Cascade Mountain Land-Use: 9,000 Years of Human Presence on Mount Rainier

Greg Burtchard

Greg Burtchard, Cotter Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Archeologist, Mount Rainer NP (retired)

September 28th, 2017

This webinar was carried out as part of the ArcheoThursday Topics in Archeology Webinar Series hosted by the Archeology Program of the National Park Service, Washington D.C. office. The series was partly supported with help from Archaeology Southwest. Michael Roller of NPS hosted this series for the fall of 2018.

On September 28th, 2017, we had a presentation from our Cotter Lifetime Achievement award winner, Greg Burchardt. Greg Burtchard was honored for his long-term service and outstanding career achievements in archaeology. In his time as archeologist for Mount Rainer NP, he conducted systematic surveys and small to moderate size testing projects to help understand previously little known precontact usage and occupation of high-altitude landscapes such as those found in the park. Burtchard used paleo-climate models, regional population density and critical resource assumptions to develop predictive models for initial human use, site density, and site function in high country settings. In examining these issues in the field, more than 100 sites were discovered; the vast majority in Mount Rainier’s upper forest, subalpine, and alpine landscapes. In his time at Mount Rainer NP, Greg also greatly expanded interaction and collaboration between the park and federally-recognized tribes traditionally affiliated with Mount Rainier (traditionally known by variations of the name Takhoma).

Open Transcript 

Transcript

Roller: Yep. Let’s go. Burtchard: Oh, hi everybody. I know some of you, because I’ve seen you signing in and I can see you sign out, too. So stay in if you can. I’m Greg Burtchard and I want to talk to you a little bit about my career. I think that hopefully will not just be a trip down Memory Lane but will provide some background in how I developed the kind of research perspective that I have. And then from there, we’ll talk about how that parlayed into the real job world of cultural resource management as it’s practiced in the federal services generally, including the Park Service. And then we’ll get back to Mount Rainier. We can talk a little then about what we’ve accomplished there. And then lastly, I hope to have time to talk about the Nisqually Indian tribe and Mount Rainier National Park plant gathering research that we’ve done over a five to seven-year period, and the report that’s about to come out in that regard. But first let’s start out with research, and the landscape perspective, and how I approach it and where I got that. And this is the Memory Lane part. And I’ll try to make it short, if I can. Most of my research perspective in archeology generated from my days at New Mexico, University of New Mexico. I was fortunate enough to grow up there, and I was accepted to graduate school there early, before Vietnam War Days. As it turns out, I took a little interruption during the Vietnam War and came back about 1970. And when I returned, I returned to graduate school. And at that time, essentially the whole perspective of the way archeology was approached at that place changed when the Binfords, Sally and Lou Binford arrived. And Sally had left by the time I got back. But Lou Binford, you know, was a very strong presence. And he emphasized dramatically that, in his opinion, and I buy into this, and really in his case, anyway, the only really value of archeology is it helps us understand long-term human use, organized human use of landscapes [on?] the planet. His objective was to force us into understanding the archeological record as a tool to improve that understanding in a non-trivial and falsifiable manner. So that was the whole basic approach was to integrate archeology into the field of science, rather than a more or less idiosyncratic storytelling exercise as he saw it anyway involving, at that time, early stories about [unclear] sites, and things like that. (noise) Somebody might let me, am I coming through? Somebody might just tell me. You can. Otherwise, I’ll just keep going on. So the value of archeology, and he pointed out that because of its data limitations, archeology is inherently, you know, our database [unclear] is inherently ambiguously interpretable if you do it inductively based on the archeological record itself. He emphasized, and I bought into, this notion that it’s most useful in discuss—(loses sound) Uh oh. (sound loss) Roller: Greg, we lost your audio. Can you hear the audio? Hmm. Greg, I think we lost your audio. Folks, sorry. Greg, I think we lost your audio. Do you think you could log in? Sorry, folks. Technical issues. (quiet, static, waiting, clicking) Burtchard: Well, I’m back. Are we okay? Roller: Yes, we can hear you now. Loud and clear. Burtchard: All right. What’s the last thing I was talking about? Well, I’ll resume and I won’t take anybody’s time. I was rehashing a little bit about where my research perspective began. And I was focusing on really interaction with Lou Binford and graduate students at UNM at the time--this is in the ‘70s—in which relatively strong arguments were made towards the most effective way to really understand and use the archeological record as a science to help inform us about long-term processes of human use of the planet, and changing in these processes through time. And to do it in an explanatory way that we can [reject?] scientifically. That’s difficult to do with an archeological record in the sense that it’s so degraded that it can be ambiguously interpreted. So the perspective that I picked up there and have used throughout my career is the importance of developing models in order to understand some aspect of the archeological record at a particular place or over a region. And develop that through ecological principles that are independent of the archeological record itself. So that once that model is developed, and I’ll come back to this for how I did it for Mount Rainier, then the archeological record—let me back up a minute. The model, then, can serve as a basis for generating expectations about what should have happened at a given place at a given time, and if that were true, what the archeological [glitch] should then look like if that model, those model predictions have any utility. So you can then, the archeological record is used independently of that to be a test case, to test it out. So that you’re not generating your ideas about human use of a place or a landscape just from the archeological record itself, being that it’s ambiguously interpretable, it’s subject to ambiguous interpretation. But, to create a frame of reference, in Binford’s term, creating a reference to judge the archeological results that you’re finding in terms of a model generated by other principles. And I’ve tried to apply that throughout my career. Those were heady days. We thought we were going to change archeology. In some ways I guess he did, anyway. But we were all pretty full of ourselves. But the emphasis overall was an emphasis on explanation with the archeological record throughout however you did this work. An emphasis on questions like what, when, how why