MONTANE MASS WASTING EVENTS AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL ASSOCIATIONS

Remnants of multiple slope failures since the last glacial maximum are characteristic of the Absaroka Range in the Central Rocky Mountains. An archaeological record spanning from the Early Holocene to the last several hundred years is often included in the matrix of these changing topographic features. Deposition and erosion events alter the archaeological record throuh time and can skew interpretation, but these processes also provide information about changes in topographic configurations and biological communities that are important factors in human decision making. An on-going investigation of landslides and soil formation in a portion of the Absaroka Range is used to monitor changes across an archaeological landscape. This investigation takes a two-scale approach. On one scale, a landslide database coupled with chronological markers from the archaeological record is used to develop a simplified chronology of landslide events at a regional scale of approximately 500 square kilometers. This analysis demonstrates that archaeological sites intersected by landslides can be used to confine the timing of these events. At a site-specific scale, mapping and soil analysis of an exposed creekbank provide a history of soil development and deposition, cultural occupation and microenvironmental shifts within multiple flow/slide events. Together these investigations are used to discuss landscape disturbance and recovery through the time of human occupation in the Absaroka Range.