[OR_Archaeology] UO Archaeologists Exposing Pre-Mazama Human Occupation on the North Umpqua

[Susan White]

article copied below, but you can see article with photos at

http://www.uoalumni.com/enews/1001/mazama.php

UO Archaeologists Exposing Pre-Mazama Human Occupation on the North
Umpqua

By Brian O’Neill (PhD UO 1989)
Senior Research Associate, UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History

The eruption of Mount Mazama around 7600 years ago, which resulted in
the Crater Lake caldera, also deposited a thick layer of pumice and ash
across the central Oregon landscape and in the headwater regions of the
Umpqua, Rogue, and Klamath rivers.  Archaeological investigations in the
upper North Umpqua River drainage have uncovered evidence in several
locations of human occupation buried beneath this ash.

In spring 2008, UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History
archaeologists working at the confluence of Williams Creek and the North
Umpqua River in the narrow North Umpqua River canyon in Douglas County
discovered a dense layer of stone tools and tool-making debris beneath
nearly three meters of volcanic ash. Charcoal collected near the top of
this layer is radiocarbon-dated to 7700 years ago. The field crew,
directed by Dr. Brian O’Neill, included UO graduates Drs. Paul Baxter
and Richard Bland, Jaime Dexter, Dustin Kennedy, Julia Knowles, and
Kaylon McAlister.

This past summer, the Museum partnered with the Umpqua National Forest
in a Passport In Time (PIT) Project, and returned to the site to
excavate a larger sample of the pre-Mazama cultural deposits that will
help address questions regarding the site’s maximum age and the
activities of its original inhabitants. Its setting suggests that the
people who lived there took advantage of seasonally abundant salmon
runs. Because the acidic forest soils quickly break down animal bone,
this type of evidence was not recovered. Of particular interest, then,
is whether the stone tools recovered from the pre-Mazama deposits retain
protein residue, and if salmon protein might be identified.

The PIT project, directed by Dr. O’Neill, attracted over 35
volunteers from the Pacific Northwest and across the US—all with a
passion for ancient human history, and the tedious work required to
retrieve the many bits of information from which the archaeological
record is composed. In addition to the volunteers, assistance also came
from Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management archaeologists, and
members of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians. Molly
Casperson (UO anthropology graduate student) served as field assistant.
The project was interrupted in its third week; the Williams Creek Fire
forced the evacuation of the volunteers and temporary abandonment of the
site. O’Neill and a group of experienced volunteers returned in
November to finish excavations under cold and rainy conditions. Included
among the November volunteers were Dr. Tom Connolly (UO-Museum of
Natural and Cultural History), and Mark Swisher and Bob Boettcher—both
UO Museum of Natural and Cultural History volunteers.

The collected artifacts, charcoal, and soil samples will be analyzed
over the winter and spring by O’Neill and a group of UO students, and
a report of the findings written. Funding for the technical
analyses—such as radiocarbon dating, obsidian studies, residue
analysis, and soil chemistry—is being provided by the Umpqua National
Forest. Even at this early stage in the analysis it is thought that the
site may represent the oldest recorded human occupation in the Umpqua
drainage; O’Neill and Umpqua National Forest archaeologist Debra
Barner are in the early stages of planning a return to the site in two
years’ time.