questions were a big deal at that time. So off we go. Emphasis on deductive, theoretically based archeology and research and let’s get off into the workplace. So the next thing I want to talk about is how does that translate into a workplace that’s not dominated by cultural resource management concerns? And my first job after that was with the Bureau of Land Management. And then, a series of university associations. Washington State University, UW, University of Washington, and then in Oregon, I’m sorry, in Washington, we did projects in Oregon at the same time, Portland State University. But all of our projects were all cultural resource management-based. And of course, I had never had, had had, or had I since had, a course of any kind in cultural resource management. All my background from New Mexico has been a research focus. Trying to accommodate these lofty goals that we had into a cultural resource management venue. So it’s difficult to do that. It’s interesting but difficult in that the kinds of data that we’re required to fulfill, to offer through that venue, through the cultural resource management venue, is often simply descriptive. And it doesn’t need the other things. So the trick is then how do you operate in this field, and still keep your eye on the bigger prize. Which I still think is trying to understand human use of the planet in an organized fashion. Changing that use through time. [unclear] So that’s really what’s sustaining through the long-term is being able to work with those questions. And so my career started in Albuquerque Bureau of Land Management where I worried about such problems as [unclear] the northwest corner, so I could deal with the Chaco phenomenon and the development and collapse of that. And I was interested in that. But I’m going to defer any discussion of that one to people that were with the Chaco Center. And some of you perhaps better informed than I. But in Oregon, in Oregon, at Portland State, I was lucky enough to have a project for Mount Hood, and to try to develop an explanatory model for use up at Mount Hood, Mount Hood National Forest area. And it’s where I first began to develop ideas about use of mountain landscapes. And I and several other folks from the University of Oregon at the time, three, at any rate, were interested in understanding that in a way that worked through time. And it would again be focused on the importance in these maritime mountains, anyway, mountain environments in the importance, rather, of open places, meadow establishment, for their tendency to aggregate useful resources, critical resources for people living in these areas in the pre-contact past. So it began working on those ideas that would later translate to what I tried to do at Mount Rainier, but at a later date. In the meantime, I [glitch] various tax problems at the university, in Oregon, that effectively terminated my work with Portland State. I spent ten years in a job in Hawaii. So I worked in the Hawaii Islands for that period of time. Which was quite a remarkable experience in a number of ways. And one of them is that the capacity to understand human use of a place, if you’re interested in issues such as colonization, initial [onput?], the differential use of certain landscapes, it’s really a nice experience to put yourself in an island environment, where your research scope is bounded, in this case, by two thousand miles of water on all sides. So, presumptuous as I always was, I developed for Hawaii a model of the early population. And then the sequential develop of use and systems change for Hawaiiana, specifically, and then the whole archipelago by inference, related to that. So those are just backgrounds to Mount Rainier, and as background of how I have always operated. When I move into a place, like Mount Rainier or the Hawaiian archipelago or all these places, I think it is desirable, if you can, is to begin to develop some kind of modeled understanding of at least how you believe, given the understanding of the ecology of these places, some understanding of the archeological record of these places to develop a model of the initial settlement of them, and a way that [unclear] be used [unclear] an understanding of a relationship between population density [all kinds of weird noise] Roller: Somebody out there has a mic engaged. Please turn it off. [more awful noise] Anybody have their mic engaged? [noise] Somebody out there have their mic engaged? [noise] Burtchard: --will be able to have a frame of reference against which to parry your results, and improve your understanding of using the landscape. Basically archeological record is degraded, so don’t rely entirely on it. Rely on a modern ecological theory of understanding and then put the two together. It gives you a couple of legs to stand on. That’s my point on that whole thing. So that’s kind of where I’ve always come from, and where I’ve always worked. And then have tried to incorporate that into these cultural resource management projects by having that other basis. The big problem with most places where you work in this venue is that you seldom have an opportunity to go back and replicate your data elsewhere. I mean, another time. Cultural resource projects have a finish. Sites are destroyed. And that’s always been a frustrating, a frustrating part of doing this, is we get one shot. Or two, sometimes, if you’re lucky. So when I had an opportunity, I had two great opportunities in my time over there in Hawaii, was a bid on projects. It was in a cultural international archeological resource institute, we bid on projects. And I was lucky enough to be awarded contracts to develop a research design overview documents for John Day Fossil Beds National Monument, and for Mount Rainier National Park. Best two jobs I ever had. You know, as a contract archeologist. I absolutely loved them. And I approached both in the same fashion, basically. Developed a model for trying to understand the archeological record, and then developed a survey to various predictive aspects of those models. And for Mount Rainier, Mount Rainier was particularly desirable to me--this was back in 1995, 1988 when the report came out—because I’d already begun thinking about use of the Northwest maritime mountain environments at Mount Hood. And this gave me an opportunity to take it to another place at Mount Rainier. And Mount Rainier also was valuable because sort of like the Pacific Islands, it’s a major edifice. It’s almost like a terrestrial island in the sense that it stands out from its surrounding landscapes in a dramatic fashion. So what I did then was developed a set of understandings about use of the landscape and a temporal model for [unclear] use. And so just sort of tucked that into the background while doing that kind of work. And then once we came to Mount Rainier, we started applying those understandings when we got there. So maybe this would be a good time if anybody has any questions about the utility of this stuff, you could do it right now, and that would be fine with me. And Michael, perhaps we could start the PowerPoint now, if that’s-- Roller: Okay. Burtchard: Anybody got a comment on all this stuff? Roller: Any questions from out there? Burtchard: Okay. Then let’s just go, and