Resources Inside This Collection (Viewing 1-13 of 13)

  • Documents (13)
Documents
  • Cascadia Cave, the Excavations (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Paul Baxter.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Cascadia Cave (35LIN11) is an iconic rockshelter and rock art site at the edge of Oregon’s Willamette Valley and Western Cascade Range. Following excavations in 1964, Tom Newman reported an early Holocene radiocarbon age of 8810 cal BP and a Cascade projectile point assemblage that was central to...

  • Digital Approaches to Willamette Valley Ground Stone Bowls (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Yoli Ngandali. Michael Lewis.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent discussions in the Historic Preservation Office of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde have focused on the interpretation of the use-life of decorated ground stone bowls in the Willamette Valley of Western Oregon. Historically, these belongings have been looted, sold off, gifted, or...

  • Does That Belong in a Museum? Conceptualizing Western Oregon Stone Bowls as Potential Funerary Objects (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Lewis. Yoli Ngandali.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Stone bowls are common archaeological objects in Western Oregon, often displayed in museum contexts, yet research into the cultural practices associated with stone bowls has been minimal. Recent community discussions at the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde concerning the potential funerary context...

  • Finding Old Detroit: Recovering and Interpreting the Histories of Communities Displaced by River Development Projects (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Bob Reinhardt.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Driving along Highway 22 in the western Cascade mountains of Oregon, motorists can’t help but notice Detroit Lake (created by Detroit Dam, a US Army Corps of Engineers multipurpose river development project) and the small town of Detroit on the reservoir’s banks. But they can’t see the site of Old...

  • A Flood of Support: Collaborative Cultural Resources Management at the Willamette Valley Project, US Army Corps of Engineers (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Molly Casperson.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The Willamette Valley Project (WVP) is a Corps-managed flood risk management system composed of 13 dams and reservoirs spread across six subbasins in the upper Willamette River watershed. The construction of the dam system occurred 1940–1969 and subsequent operation inundated lands indigenous groups...

  • Geoarchaeological Investigations in the Upper Willamette Valley and Western Cascade Mountains, Oregon (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only JD Lancaster. Teresa Wriston. Molly Casperson. Loren Davis. Jillian Maloney.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The rivers of the Upper Willamette Valley and Western Cascades have drawn people to their resource rich banks since the Late Pleistocene with evidence of human habitation variably preserved as the watersheds evolved. Since the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) constructed the Willamette Valley...

  • Geomorphic Framework Development for Willamette Valley Reservoirs to Support Cultural Resources Management (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Mackenzie Keith. Maxwell Schwid. Laurel Stratton Garvin. Molly Casperson. Rose Wallick.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. High-head, multipurpose dams and reservoirs constructed in the 1940–1960s in the Willamette Valley encompass a diverse array of landscapes utilized by humans for thousands of years. These reservoirs overlap numerous cultural sites that are subject to dynamic erosion and deposition processes....

  • High-Resolution Geophysical Characterization of Geology and Acoustic Water Column Signatures in Willamette Valley Reservoirs, Oregon, USA (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only James Futty. Jillian Maloney. Molly Casperson. Teresa Wriston. Shannon Klotsko.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Inland flood-control reservoirs represent a novel analog for studying submerged terrestrial landscapes. The same scale and time-independent processes that impact coastal environments through sea-level changes are also produced through a reservoir’s annual draft and fill cycles. Within these...

  • It’s All About Context: How Culturally Informed Landscape Understandings Expand Knowledge of Archaeological Site Interpretation (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Briece Edwards. Greg Archuleta. Chris Rempel. Cheryl Pouley.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tribal Cultural Landscapes are intimate and comprehensive understandings of place rooted in the ecologies, histories, and practices of those communities who create them. For the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde (CTGR), these include all lands between the Cascade and Coast Mountain Ranges of...

  • Lidar Predictive Modeling of Kalapuya Mound Sites in the Calapooia Watershed, Oregon (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Tia Cody. Shelby Anderson.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. This presentation details the development, testing, and results of a lidar and remote sensing predictive model to locate precontact mound sites in the Calapooia Watershed in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Not much is known about these mound sites archaeologically, including where they are located in...

  • Precontact Indigenous Fire Stewardship: From the Valley to the Forest (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Michael Coughlan. Kelly Derr. James Johnston. David Lewis. Bart Johnson.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Indigenous peoples lived in the Willamette Valley and adjacent highly productive upland forests for millennia and successfully coexisted with the region’s fire regimes. Like today, wildfires posed a threat to past societies and their livelihoods. Precontact Indigenous peoples of the Willamette...

  • Researching Traditional Environments of the Kalapuyans (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only David Lewis.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Tribal scholars have worked to restore and revive tribal cultural knowledge, language, and history of the Kalapuyan peoples. Much has been restored and the tribe is working to instill tribal culture in the next generations. But the tribe’s influence has not reached the traditional lands of the...

  • Updating the Late Pleistocene Record of the Willamette Valley, Oregon (2023)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Andrew Boehm. Chris Widga. Daniel Gilmour.

    This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Near the end of the Pleistocene, 35 genera of mostly large mammals became extinct in North America, yet the cause of these extinctions remains debated. The Willamette Valley in western Oregon boasts a robust record of up to nine megafaunal taxa (*Mammuthus, Mammut, Equus, Paramylodon, Megalonyx,...