People & Plants: Study of Ancient Oregon Rock Shelter Topic of September OAS Lecture

Catlow Valley Highway-Photo Courtesy of Dave Anderson (Picasa)

OAS Meeting & Presentation: Tuesday, September 6
The Oregon Archaeological Society will offer its first lecture of the year on Tuesday, September 6, 2011. The title of the lecture is “People and Plants: Paleobotanical Studies at a Late Archaic Rock Shelter in Oregon’s Catlow Valley.” Jaime Dexter, a doctoral student in Archaeology at the University of Oregon, is the featured speaker.


Dexter’s research interests include paleoethnobotany, palynology, plant genetics, and environmental archaeology. She has studied the subsistence strategies of hunter-gatherer populations in the northwestern Great Basin and is specifically interested in utilizing cross-disciplinary approaches to recognize and address prehistoric environmental impacts.


The presentation is at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) at 7:45 PM, and is free and open to the public. The talk is preceded at 7 PM by a general business meeting, which is also open to the public


See www.oregonarchaeological.org or call 503-727-3507 for more information.www.oregonarchaeological.org.

OAS Field Trip: Huckleberry Processing Fields, Saturday, September 10 - Space Available!

Photo courtesy Fat of the Land

Rick McClure, Forest Archaeologist & Heritage Program Manager for the Gifford Pinchot National Forest at Mt. Adams, Washington and archaeologist Cheryl Mack, will conduct two field trips to huckleberry processing field sites, focusing on the archaeology of the Cascade Crest - late summer upland use oriented toward collection and processing of huckleberries. The trip is expected to last the entire day. 

Meet at 9:00 a. m. at the Mt. Adams Ranger Station. This trip will go into the Indian Heaven Wilderness and is more difficult due to hiking conditions.


Contact Betty Tandberg (360) 695-6021 or tandberg0408@comcast.net to sign up for either of these trips since the number of participants is limited.

Final Resting Place of Clark County Pioneers

By Sue Vorenberg
Columbian Staff Reporter

It wasn’t easy for the dozen or so family members to pack up a wagon train in 1850 and bump, thump and roll their way from Missouri to what would eventually become east Vancouver.


When they staked their claims for free land around the Columbia River and Government Island, the small band probably didn’t consider that one day they’d end up as founding members of a county that would grow to more than 425,000 people...


Read the whole story at: Fishers Cemetery


British Columbia Village May Be 10,000 Years Old

Mark Hume

Globe & Mail

When Farid Rahemtulla and his anthropology students began to dig in the forest floor on Calvert Island, he pretty much knew what to expect – lots of clam and mussel shells.

But shortly after the team from the University of Northern British Columbia started to sink pits into a shell midden (refuse dump) on the Central Coast, he realized it was much bigger than anyone imagined – so large he now believes it is part of a long-lost, ancient village called Luxvbalis...

Read the whole story at: Ancient Village

Teen Gets Prison in Red Rock Graffiti Case

By Jeff German

Las Vegas Review-Journal

The desecration last year of prehistoric artwork at the Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area sparked outrage and focused attention on the spread of graffiti throughout the Las Vegas Valley.


This week, the 17-year-old youth charged with defacing the Red Rock area received his punishment behind closed doors in federal court, ending a case that rallied the community to help remove the spray-painted graffiti...

Read the whole sad story at: Rock Art Graffiti

Ötzi the Iceman Murdered on a Full Stomach
By Brandon Keim

Wired
A fresh analysis of Ötzi the Iceman’s stomach suggests a grisly new climax to the world’s most famous prehistory murder mystery: death by ambush, a surprise killing in the afterglow of a big meal.


Ötzi was found in 1991, frozen and fantastically preserved in ice high in the Italian Alps, where he’d perished 5,300 years ago. With his tattoos and cool tools and smart outfit, rendered by artists with soulful brown eyes under a weathered brow, he became a Copper Age celebrity. Public and scientific imagination seized on the circumstances of his life — and, of course, his death...

Otzi fans can read the whole story at: Otzi Dies on Full Stomach

Hand Axes Unearthed in Kenya are Oldest Advanced Stone Tools Ever Found

By Ian Sample

Guardian.co.uk

A recent discovery suggests early humans were wielding sophisticated stone tools at least 300,000 years earlier than thought. A rare haul of picks, flakes and hand axes recovered from ancient sediments in Kenya are the oldest remains of advanced stone tools yet discovered.


Archaeologists unearthed the implements while excavating mudstone banks on the shores of Lake Turkana in the remote north-west of the country.