we can come back to them at the end, if you wish. I’m following my outline a little less than I had hoped. So, we’ll see how we go. Let’s start from the beginning and bring it up. And I’ll just tell you, Michael, when we want to change images. Are we there? Michael? Michael? Roller: Yeah, I’m here. I muted my microphone. Burtchard: Let me know when we’re ready to roll. Roller: Okay. We’re ready to go. Burtchard: Mount Rainier has been an amazing place to work. And I would say the Park Service, generally. I’ve enjoyed my time here thoroughly. All right, are we there? Tell me if I can start, Michael. Roller: Yep, yep, ready to start. I’ll put the PowerPoint up in just a second. Ready to go. All right. All right. I’m assuming we’re there. So what I want to talk about now, let’s talk about how we applied this lifetime of thinking about use of the landscape in this fashion that I have to this particular landscape. I came to Mount Rainier largely with a pre-developed notion of how landscapes would have been used in the past. Change the slide to the next image. This idea had fairly well faded out by the time I joined Mount Rainier National Park in the year 2000 by this point. But prior to that, there’d been a widespread sort of general understanding, certainly in the lay community and somewhat in the professional community as well, that mountain environments weren't particularly important places to focus our effort. This notion that they were too cold, dark, remote, all kinds of explanations, pseudo-explanations to why prehistoric people wouldn’t have used there. But the reality is partly is that that understanding by 2000 was beginning to fade. And by now, hopefully it’s gone all together. But that was certainly the case—next slide Understand that mountain and wilderness environments were generally not used in 1964, when the Wilderness Act was printed, that human beings were not a significant portion, that’s certainly implied in that statement, of the wilderness environment. Certainly not the high mountain environment. Some of us that are in the Park Service now and are dealing with wilderness issues in an archeological record, both historic and non-historic in wilderness areas, I think there’s been friction, some of which has developed directly from this misunderstanding of human use of these landscapes that was really embedded into everything that done up till 1964. View the next slide, for example. Between the time of the founding of Mount Rainier National Park in 1899, until 1960, there was no archeological, no, actually, nationwide there was very little archeology being done at all in these forested high elevation environments. Most people were focusing on river basin surveys, that kind of thing. But had we been looking at Mount Rainier during that period of time, these nine archeological locations could have been plotted on a map and could have forced some thought about that use. These are all projectile points, or projectile point fragments of some sort, things that people recognize as archeologically relevant. But they were scattered around. These were only assembled here in 1995. So people were essentially unaware that there as any archeological record at Mount Rainier itself. And that sense that mountains were not used much by folks lingered up till that time, partly because there was no archeology done in them. Or if there was, if there were any archeological materials collected, like these, they didn’t rise to the level of, what, governmental or organizational awareness. Of course, if there’s nine artifacts like this collected in the hundred, I mean the seventy, I’m sorry, 61-year period, then you’d know the other hundred were put in somebody’s pockets and went home. So there was an archeological record. We just weren't geared to really attempting to understand it or accept it particularly at that time. Next slide. That began to change, I certainly worked with that change when I had my first opportunity to do a survey at Mount Rainier in 1995. So I want to talk a little bit about landscapes in mountain wilderness, hunter gatherers and patterned use of landscapes, at least as it applies to Mount Rainier, and by extension to the Pacific Northwest maritime, wet mountain environments in the Pacific Northwest and how archeology can fit its way into that. So, next one. So between, start out, I was lucky enough to get the 1995 survey project and report [glitch] finished that in 1998. In fact, I distributed it in a Park Service meeting when I was still a contractor [unclear] meeting in Seattle. Some of you may have been there that time. That was a lot of fun. What you’re seeing on that slide is the change in the archeological record, just between that period, 40-year period, 1960 to 2000. And one thing that is evident, a couple of things, just by looking at two things, the general pattern of archeological, these are all prehistoric archeological properties, both isolates and archeological sites, meaning for Mount Rainier, more than two artifacts in the same place. (laughs) Often more than that, but that’s the deal. It was widely distributed around the mountain, implying that unlike what had been thought previously that people during the prehistoric, pre-contact past, had used the mountain, used it extensively, and used it on all sides. So that use was widespread. If you’ll also notice another little pattern in there is that those sites tend to be distributed in higher elevation settings. If you come to the next slide, I hope it’s the one I think it is, it will show that pattern a little better. Oh, no, got three more first. Just to show you what I mean by an archeological location or individual site on Mount Rainier, they tend to be something like this. Dominated by their presence in a subalpine context, patchy tree stands near timberline or slightly below, in open settings like this, and characterized by—that’s my friend Steve Athens on that site, by the way, in the middle, some of you may know him in Hawaii. He was working with us that summer. But [unclear] assembly, this is a surface visible assembly to the lower right hand corner. You’ve got to look hard to find these things. And of course the beautifully made [unclear] point at the right of that photo is not common in these kind of contexts, because most of them have been scooped up by 100 years of park visitation. Let’s see, we’ve got a couple more. Next slide shows you another site type. This is rock shelter, two of the rock shelter locations of the park. Also relatively early found. Fryingpan rock shelter’s the first site documented in the park. Berkeley Park rock shelter’s a boulder shelter. Both used to seek refuge from the weather, that can be very testy at any time, any season here at these high elevation landscapes. And both of them have been tested and give us some information about use of those shelters, which I won’t talk about so much now. But if you’re interested in some of these things, we’ll come back to that later and I can give you some references. Okay, one more slide of the butchering site at Frozen Lake on Mount Rainier. This is also right at krumholtz high elevation site, functionally alpine in setting, first documented by a Forest Service archeologist, Rick McClure, who regarded it as a butchering site. Since then, the assemblage characteristics certainly are consistent with that, high fraction of cutting and scraping tools in a windy, sunny place. If you’ve ever been to Mount Rainier, one of the first things you recognize is that almost nothing dries, unless you’re in specific spots where it’s windy and sunny at the same time. And of course, this is one of those things. You’ll really be aware of that if you are unfortunate enough to go to a back country setting for several days and wear blue jeans. As soon as that gets wet, boy, you’re stuck with it, and they won’t dry. Anyway, this is the third [slide?]