Geoarchaeological Prospection for Late Pleistocene Deposits in the Paleo-Tahkenitch River Valley, Oregon Coast

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Archaeology from Western North America" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The archaeological record of the paleo-Tahkenitch River valley, situated on the Oregon coast, spans the early to late Holocene. Previous work at the Tahkenitch Landing site (35CS43) has demonstrated human response to postglacial marine transgression, transitioning from an inland river valley to a productive estuary in the early Holocene to a freshwater aeolian dune-impounded lacustrine environment by the middle to late Holocene. Geoprobe coring of the immediate area surrounding the Tahkenitch Landing site has revealed intact late Pleistocene deposits buried across the locality close to the modern surface. This makes the Tahkenitch Valley exceptional among Oregon’s coastal river valleys where late Pleistoce to early Holocene-aged deposits are buried as deep as 32 m below the surface. In this study we describe the expansion of Geoprobe coring into unknown areas and clarify the locality’s 14C dating to understand where the “dirt of the right age” (DORA) exists above the water table. This work is carried out as a precursor to new excavations of late Pleistocene-aged deposits—a critical first step in the search for late Pleistocene archaeological components.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology from Western North America   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 35956.0