Geoarchaeological Investigations in the Upper Willamette Valley and Western Cascade Mountains, Oregon

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The rivers of the Upper Willamette Valley and Western Cascades have drawn people to their resource rich banks since the Late Pleistocene with evidence of human habitation variably preserved as the watersheds evolved. Since the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) constructed the Willamette Valley Project, a system of 13 dams and reservoirs in six subbasins, preservation of landforms that may contain archaeological evidence have been influenced by 50–80 years of cyclical seasonal inundation, water level fluctuation, and erosion. To help USACE manage resources within the system but also provide a regional stratigraphic and environmental framework for future research we are using an interdisciplinary approach to locate submerged and potentially buried archaeological sites. Our phased approach includes a newly developed regional archaeological context and research design, archaeological landscape sensitivity modeling, and summer boat-based geophysical investigations that inform winter sediment sampling in drawn down reservoirs. Analysis of recovered cores and auger samples will provide information on the age and character of the landforms, periods of landscape stability, and paleoenvironments, which will then be used to calibrate the archaeological landscape sensitivity model. This presentation reviews ongoing work and preliminary data retrieved from six of the Willamette Valley Project reservoirs.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Future Directions for Archaeology and Heritage Research in the Willamette Valley, Oregon   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35658.0