. So we’re getting a notion that archeological properties on the mountain, individual archeological sites are functionally diverse. But their pattern, their use of landscape, and applying even by itself that use of the mountain can’t really be well understood by a focus on individual site locations, because they’re related at a broader scale, and they’re functionally diverse because they’re related to use of a broader scale mountain environment in which we find ourselves. They are, however, biased toward these subalpine settings because, I think, next slide. This one’s consistent with the model. Oh! I beg your pardon. Two more down. So this is another, basically a cartoon that shows the distribution in relationship to their alpine, subalpine context. And without going through the statistics involved, the relationship between subalpine settings, upper floor settings to low alpine settings, is dramatic. About 99 percent of the sample. And that distribution of it in the years that followed really hasn’t changed. And the next slide. And that’s due, I’ve always argued, maintained, and I still do, that in a Pacific Northwest environment, those of you who’ve been here recognize that at low elevation setting, the natural environment tends to reach a high seral state, a high state of [maturity?]. Lots of trees dominating the landscape, lots of the available energy budget invested in cellulose, in trees, and in tree litter. And in Mount Rainier, if you’re in the lower elevation forests and do much walking, you’ll notice that they tend to be brown. That basically the understory gets more complex only where light can reach the surface. Through snow slides, landslides, temporarily, or, in the subalpine band around Mount Rainier, where that patchy vegetative association is maintained by lingering snow load. Mount Rainier is quite unique in that regard, in that it has a huge subalpine. And that’s a seasonally rich habitat, which I’m suggesting is the explanation, basically, for the differential distribution of sites of various functional types within that environment. And this is best, perhaps only understood by reference to that broader environment. Okay, next one. Next slide, please. [glitch] The distribution of sites since that time, by 2015, our site number, it was up to about 109 to 115 properties, including some in low elevation contexts. But still by far, pre-contact sites dominated in the upper elevation landscapes, suggesting that mountains were used repeatedly, although it doesn’t involve a temporal yet, not much of a [yet?], in the usage pattern, the landscapes. And that that pattern was heavily biased toward subalpine context. Mount Rainier and I suggest other high mountain environments in this area. One point I’d want to make there is this understanding doesn’t come from looking at one site at a time. It comes from looking at landscapes at a much broader level. And then seeing the patterns within that. This can be done after the fact, but it’s handier when you’ve got a preexisting model to predict that use in the first place. So what I’d say at this point, our data certainly do not reject the model of differential use, that suggested differential use of patchy environments where they’re dominated by subalpine, alpine context here. And Mount Rainier and the other mountain [glitch] in the Pacific Northwest. Okay, next. So, that was fairly easy. It was a lot of fun working these things out. Do the surveys, test the generation. I guess I would emphasize that our focus on doing surveys for my first ten years were dictated by this understanding of wanting to really examine the extent to which the subalpine truly did differentiate, held a differentially high number of archeological properties relative to lower elevation settings. That’s not easy to do, because sites are hard to find in the forest. But they’re also hard to find in subalpine settings as well. So we can talk about that further if you want to see how biased our data are. I think they’re not. But at any rate, the existing data suggests use of those kind of landscapes. Now, archeology can also deal with the onset of human use and change through time, but it’s not as easy. So, I want to go into, spend a little time here and discuss how we’ve tried to do that at Mount Rainier during the time that I’ve been here and what we think we’ve learned from that and where we can go next. So, next slide. Dealing with time, one of the intriguing reasons that I gave up a perfectly good job in a wonderful tropical setting, that’s Hawaii, to come to a cold, perpetual rainy environment, Mount Rainier National Park, is because if you have an interest in time and change through time, you could hardly have a better place. Basically we have stratified deposits from a variety of, well, a variety of eruptive [unclear] volcanic events, Mount Rainier is in the downstream pattern of Saint Helens, which has erupted repeatedly in the Holocene, as had Mount Rainier itself, creating these stratified, volcanically stratified environment, which are shown here at various points in the park. By the way, all of the graphics you’ve been seeing of Mount Rainier, are as though you were flying, looking down, as though you were flying over it from the northeast to the southwest. See the north arrow there. I tried to rearrange this for you with north facing up consistently, but it makes Mount Rainier look like a hole in the ground, so better this way. But at least you can see that these stratified deposits are widely distributed. Meaning that if you’re interested in time, it’s a wonderful laboratory of sealed archeological deposits. The difficulty being they’re underground, and they’re hard to find, and they’re not even evident much on the surface. Which we can come back to is how do you get down to this stuff without [time effective fashion?] So let’s go on and we’ll deal with that. Next slide. Perhaps the most important site that we dealt with—oh, once again, I’m off on my slides. When I talk about model building, the way I’ve approached that, that doesn’t necessarily have a lot of meaning. If you look at the right there, I tend to use temporal periods. Time periods broken down into what I arguably can believe is different modes of use of the landscape. I’m a great supporter of the utility in this area of the basic foraging to collecting dichotomy that was first written down, I think it first came out of the, what is it, Dogs’ Tails, I’ve forgotten the name of it, but it’s Binford’s article. Help me out, somebody. [unclear] and Dog’s Tales, Smoky Campfire and Dog Tales, it doesn’t matter, it’s Lou Binford, 1984. Roller: “Willow