The Archaeology of Early ‘Persistent Places’ in Central Oregon, by Anne Dowd, Ph.D.

The Archaeology of Early ‘Persistent Places’ in Central Oregon.

Anne Dowd, Ph.D.

Abstract:

People have been drawn to certain parts of the Ochoco National Forest and Crooked River National Grassland for their reliable resources, and they returned to these locales repeatedly over thousands of years.  U.S. Forest Service archaeologists have now recorded examples of Western Stemmed Tradition sites dating from 13,000 to 8,500 years before present.  People living at these locales, ranging from large base camps to smaller resource processing sites, made Haskett and Windust styles of points tipping handheld spears.  These archaeological sites provide new data on alternative generalist lifestyles to compare to the big game adaptations of contemporaneous Clovis hunters in the western United States.  Anne Dowd will discuss how these sites have the potential to expand our understanding of how people used persistent places to tether their communities to key predictable resources as part of seasonal rounds.  In addition, Anne connects recent research on cave sites with these new data from open air sites to show the importance of protecting archaeological sites with the potential for illuminating variable human adaptations to changing climate conditions.