Incorporating Indigenous Views into Cultural Resource Risk Assessments: A Case Study from Sauvie Island, Oregon

Summary

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

Threats to cultural resources have pushed archaeologists, land managers, and Indigenous peoples to identify at-risk resources, determine their condition, and provide prioritization recommendations for future preservation. Our project is an example of this process in the form of a case study in cultural resources risk assessment, along the 34 km long western shoreline of Sauvie Island, Oregon, subject to severe erosion from a range of anthropogenic forces. We developed a site preservation prioritization scheme, seeking to balance western science values and Indigenous perspectives, through a partnership with the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde. We carried out field survey via kayak, assessing the condition of 18 shoreline archaeological sites. We met with Tribal partners seven times over the course of the project to share field results, gain Tribal insights on cultural resource values that overlapped with and diverged from western science values, and develop a mutually agreed upon prioritization scheme, which we applied to Sauvie Island cultural resources. Besides being a useful tool for island land managers prioritizing local preservation efforts, our project is a model for others seeking to build a more holistic approach to prioritization in the face of ongoing and future threats to cultural resources.

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): 37235.0