Smoke and Dog’s Tails” Burtchard: He’d presented that basic breakdown in that article. Trying to understand geographic or territorial variation in hunter/gatherer systems across the planet. He’d never intended that to be applied through time. So if you want to understand that foraging and collecting dichotomy, which I think is quite useful, I’ve got an article where I deal with that, it’s called “Subsistence Settlement at Mount Rainier in the Pacific Northwest Cascades,” 2009. So don’t go back to, you can, if you wish, go back to that Binford article, but I encourage you if you’re interested to read that article, the one that I put together, that deals with the transition of that system, which was never designed to explain change through time, to using it for change through time. At any rate, I’ve given you the 1998 original sort of breakdown from the parks. That’s how I viewed things when I started working at the park, and trying, for each of those temporal blocks, the diagonal lines and time uncertainty, I offered expectations of what people should have been doing on the mountain at that time, assuming a certain colonizing early on, low population density in the face of abundance of resources critical to sustain human populations, and then changing balances through time. And for each level, I developed predictions and expectations of what you might expect, not only for human use, but what the archeological record should look like if, indeed that was the use that was going on. So what I tried to do there is create a context to understand the archeological record once you get it, rather than relying on the archeological record, per se. I guess I’ve overworked that point, but it’s a very important one, that you have some frame of reference to evaluate what you’re actually finding in the field, instead of making up a story about what happened on the basis of five projectile points. Or a scatter of pot sherds against the side of a wall. I once [unclear] when I was in New Mexico for years in which the archeologist on the site said, “You can see from the arrangement of pot sherds against this wall that if that pot was broken in anger, surely related to a raid on the village,” and blah, blah, blah. And he went on and on. It was an interesting story. Problem was, it was just a story. And there’s no way of [unclear]. So we’re trying to do something a little different. And I’m going to skip over all the writing in yellow, but if you’re looking at that, what I tried to do was, on that other side, put not expectations for [unclear] but what we actually know now about Mount Rainier from having worked there for that 17-year period. And something about, assuming the first population moving into North America, somewhere prior to, south of 15,000 years ago to understand a good deal about the development of vegetative post-Pleistocene, post-glacial habitats on Mount Rainier. They go back about 12,000 years. It’s pretty remarkable, actually. The earliest now-known archeological site on Mount Rainier, which I’ll talk about next, had about nine, 9500 consistent with North Cascades, evidence at Cascade Pass, and mid-Holocene foraging options such as that. But let’s go how we’re trying to approach working on this, I think the best site to look at here would be Buck Lake, which is next. Next slide. It’s not. We’ve covered quite a lot today. I think maybe a couple more slides would have helped. Basically what the model suggested from the early Holocene through the middle and the late Holocene was using the foraging collecting dichotomy was in the early Holocene, high elevation environments being used generally by small, highly mobile groups who were perfectly independent from one another, but moved from place to place as the resource productivity drops of anyplace. Or in Mount Rainier’s case, when they’re forced down slope for the winter. This assumes that in the earlier Holocene, there’s a lot of game, a lot of critical resources, plants and animal communities that could be exploited in a relatively carefree manner, so that people can move from resource patch to patch without fear of encountering someone else at the same place at the same time. Ultimately, that situation has to change. And in the mid-Holocene, you move with increasing, assuming you’re increasing your regional population density, mobile foraging strategies like this can continue, but you’re going to start having problem by getting to the same place where somebody’s already been, somebody already is, and the resource base at that place has been overused. Gradually that creates a selective context favoring social change. Resource gathering change. In the Southwestern United States, for example, that could be the development of plant agriculture, maize agriculture. Up here, where that’s not practical because of the short growing season, it increased reliance on the functional equivalents of those things. And here that would be salmon, primarily, which can be harvested in mass and then stored in low-elevation settings. Also with camas and wapato, a few other products that can be harvested in mass and stored for supporting human populations. And when that happens, moving into this collector kind of strategy, then mountain environments can continue being used, but used as adjunct resource gathering places tethered to these low-line communities, [golden?] villages, rather than by politically independent mobile human groups throughout. And that kind of understanding can only be gained by a regional perspective, you know, or even beyond a landscape perspective forces your attention to how various landscapes are linked together to use an entire region in an effective way. And working with this makes the archeological record, to me, much more exciting because you’re dealing with the problems that are beyond the sites themselves. The one site now, the next slide will get me where I thought I was going to be, I think. At Mount Rainier, we’re fortunate enough to have one site that we documented during survey in which it appeared to have good probability of having stratified, temporally separate and old deposits right next to a landlocked pothole lake. So with the assistance of, the park assistance of us, the International Archeological Research Institute and the Muckleshoot Indian tribe, we were able to do a joint sediment core to get representation of environmental data spanning the Holocene, and an archeological site with deeply stratified deposits immediately side by side. There’s a remarkable opportunity to evaluate environmental change and the human use patterns with wonderful controls, side by side control. The site itself—next slide. We’re going to buzz through this pretty quickly. [That rock?] had stratification that you’re very seldom going to get, even at Mount Rainier, but it had big, broad deposits that provided really effective armory against root tip up or [perturbation?] of various sources between depositional layer. And it was at Mount Rainier that my original predictions in the model that I developed, I didn’t mention this before. My original prediction was nobody used, and people didn’t consistently use high elevation landscapes like Mount Rainier until about 3500 years ago. Coincidence with the development of