| By Mike Alverson and Calvin Dockery |
The land around the Dutch John area is currently managed by the U.S. Forest Service. Because the area has large potential for increasing tourism, it has attracted many private agencies which are interested in developing the area for greater tourism capacity. The Forest service has decided to engage in a land swap with a company from Oregon. The Forest Service will recieve land in western Oregon which they believe will be of greater benefit to their future management objectives. The private firm will gain control of a prime section of land located adjacent to the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area.
One of the many things that the National Environmental Policy Act requires is that when a federal agency releases land to another party, they must first complete an archaeological assessment and remove all significant artifacts. In order to meet NEPA regulations the Ashley National forest has been engaged in an archaeological study over the greater Dutch John area for over four years.
This project is under contract with the Forest Service and is a voluntary undertaking. Under this contract signifigant or non-signifigant site locations that have not been excavated yet cannot be revealed. This is done to preserve the remaining sites from public excavation. Scales and locations are not included in the maps for this project.
This study, if successful, will provide more information on these current archaeological sites.
The prehistory of northeastern Utah is poorly understood and only limited information is available. The Dutch John mitigation provides an opportunity to change this situation. This area is unique in that it is a border between cultural areas - the High Plains and the Great Basin. Evidence of groups from both areas are found in Dutch John.
Native American occupation in the Flaming Gorge/Dutch John area appears to be extensive. Most of the sites are evidence of a hunting and gathering way of life. The abundance of stone grinding instruments found at campsites indicate a dependence on gathering. While the wide variety a projectile points and large chopping tools indicate their dependence on hunting.
The archaeological site data was obtained from Ashley National Forest Archaeologists, Byron Loosle and Angie Edwards. The data recieved was in two forms: An archaeological field report or spread sheet, which listed site numbers, site types, eligibility, affiliation, and status; and a crude site location map of a 7.5' Dutch John quad.
The following table is an example of the archaeological field report of excavated sites that we recieved:
| ASHLEY NUMBER | SITE TYPE | ELIGIBILITY | AFFILIATION | STATUS |
The majority of the sites identified during the project represent short term activites or occupations, generally small lithic scatter of unknown age. Loosle and Edward claim that even sites with evidence of hearths represent short occupations, since there is no evidence of structures and often only limited refuse present. There is also evidence that would suggest that only small groups inhabitated the area. There are two sites, both signifigant, that contain evidence of occupation by larger groups or frequent repeated use over longer periods of time. Both of these sites are adjacent to major springs within the study area. Many of the sites seem to be located on south facing slopes which could also indicate that the sites were inhabited during colder months.
The Site location map was put into digital form by transfering the site locations from the Forest service archaeological map to a 1:24000 Dutch John Quad map, and then digitized the sites using the quad's UTM coordinates. This allowed us to properly locate the archaeological sites within the study area.
Arc/Info and Erdas Imagine was used to build and analyze coverages that explained the environmental factors related to the site locations. Those coverages were:
Stdybnd - Study boundary
coverage. This coverage was digitized, cleaned and put into UTM
coordinates so that the other coverages could be clipped to the
study area.
Stdyarch - Archaeological
sites digitized from data recieved from the U.S. Forest Service.
Stdyelev - Elevation
coverage clipped from AGRC data.
Stdygeol - Geology
coverage clipped from AGRC data.
Stdyhyd - Water courses
coverage clipped from AGRC data.
Stdyland - Land ownership
coverage clipped from AGRC data.
Stdyrd - Road coverage
clipped from AGRC data.
Stdydem - A USGS Digital
Elevation Model clipped to the study area boundary
Stdyaspt - A DEM
latticeclipped with the aspect designation.
Stdyslop - A DEM
latticeclipped with the slope designation.
Stdysoil - Coverage
clipped from the utsoil directory.
Stdyrng - A DEM
latticeclipped with the range designation..
Stdyustm - Coverage
converted from a grid in ARC. The grid was iniatially converted
from a TM image.
Shade Relief
image of the study area
A map of the
study area
Coverages of each of the environmental factors were overlayed with the archaeological coverage to produce maps that would show the relationship between the feature and the archaeological sites.
The first factor considered was the archaeological sites distance to water. The streams in the study area were buffered to 1 kilometer and 500 meters.
Buffer Zone
Boundary Map
1 kilometer
buffer.
500 meter
buffer.
Next we considered slope, aspect, and range (elevation).
We decided to test for slope between 4.5 and 21.5.
Slopes between
4.5 and 21.5.
We assumed that south facing areas would be ideal for
migrating groups, especially in the colder months.
South facing
areas.
Elevation has been shown in other studies to play an important part in archaeological site location. We chose an elevation between 1917 meters and 2015 meters to evaluate.
Elevation
between 1917 m and 2015 m.
Vegetation should also play an important part in a nomadic hunter-gatherer way of life. We obtained data first from the Utah GAP analysis.
GAP
coverage.
GAP overlay on
perspective view of the study area.
GAP coverage in
relation to study areas.
The GAP coverage is very coarse when used on an area the size
of our study. A thematic mapper image was obtained to produce a
better analysis of the vegatation. The GAP image was also used to
help classify the TM image.
Each environmental factor contained a percentage of the total
sites in the study area These percentages are:
TM image showing
our study area.
TM overlayed on a
perspective view of our study area.
Unsupervised
classification of TM image.
Unsupervised
classification of TM image overlayed on a perspective view of our
study area.
Unsupervised
classification mapped with the study area.
RESULTS
A chi-squared test was then used to determine if any of the factors were statistically significant in describing where the archaeological sites were located.
The observed values are:
To get the expected values, percentages of the total area were calculated for each environmental factor. This percentage was multiplied by the total number of archaeological sites.
The expected values are:
The range and slope factors were then mapped to show where the archaeological sites are best described.
Range and
slope intersected.
It is possible that the study area is too big. The northern part of the study area does not have any sites identified. There is a possibility that sites are located in this section. Further study could be done to provide a predictive model to locate sites that are not now known. Also, a previous predictive model from another area could be used to predict site locations in this study area.
Avery, Thomas Eugene, Thomas R. Lyons, 1977. Remote Sensing: A
Handbook for Archeologist and Cultural Resource Managers. Remote
Sensing Division, Southwest Cultural Resources Center, National
Park Service and the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque.
Carmichael, David L., 1990. GIS Predictive Modelling of
Prehistoric Site Distributions in Central Montana. In
Interpreting Space: GIS and Archaeology, Eds. Kathleen M.S.
Allen, Stanton W. Green, Ezra B.W. Zubrow, Taylor & Francis, New
York, N.Y.
Day, Kent C., David S. Dibble, 1963. Archeological Survey of the
Flaming Gorge Reservoir Area Wyoming-Utah. Anthropological
Papers. Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, No. 65.
Tilton, Thad., and B.L. Johnston, 1995. A Predictive Model for
Prehistoric Archaeological Sites within the Hill Air Force Range
in Utah's West Desert Using GIS and Remote Sensing Data.
Submitted for class project, Utah State University. http://www.nr
.usu.edu/Geography-
Department/rsgis/Projects/RSGIA95/gis22/gis22.html
Warren, Robert E., 1990. Predictive Modelling in Archaeology: A
Primer. In Interpreting Space: GIS and Archaeology, Eds. Kathleen
M.S. Allen, Stanton W. Green, Ezra B.W. Zubrow, Taylor & Francis,
New York, N.Y.
Warren, Robert E., 1990. Predictive Modelling of Archaeological
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Comments or questions?
Calvin Dockery
Michael Alverson
or
http://members.gnn.com/MAlverson/main.htm