About 7,000 years ago two major tephra-falls blanketed the
Pacific Northwest in volcanic ash. These two tephra-falls, identified
as the Llao and climatic tephra-falls, were a part of the eruptive
events that led up to the collapse of Mount Mazama to form Crater Lake
in the southern Oregon Cascades.
The...
During the 19th century the United States Army was a military institution characterized by a hierarchical system of authoritative, social and economic inequality between members of its different military grades. Although necessary for insuring military discipline within the Army this system of inequality also influenced the non-military social lives of...
This thesis examines archaeological material in order to explore gender and ethnicity issues concerning fur trade era families from a settlement in the Willamette Valley, Oregon. Ethnohistorical information consisting of traders journals and travelers observations, as well as documentation from the Hudson's Bay Company, Catholic church records, and genealogical information...
The portion of the Oregon coast extending from Cape Blanco south into California has long been recognized as a distinct physiographic region, with probable ramifications for prehistoric subsistence and settlement patterns. Several researchers have proposed models outlining a greater reliance upon marine/littoral resources among groups within this region, while more...
The dramatic upsurge of contract-supported archaeological activity,
generated by legislative action, has precipitated an increase
in information about Oregon's prehistoric peoples. This information,
however, has not been presented in a format which can be easily
understood by the general public.
This study presents an account of early peoples in Oregon,...
Archaeological investigations can reveal persistent traditions of ethnic
groups. Hawaiians were employed in the fur trade of the Columbia River from
1810 through 1850. The Hudson's Bay Company employed them at Ft.
Vancouver, Washington from 1825 through the end of this period. Data from
the excavations of the servant's village...
Champoeg, located along the Willamette River, developed
as a transportation center for both river and overland
travel and as a shipping point for agricultural products.
Retired employees of the Hudson's Bay Company were the first
to settle in the area, in the 1830s. American settlers
began arriving in large numbers...
Site 35J04 is located on the south bank of the Rogue River, four
miles west of Grants Pass, Oregon. Excavation of the site was conducted
in 1976 by Oregon State University under contract to the Corvallis
branch of CH2M/Hill.
Eight artifact assemblages were distinguished during the analysis
of the site....
In 1986, researchers from Oregon State University, led by Dr. David Brauner, came to the small Catholic community of St. Paul, Oregon as part of ongoing research on the French-Canadian inhabitants of the Willamette Valley between 1829 and the mid-1860s. They were searching for the remains of the first Catholic...
The Coast Reservation of Oregon was established under Executive Order of President Franklin Pierce in November, 1855, as a homeland for the southern Oregon tribes. It was an immense, isolated wilderness, parts of which had burned earlier in the century. There were some prairies where farming was possible, but because...
This thesis is based on the excavations of the Robert Newell farmstead (35MA41), excavated in 2002 and 2003 by the Oregon State University Department of Anthropology archaeological field school. Robert Newell lived at this farm from 1843- 1854. Major architectural features, including a brick hearth and postholes were discovered at...
St. Joseph's College was located within St. Paul, Oregon, the first Roman Catholic mission in the Pacific Northwest. The St. Paul mission was finally established in 1839 by Father Francois Blanchet, four years after the French-Canadian settlers in the area, appropriately known as French Prairie, had requested the presence of...
Approximately 5,500 years ago a discreet period of
wetter and cooler environmental conditions prevailed
across the southern Columbia Plateau. This period was
marked by the first prominent episodes of erosion to occur
along the lower Snake River following the height of the
Altithermal and eruption of Mt. Mazama during the...
The present thesis chemically examined 174 industrial North Staffordshire pottery fragments from an archaeological context, using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). In an integrated effort to combine an archaeometric approach with archival research and traditional analysis methods, the purpose of the thesis was to link industrial pottery manufacturers recipes to...
Over the past 42 years clay smoking pipes have been excavated from two U.S. army posts, Fort Hoskins (35BE15) and Fort Yamhill (35PO75) and curated at Oregon State University. These two forts were established in Western Oregon in 1856 and by 1866 both had been decommissioned. Numerous theses have focused...
Red Light Ladies presents a perspective on prostitution in North America, within the context of the western mining frontier. A biographical profile of the frontier
prostitutor is presented, along with an archaeological model of settlement patterns and material culture. Settlement patterns and demographic changes in the prostitutor
population are hypothetically...
This thesis is a preliminary archaeological predictive model and project-planning
tool created for the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT) as part
of a statewide planning effort to enhance the agency's ability to assess the potential
impacts of highway projects on archaeological resources. This model addresses the
archaeological sensitivity of the...
By examining the combined written, ethnographic and physical evidence of a surviving
steam-powered sawmill in the Douglas-fir region of the Pacific Northwest, this thesis
seeks to supply new insights into the operation and adaptability of antiquated machinery
during a period of rapid social and technological change and to develop a...
Using the honey bee (Apis mellifera L.) this thesis shows that entomological information and material can be retrieved using current historical archaeological methods. Historical archaeology has the ability to uncover connections between arenas as varied, and seemingly isolated, as the honey bee, the environment, and human cultures. By focusing on...