Identifying Vulnerable Archaeological Sites and Landforms in the Upper Missouri River Watershed

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In the summer of 2024 flooding of the Upper Missouri caused catastrophic damage across the region, blowing out bridges, culverts and altering stream banks along many of the streams that feed into the Missouri River and the Missouri River itself. This poster presents research that models the flood and erosional risk to archaeological sites in the Upper Missouri Watershed as derived from recent climate data (FEMA and NOAA), existing climate models and known affected sites. Additionally, using existing predictive models of site potential I identify landforms with high site potential that are at similar risk of flood and erosion. Local dam impoundments and their effects on archaeological sites as they are raised and drawn down are also examined. The significance of this work lies in its ability to identify at-risk archaeological deposits and, in turn, allowing for efforts to prioritize either protection against flood damage or investigation for research potential while they are still intact.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53836