these down-slope villages that I mentioned earlier. By thinking, being at the time that these places were logistically difficult enough that folks simply wouldn’t have used them, wouldn’t have been economically driven to use them, until they had to. And [we?] rejected that completely at this one site. It was a goose bumpy event when we found our first artifacts dating below that Mount Saint Helens Y layer there, from 4200 calibrated years ago. And that wasn’t the end of it. We were able to for the first time document human presence prior to that basal volcanic deposit. That’s from what’s now Crater Lake National Park, thank you very much. Crater Lake, then called Mount Mazama, often referred to as that now, with that worked by [unclear] from Buck Lake. The first place at Mount Rainier that we had been able to demonstrate an archeological record that predated about that, was that old. That was, happily for us, that was coincident within a year of similar results coming out of Cascade Pass with Bob Marinoff at Olympic National Park. Okay, next slide, por favor. I just wanted to put that together, bring this kind of graphic to what you see, that even though the surface, superficial archeological record may only have had, oh, I don't know what we had, 20 flags, let’s say, on the surface, difficult to see, does not mean that the archeological record is insignificant by virtue of low density at all. Not that you want to exclude them on the basis of lithic density in the first place. That’s the primary artifact in a place like this. This site, after [unclear] picked up over 20,000 pieces of chipstone and a huge archeological site, well stratified through time, giving us for the first time a sense that not only had human beings used the landscape at a very early date, I’m going to argue when we get this thing fully written up, back to about 9,000, 9,500 years ago, but that use was continuous through time, and at times quite dense, indeed. In order to tie this down, we also tried to replicate these results at another place on the mountain, so we weren't simply relying on a single site. And the trick with this is when you have, as you all work for the Park Service know, when you have limited funds and limited time to do this kind of research-directed testing, then you want to spend your time wisely as you can. So we tried another archeology site the opposite side of the mountain. If you could change the slide, please. I hope it’s the one I think it is. And it is this time. In fact, that’s Patrick Lewis if you’re still there. [unclear] doing site testing at a place we call Forgotten Creek in a very rainy season. This on the directly opposite side of Mount Rainier. But it had similar surface. And the manner in which we tried to identify the deeper deposits of a place where we have these deeply buried, stratified sediments, using that tool you see right in the middle of that picture, which is just a, that’s a Fiskars brand post hole digger. It allows you, this one and several other brands of that type, we can talk about that if you want to know where to get them, allow you to dig a symmetrical, cylindrical excavation test [unclear] constant volume sampling. And we use 10-liter samples down to about a meter. Meter, meter 20, if you’re really good, and about a 30-centimeter diameter unit. That’s the primary grid pattern across the landscape, putting that on and sampling through this constant volume sampling technique was the primary mechanism that we used to identify subsurface components and then used that as a base [unclear] broader excavations. One of which you can see in the next slide. Which is, this is at Forgotten Creek. Our intent was simply to replicate the temporal results from Buck Lake. And so we spent one season doing the initial subsurface reconnaissance with those remarkable post hole diggers. And then the next year we simply tried to replicate the data, which we did, on the [base?]. Got a [unclear] component, folded up our tents, got back and have written those things up. So that’s basically all I’m going to say right now. So, the next slide. I just will summarize a little bit about Mount Rainier. What I’ve tried to do, I guess, was lay out my research perspective, which will give you initially, which will give you an idea of why we approached the record at Mount Rainier in the fashion that we did. And this one is just a brief summary of what I think we know at the present time, or could continue to work with in the future, was that people’s use of alpine landscapes in the past, and at high elevation, because they were productive places to go. I tend to see, I tend to use critical resource as the primary variable to predict human use. Because those things can be concrete. And spiritual values, while they may well have applied, I suggest are changeable through time, and you can’t get a handle on them. It’s hard to use those as causative in an empirical kind of a way. So to the extent that people’s use of alpine landscapes, I think, and the differential use of those landscapes is well-documented in that place, and that [unclear] explained as due to being rich in resources of value to pre-contact people during the summer season when they’re available. And relatively easily we’ve been able to tie down its earliest use, both of these things are pretty easy archeologically to document, to about 9,000 years. I’m going to argue that in the final report, based on the deep site records we’ve been able to gain at the two sites that I’ve showed you, and now a third at the [unclear] campground, a lower elevation site, actually. Also, throw in again that individual sites are functionally variable. They can best be understood when understood as a whole linked together into a systematic use of landscape, ranging from lower elevation, in this case weather-protected places, resource gathering places, butchering sites, task-specific locations of various sorts that are not best understood a site at a time, but understood when viewed in the whole. Less easily documented is how regional, how the use of a mountain, in this case, changed as regional population increased through time. Consistent with that forager/collector kind of model that I laid out earlier. I still think from what we’ve learned makes sense that at a very macroscopic general sense, the use of all landscape, probably in North America generally, [unclear] but it’s easier in this area to deal with when you know when populations came in so you can separate colonizing populations operating in low population density in a resource-rich environment to later in time when you have a much higher regional population density operating in a more resource-limited context. That it still makes sense to me that this basic model applies. First used by small mobile hunting and gathering groups. Then by more task-specific collectors linked to permanent villages. In this case, about the mid-Holocene. The archeological record in general in the region is consistent with that. I however will tell you that you try, on Mount Rainier, assuming those distinctions took place, they’re very, very difficult to ferret out of the archeological record. It’s going to take a large sample from a variety of sites and very sophisticated modeling to get