Willamette Valley Project Overview: Using Subbottom Profiling, Coring, Augering, Geomorphic Mapping, and Regional Archaeological Data to Inform Sensitivity Modeling and Archaeological Research Design in the Willamette Basin, Oregon

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) manages the Willamette Valley Project, a system of thirteen dams and associated reservoirs in the Willamette River Basin, Oregon. Environmental settings of these thirteen project areas vary by elevation, substrate, vegetation, and other characteristics, but all are located along major rivers draining into the Willamette River. During this multiyear project, an interdisciplinary team used geomorphic mapping and subbottom profiling of reservoir beds to select targets for coring and augering during annual reservoir drawdowns. During low water, field checks of subbottom profiling data, particularly in areas with associated water column noise (WCN), provided the opportunity for the team to physically verify interpretations—a step not easily attained offshore where this method is often applied. The radiocarbon ages of materials from cores and augered samples span the Late Pleistocene through Holocene and helped identify which landforms are more likely to contain buried cultural materials and how deeply they might be buried. This geomorphic information was used in concert with cultural data from throughout the Willamette River Basin to inform our archaeological sensitivity model, research design, and management recommendations.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41542.0