First Advisor

Shelby Anderson

Term of Graduation

Spring 2024

Date of Publication

6-17-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (M.S.) in Anthropology

Department

Anthropology

Language

English

Subjects

Archaeology, Pacific Northwest, Significance

Physical Description

1 online resource (xii, 111 pages)

Abstract

Archaeologists commonly evaluate National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) eligibility for precontact sites in Cultural Resource Management archaeology under Criterion D. This focus on Criterion D can create the false paradigm that precontact sites are only significant by virtue of their information potential. This paper explores precontact sites in the Tualatin River Basin in northwestern Oregon and identifies some key deficiencies in the ways those sites are recorded and documented by archaeologists. This paper then discusses the development of a geodatabase of site attributes and a significance model with contributions and feedback from relevant parties and Tribal representatives.

The geodatabase includes precontact lithic sites in the Tualatin River Basin that were available on the Oregon State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) online database at the time of this research. To those sites, I catalogued 27 attributes from the site record forms when the information was available. The resulting geodatabase can display the spatial distribution of any of those attributes across the region. It also serves to identify potential gaps in data where attributes were not recorded or available for sites.

The significance model focused on categorizing potential NRHP and tribal significance. I developed a list of significance attributes based on nearby NRHP eligible sites as well as on relevant parties and Tribal representative feedback. I then assigned significance score values to each of the sites using two different metrics: 1) documented presence of each significance attribute and 2) assumed presence of each significance attribute unless otherwise documented. By comparing these scoring metrics, broad gaps in data of recorded site attributes in the region are obvious.

Identifying and addressing regional-scale gaps in data are necessary before archaeologists can make accurate and complete eligibility evaluations of cultural resources. My research results show that there are many instances of missing site attributes in the Tualatin River Basin that inhibit the ability to accurately evaluate or assess NRHP or Tribal significance on both site and regional scales. The data gap modeling I developed focuses primarily on information-potential data due to the nature of the extant information in site record forms. The reliance on data-focused and incomplete archaeological documentation creates a recursive effect in which sites are only valued for information potential. Oral histories and the archaeological record could be integrated in the same way as historic documentation already are, resulting in both information sets being more complete. The data gap modeling presented here could be used to identify missing data in multiple types of information sets and identify areas where data from one information set may fill a gap, reinforce, or contradict the data in other information sets.

Rights

© 2024 Aaron James Reid Hood-Foster

In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/42435

Additional Files
TRB_site_attributes.xlsx (73 kB)
Tualatin River Basin Lithic Site Data
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