to that. I hope that can continue in the future. And then lastly, this slide is for a general audience, but it’s also a key to the next thing, is that more modern tribal names, people, they’re still in this area. It’s not just a pre-contact archeological record. Native American folks are still here. And the names that are given, names here, like Muckleshoot Indian tribe, Tulalip tribe of Indians, Nisqually Indian tribe, Confederated bands and tribes of the Yakima Nation, tribes and bands, actually, Cowlitz Indian tribes, all are artifacts of, the names, anyway, are artifacts of the treaty days, of the 1850s. So the next slide kind of leads us into the next topic. But maybe I should, I guess it’s almost one o’clock. Do you want to talk about work we’ve done with traditional folks on traditional plant collecting at Mount Rainier? Or do we want to talk archeology? Roller: Can you hear me, Greg? Burtchard: I can. Roller: Let’s continue on to the second half and then people can, if people have questions about the first half of the presentation, they can ask them now or we could just save it for a lengthier question and answer period. Let’s go right into it. Burtchard: Okay. This is definitely, it’s sort of a different talk. It’s not archeological at this time, but it is continuing and it does involve use of landscape, so it’s consistent in that way. I tried to talk Michael into letting me do another of these things later. Maybe if this is a popular topic, we can go back to it at a later time. But Mount Rainier, when I arrived, Mount Rainier entered into a plant gathering cooperative agreement with the Nisqually Indian tribe located nearby in 1998. I arrived in the park in 2000, so this was already in place. The first gathering took place in the park, to my knowledge, at least under the terms of this agreement, in 1999. It was very novel at the time, and it was not exactly precedent-setting, I saw we have a [unclear] represented in there as well. They had that collecting going on. In a number of parks this happens. Same in Hawaii. Hawaii volcanoes, for example, and Haleakala and other places like that as well, and other places across the United States. I was there that first year, I hardly had my feet on the ground, when we got a formal complaint by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility formally protesting traditional allowance of plant collecting by Indian people at Mount Rainier National Park and I think three other national parks, including Pipestone if I remember correctly. Demanding that we cease and desist. Arguing that we hadn't done, correctly arguing that we hadn’t done an environmental assessment. But also arguing that it was beyond the purview of the Park Service to allow this. It was contrary to the Organic Act, [non impairment?] clauses of the Organic Act, of which we [were related?]. At that time, Jon Jarvis was our superintendent. Jon, of course you know how the history of him followed, eventually the director of the Park Service until very recently. [unclear] promised that he was going to work toward a change in the [unclear] federal regulations that would allow traditional plant gathering on park land, subject to the non-impairment clause. And by doing that, he was able to convince PEER and their supporters to back off for a while. And the Indian groups, the tribal groups wanted us to also back off for a while, because they were inflamed by the protest. And hold on, we’re going to work this out. That was in 2000. So here we are in, two thousand, I guess it was sixteen, and Jon to his credit, this remained an issue with him and he was able to push through the modern regulations that we have, despite substantial opposition within the Park Service. It’s cumbersome [unclear] worth talking about this issue because we’re all, many of you, at any rate, are dealing with this sort of thing and how to incorporate now this new regulation allowing traditional plant gathering on park lands with the impairment issues and the various mandates that are required by that regulation. We had done before, while this was all taking place, from 2000 on, rather than halting plant gathering on the park, we proceeded to work with the Nisqually tribe as a joint research project, an annually renewable research project, that continued to permit collecting on the park as you see going on here by Nisqually members. If you go to the next slide here, but do it in a manner that was with us and allowed us to monitor the manner in which they collected, interview collectors as to their techniques and the origin of those techniques, how far it traced back, and then also to monitor the plant, and do so in a test plot situation where we can monitor plant health throughout. That is the manner in which we worked with that, allowing us to gather, depending on the plant, five to seven years of research data on collecting techniques, their origins as I mentioned, and the effect on the collected plants and plant habitats. This is David Hooper in the foreground, who worked with the tribe, an ethnobotanist who worked for the park. And worked with me right now. We’re in the process of writing the results of this project, even as we speak. We’re expecting it to be out in about six months. And you might want to get that. I think it’s got some very interesting results. And here’s what we studied. Move to the next one, and I’ll get back to the results in a minute. As a practical reality, the Nisqually collected really only three items out of a suite of eleven that they had agreed with the park to be able to collect. It was bear grass, that grows at high elevation setting in the Pacific Northwest, that cedar, that’s an Alaskan yellow cedar pictured at the lower right side, but they also collect western red cedar, and pipsissewa, also known as prince’s pine. Both have different uses. Bear grass for basketry, primarily. Cedar bark, also for basketry. Traditionally, in the pre-contact past, [unclear] for clothing, for water or [unclear] clothing [unclear] things of that character. Pipsissewa is used for, as a medicinal tonic, generally, and for various other kinds of problems. Each one collected in a unique fashion, with a technique and limitations that are unique to each plant. I want to come back to that if I forget. Somebody remind me. First of all, I’ll show you the monitoring techniques that we did. You can see, on the next slide, perhaps, go to that. Beargrass monitoring plot was done within an allocated area, and then was monitored from year to year, both in terms of plant diameter and plant color. Which you see being tested out right in there. Beargrass was collected by removing individual stems from the outer circumference of the plant, never killing the plant, and allowing it to continue to bloom. It was probably the primary mechanism by which that was done, and the primary reason that the plant continued to thrive throughout the period. The results for this plant suggested that after initial slight decline in abundance, as measured by the percentage of surface cover, that the stabilizers held throughout in this case a seven-year monitoring period. The next plant, if you’ll click that next slide, was, we had a suite of 13 trees, western red cedar trees near the, for those of