Documenting the Legendary 1844 Flood from a Kaw Village in the Kansas River Valley

Summary

Geoarchaeological fieldwork has documented an alluvial deposit associated with a flood event which overtopped a relatively high terrace in the Kansas River Valley near present day Topeka, Kansas. The deposit, defined as an overwash phase, exhibits structures indicative of flowing water. The overwash phase’s position, overlying a historic Kaw Village, corroborates second hand historic accounts which date its origin to a flood in the year A.D. 1844. This flood event probably resulted in the rapid abandonment of the village and thus presents archaeologists with a "strong case" for reconstructing the systematic context of this village. This fact is significant because of the paucity of well-preserved stratigraphically defined contexts for early historic period sites. These findings are also notable as they provide a geologic marker recording the height of this legendary flood event.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage