Five Feet High and Rising: Flood Impacts to Archaeological Sites and Response Efforts at Death Valley National Park
Author(s): Juanita Bonnifield; Wanda Raschkow; Erin Dempsey; Elizabeth A. Horton; Elaine Dorset
Year: 2017
Summary
On 18 October 2015, a severe storm system stalled out over Death Valley National Park resulting in a massive flood. Rushing flood waters heavily damaged roads, utilities, archaeological sites, and buildings. Grapevine Canyon, a major canyon in the northwest portion of the park and home to the historic Scotty’s Castle, was among the areas hit hardest. Post-flood condition assessments on thirty archaeological sites determined that within the canyon, pre-contact and historical archaeological sites were primarily impacted by flood waters eroding stream banks. Once spatially and temporally discrete artifact clusters were translocated downstream or washed out of the canyon entirely. Historical refuse sites associated with the construction and occupation of Scotty’s Castle within Upper Tie Canyon are used as a case study in this paper to examine response strategies resource managers used and how actions can have critical management implications and the power to set precedent.
Cite this Record
Five Feet High and Rising: Flood Impacts to Archaeological Sites and Response Efforts at Death Valley National Park. Juanita Bonnifield, Wanda Raschkow, Erin Dempsey, Elizabeth A. Horton, Elaine Dorset. Presented at Society for Historical Archaeology, Fort Worth, TX. 2017 ( tDAR id: 435424)
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Keywords
General
Flood Damage
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National Park Service
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Site Management
Geographic Keywords
North America
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United States of America
Temporal Keywords
20th Century
Spatial Coverage
min long: -129.199; min lat: 24.495 ; max long: -66.973; max lat: 49.359 ;
Individual & Institutional Roles
Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology
Record Identifiers
PaperId(s): 362