R-Based Solutions for Synthesizing Cultural Resource Survey Data to Assess Changing Land-Use Patterns in the Okanagan-Wenatchee National Forest, WA

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeological research has benefited from decades of site-specific projects, regional comparisons, and theory building from case studies. However, recent research themes concerning the emergence of complex social-ecological systems and long-term land-use legacies require new approaches to archaeological data. Large-scale syntheses of archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and geographical information provide an effective way forward to address these themes. In more concise terms—"big questions" often require "big data" to help answer them. Cultural resource data collected by the US Forest Service is one such "big dataset" and represents an incredible investment in time, resources, and expertise. This poster presents the initial results of a pilot study to develop an R-based workflow to digitize, extract, and synthesize USFS archaeological information across the entirety of the Cle Elum Ranger District, within central Washington’s Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest. Our results indicate that synthesizing district-level archaeological data reveals patterns of land-use and survey coverage that were otherwise not recognizable. This work has the potential to not only strengthen this dataset’s role in forest-wide cultural resource management but also to reposition cultural resources as a valuable tool in creating knowledge and developing policy with direct influences on the health of human-environmental relationships in the future.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 86th Annual Meeting, Online (2021)   •
• SAA 2021: General Sessions

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 32209