Jewel of the Sierra: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding Lake Tahoe’s Underwater Historical Context and the Development of a Sensitivity Model for Cultural Resource Identification

Summary

This is an abstract from the "US Army Corps of Engineers: Current Work in CRM, Research, and Creative Mitigation" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The US Army Corps of Engineers’ (Corps) Regulatory Program regulates work and structures within Lake Tahoe, a navigable water of the United States, under the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. The recent lifting of a local building moratorium has resulted in a resurgence of private, commercial, and public development around the lake margin. The resulting sudden increase in Regulatory permit applications prompted the Corps to develop a sensitivity model for identifying underwater cultural resources to guide compliance with Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act at Lake Tahoe for the Corps’ Regulatory Program. Using geologic and remote sensing data, combined with tribal consultation, ethnographic information, previous underwater archaeological investigations, and historical records, the Corps has developed a historical context for the underwater environment at Lake Tahoe, which in turn facilitated the creation of a sensitivity model to guide cultural resource identification efforts for undertakings regulated by the Corps. This session provides a summary of Lake Tahoe’s historic context and presents the underwater cultural resource sensitivity model. The model will continue to be refined as cultural resource identification efforts for individual undertakings proceed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• US Army Corps of Engineers: Current Work in CRM, Research, and Creative Mitigation   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40465.0