A Needed Audit in Perspective around Culturally Modified Trees within the Pacific Northwest

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper is a critical appraisal of cultural resource management protocols associated with Indigenous Culturally Modified Trees, (CMTs). Living artifacts, eco-facts, or vivio-facts provide rich and powerful accounts of human interactions with a setting. These features challenge western views of what constitutes materiality of the past, a recognition, often overlooked in western trained academic archaeology. This focus appreciates diverse perspectives and impacts within the assessment and legal handling of CMTs, focused within the Western Cascades of Washington State. This paper is based on the reassessment of five previously documented Bark Stripped Cedar sites between Snohomish and Skagit County, Washington. The purpose of consultation with local experts is to assess the quality of current common professional practice to support local Indigenous values or viewpoints in documentation procedures. Herein lies a reciprocal learning opportunity that is designed to advance nonwestern management and perspective in preservation around these resources. An exercise in listening can strengthen archaeological university-level training, field inventory planning strategies, management practices and greater public discourse around Traditional Cultural Places of Patrimony and significance of nonwestern stewardship values.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36160.0