Preliminary Geoarchaeological Studies at Columbia Park, Kennewick, Washington, USA

Gary Huckleberry; Thomas W. Stafford, Jr.; James C. Chatters

Preliminary Geoarchaeological Studies at Columbia Park, Kennewick, Washington, USA

Part of the Archaeology of Kennewick Man project

Author(s): Gary Huckleberry; Thomas W. Stafford, Jr.; James C. Chatters

Year: 1998

Summary

In August 1996 a well preserved, disarticulated human skeleton was found submerged in Lake Wallula within an area about 7 m offshore at Columbia Park in Kennewick, Washington. The skeleton's anatomy (non-Mongoloid physical features) and great antiquity attest to its tremendous scientific importance to New World archaeology. On August 26, 1997 an ARPA permit application was submitted by Drs. Gary Huckleberry (Washington State University), Robson Bonnichsen (Oregon State

University), C. Vance Haynes, Jr. (University of Arizona), James Chatters (Applied Paleoscience, Washington), and Thomas Stafford, Jr. (Stafford Research Laboratories, Inc., Colorado) to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Walla Walla District. The application requested permission to perform limited geoarchaeological testing at the skeleton's discovery site (herein referred to as "Site"). In November 1997, USACE decided that noninvasive, limited testing would be performed at the Site, that the investigation would be led by geologists from the USACE Waterways Experiment Station (WES), Vicksburg, Mississippi, and that field investigations would be limited to the streambank. Fieldwork was performed December 13-17, 1997 and the results of the investigation conducted by the Huckleberry team are presented in this report.

Cite this Record

Preliminary Geoarchaeological Studies at Columbia Park, Kennewick, Washington, USA. Gary Huckleberry, Thomas W. Stafford, Jr., James C. Chatters. 1998 ( tDAR id: 371590) ; doi:10.6067/XCV88051MX