Read the whole story at: Ancient Tools

(Thanks to Robin Harrower, Russel Micnhimer, The Columbian, Wired, the Guardian, The Globe and Mail, and Las Vegas Review-Journal for some of the info in this post.)

Otzi Talk Fascinates Crowd! Oldest Pottery...More Northwest Events

Dr. Angelo Fossati talks about Otzi, the Iceman.

Dr. Angelo Fossati came to Portland last Saturday to give his talk "Unraveling the Secrets of Otzi, the Iceman: His Life, Times and Death". Fossati thrilled the crowd with an excellent presentation that covered many aspects of Otzi's life and death.


Dr. Fossati makes a point during his Otzi lecture.

We learned about Otzi's culture, his clothing, food, weapons, and much more. Most fascinating was Fossati's new theory that Otzi's death was actually recorded in stone carvings on a stele (an upright stone or slab with a carved surface) recently uncovered under the altar in a church near where Otzi would have lived.


This image, carved on a stele, may
show events surrounding the death of Otzi.

The event was well attended and the crowd seemed delighted with the talk and with the enthusiastic question and answer period afterward. OAS can be very proud to have brought a presentation of this quality to Portland.


Becky Steed (left) volunteered to sell imported
Italian t-shirts, under the smiling supervision
of OAS President Robin Harrower.


OAS members Donna Tallman (in red) and Denise
(Cramer) Hershey (seated) sell books to interested attendees.

CATHLAPOTLE PLANKHOUSE HOSTS ROCK ART EVENT JUNE 14
“Rock Art of the Lower Columbia River” Dr. James Keyser, Rock Art Researcher, will share his knowledge and images of the rock art along the lower Columbia, 2pm. Also featured, Greg Archuleta and Greg Robinson teach how native earth pigments have been and are made and used through demonstration and hands-on activities. Noon to 3:30.

Please visit www.plankhouse.org or phone 1-360-887-4106 for seasonal hours, information, and directions. For more Refuge events visit www.ridgefieldfriends.org


OREGON STATE PARKS DAY TO FEATURE HERITAGE ACTIVITIES
State Parks Day on June 6 will highlight the state's sesquicentennial, have a theme of *Happy Birthday Oregon!*, and include living history presentations, special tours, exhibits, free fishing, free admission and lots of cake.

Champoeg*s renovated visitor center with its new exhibits will be a focal point and provide tours of the park*s 1860s kitchen garden and the old Champoeg town site. Evening programs with historical themes will take place in the campground and at the Historic Butteville Store. The Friends of Historic Champoeg and Daughters of the American Revolution are co-sponsors.

Other state parks with heritage activities include Farewell Bend, Cape Blanco, Crown Point, Carl Washburne, Fort Stevens, Jessie Honeyman, Silver Falls, Sumpter Valley Dredge, Tryon Creek and other state parks. Details are available at http://www.oregonstateparks.org/events.php


JACKSONVILLE PLANS SESQUICENTENNIAL EVENTS
Jacksonville will mark Oregon's sesquicentennial with a parade and other heritage activities June 13-14.

A parade at 10 a.m. June 13 will be built around the theme of "150 Years Living In and Loving Oregon" and feature covered wagons; an oxen-pulled wagon; mounted posse; historic cars, fire trucks and tractors, and draft horse teams. Other weekend activities include a Civil War encampment, covered wagon camp, historical displays, antiques, old time cars, old West re-enactments, shootouts, outhouse race, calliope, beard-growing contest, horse-shoeing, and snake-oil salesmen. People can have an old-time photo taken, hear cowboy poetry, take horse-drawn wagon rides, go on trail walks, and tour the cemetery.

For more information, contact Sharon Wesner Becker at 541- 326-6832 or the City of Jacksonville at 541-899-1231.


18,000 YEAR-OLD POTTERY FOUND IN CHINA
Monday, June 01, 2009
Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Bits of pottery discovered in a cave in southern China may be evidence of the earliest development of ceramics by ancient people.

The find in Yuchanyan Cave dates to as much as 18,000 years ago, researchers report in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The find "supports the proposal made in the past that pottery making by foragers began in south China," according to the researchers, led by Elisabetta Boaretto of Bar Ilan University in Israel...

Read the whole story at:http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,524041,00.html?sPage=fnc/scitech/archaeology

(Thanks to Oregon Heritage News, the Cathlapotle Plankhouse, and Fox News for some of the info in this message).