Cultural Continuity and Persistence in Upland Ecologies: Insights from a Field School in Indigenous Collaboration, Landscapes, and Heritage Management

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Cultivating Food, Land, and Communities" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Growth in cultural and environmental compliance industries highlights a need to train early career professionals in collaborative approaches to heritage management that consider both the interrelatedness of cultural and natural resources across diverse habitats, and the expressed interests and goals of the communities who maintain long-standing connections to managed lands. Here, we present ongoing research as part of a field school in the Okanogan Highlands of north-central Washington state, in the homeland of the Okanogan people, that was developed to address this need. The field school is aimed at exploring the continuity of culture and place and connections between community, landscapes, and ancestral foods in upland environments through time. It was developed in partnership with the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Bureau of Land Management, and academic institutions and provides a unique opportunity to train early career professionals in collaborative heritage management practices in diverse upland ecologies. The field school was designed to improve accessibility to field training opportunities and teaches field methods applicable to careers in CRM and related industries. Specialized analytical techniques (aDNA, paleoethnobotany, zooarchaeology, drone/lidar, pXRF) are used to explore enduring connections to the land and how they articulate with food sovereignty and community health.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Cultivating Food, Land, and Communities

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40417.0