THEORY AND METHOD FOR LOCATING LATE PLEISTOCENE-AGED ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES ALONG OREGON'S COAST

The search for late Pleistocene-aged archaeological sites along the Northwest Coast of North America is considered a key means of evaluating questions related to the timing and route of initial human entry into the New World. Along the southern Northwest Coast, in the vicinity of Oregon's current day Pacific coastline, efforts to find and study early sites are met with difficulties related to post-glacial marine transgression and its associated landscape changes. Particular tectonic and geomorphic patterns since the last glacial maximum largely control the geoarchaeological character of the Oregon coast and conditioned the location and nature of prehistoric human activities through time. Here, we present new geographic information systems (GIS) reconstructions of Oregon's central coast along with the results of geoarchaeological and archaeological surveys. In the coast's modern terrestrial environmental context, search efforts must seek out ephemeral traces of human activities practiced in past upland settings. Looking west, we discuss a new GIS-based model that predicts potential site distribution on the reconstructed late Pleistocene and early Holocene-aged central Oregon coastal landscape. Taken together, the application of these methodologies offer productive means of evaluating questions related to the New World's earliest coastal peoples.