Building Bridges: Federal, State, and Tribal Collaboration on the US 101 Elwha River Bridge Replacement Project, Washington State

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Dam removal is restoring the culturally significant ecosystem of the Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, but the resulting increase in water flow at the US 101 Elwha River Bridge has accelerated erosion at pier foundations, necessitating replacement. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence indicate the area surrounding the bridge has been used for thousands of years by the Klallam people and contains important information about the early to middle Holocene prehistory of the Elwha River valley. In collaboration with the Washington State Department of Transportation, National Park Service, and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, Archaeological and Historical Services supported compliance efforts by conducting geomorphological studies, intensive survey, and National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) evaluative testing, resulting in the identification of three archaeological sites considered eligible under NRHP criteria A and D. Details of the compliance process and the sites’ Section 4(f) implications are discussed, as well as the project’s contributions to the regional knowledge of pre-contact groups in western Washington.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24248