Geoarchaeology of Three Olcott Sites along the Elwha River, Clallam County, Washington

Summary

This is an abstract from the "New Research into the Old Cordilleran" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Olcott sites are characteristically skewed toward lithic artifacts due to the acidic forested environment of western Washington. Site interpretations rely on several lines of evidence including landform type and age, soil formation, post-depositional processes, and vertical artifact distributions. Recent survey and excavations at three Olcott sites in the Elwha River valley produced a robust toposequence data set that is used for understanding landform development and the cultural context of this poorly understood early to middle Holocene occupation. Close-interval shovel testing across a broad area on both sides of the river identified subsurface cultural deposits and helped refine a landform age model for this section of the Elwha River valley. This poster presents how the model was tested during subsequent excavations that exposed artifact-bearing, shallow B horizons of Pleistocene river terraces with the results compared to other regional Olcott sites.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• New Research into the Old Cordilleran   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 24242