you who know the place, like Patrick, the Nisqually entrance to the park, that were peeled inadvertently. Not inadvertently, but unknowingly to the park. This isn’t part of our agreement, it was just done. But that created a great sampling area. We used that, since it’s a recent peel, we put dendro bands, growth bands, on those trees so peeled at consistent sites and on control trees as nearby as we could, and monitored different effects in growth as recorded by the changing circumference of the tree. Over our test period, which alas was a little shorter than I’d like, it was I think only four years, initially, in the first year, the peeled trees tended to grow faster, in a group, than the non-peeled trees. That equalized out over time. But again, suggested a non-significant difference. Also, with cedars, in this part of the world, there’s an archeological record to be brought to bear, and that we had a substantial record. Even my own experience on the Clackamas River when I did the Mount Hood work years ago, suggests that we have 100-year old cedars that have been peeled somewhere in their past, a good 40, 50 years ago, without harm. But when I say peeled, I mean the peel removed only on a section of the tree, not to exceed 25 percent. At least, that’s the way the Nisqually pick it up. And importantly, that’s the way the ancestors proceeded. These techniques were passed down from traceable linkage back to at least the 1850s, from elders that were young in those days. So we have a plausible link into techniques that were developed in the pre-contact past, basically. And it was the same for bear grass, and the same for pipsissewa, which is in the next slide. If you could turn that to one more. Which was measured in similar techniques. Half of them were measured in this, this three-point kind of system. That’s pipsissewa you see, the leafy green plants, the broad leaf plant that’s above a moderately bare landscape. Some places, this would basically be a cover. And once again, plant density in the first few years seemed to not change at all. The key variable here being that these plants were pinched off and removed individually, rather than pulled up. Pipsissewa moves, supports itself with subsurface stems. And each one of these, what looks like individual plant, is actually a branch coming off those stems. So that were you to harvest them roughly by pulling them, you can pull up a whole stem and inhibit its plant growth. If it’s pinched off, however, you come back next year. And as if by magic, the branches reappear, the leaves again. So again, our data now on this plant, for about over a five-year period, suggests insignificant decrease in productivity of the plant and minimal impact in the surrounding [unclear]. And very, pretty interesting results. And if you can go to the next slide, I’m not sure what it is. I think it’s the, oh, termination slide. This is a bunch of bear grass. Typically that’s the extent of individual leaves that are removed from any given plant, then tied in a bundle and taken back in that fashion. The upshot of our result that we came up with, and I give credit to David Hooper in [unclear] group for bringing this out is that each plant that was collected was done so in a mechanism that was traceable to the pre-contact past, but the uniting variable in them was that each was collected in a manner that fell within the acceptable tolerance range of the plant. That it can tolerate that much of, if you use the word “predation” or collection on each plant, and still continue to survive and functionally thrive, reproduce. So that the techniques we used all recognize the biological limits of the plant, and had collecting gathering systems that were key to sustain those over the long term. And in the report that we’re putting together now, we make an argument within that there in that system, is that that’s what you would expect of any system worldwide that is required to extract its plant and animal resources from a limited environment without the ability to get them in from long distance. You don’t go off to Mexico and bring in anything else. You don’t go to a grocery store where if you over-exploit your local environment, you’re forced—any society forced to rely on spatially circumscribed resource base will develop social mechanisms to conserve that resource. And that the reason that these things are different, and the reason they’re passed down to us in this fashion is because that’s what they did. We also have to recognize, and this will come up, we’re fully expecting to get sued on this. And any of you might. That’s why all this might be interesting to you. Is that now, David Hooper, his last year, he was tasked with—let me back up to the problem that comes in with this, is that some of those traditional techniques, arguably many of them, have been lost because of the death of the people who carried on those tribal traditions before they were passed on to others. Some haven’t, some have. But what we’re suggesting in this, is once you understand what the basic mechanism is that lends itself to preserving the viability of the plants so gathered, so collected, you can apply those techniques to a broader suite of plants. So David being primarily a botanist was tasked with okay, we’ve got eleven other plants. We’ve got, oh, there was eleven. Eight others within Mount Rainier National Park alone, for which we have given the Nisqually the ability to collect, but not, they’re not doing it here. So what can we apply, but knowing the biology of these plants, we can prescribe a collecting technique that will have a similar effect of the three observed species. In other words, essentially reinventing traditional collecting in the modern era by duplicating the mechanism for each plant. So we’re writing this up, we’re working closely with the Nisqually so that they can, they’ll be hopefully reviewing and hopefully approving us at various stages along the way. But the final report, which it should be out in about six months, if you’re interested, well, I’ll come back to that, if you’re interested, I can make that available to you. The value, I think, might be not necessarily that these particular suite of plants that we have at [sound goes out] Roller: Greg, Greg, I think we lost you again. There was a kind of a—I think we might have to do the log on and off again. Sorry, folks. ?: [unclear] Roller: Seems like when somebody else turns their mic on, it makes a lot of noise. Burtchard: Are we back? Roller: Yes. Burtchard: All right. Well, I’ve been pretty wordy. It’s hard talking into dead air, so I’d enjoy anything anybody wants to say. Roller: I think someone must have engaged their mic and there was a lot of feedback, and overwhelmed the system. Burtchard: Okay. I might mention [unclear] hopefully we have a few people left online. [unclear] If you’re interested in any of this stuff involving Mount Rainier, the development of models, there are three books that I can available to you if you want, or things that are available. I have them on pdf. I do have copies on pdf of the original Mount Rainier modeling work that was done over there, overview, park overview research design document, which I could make available to you. It was written in ’98 and then upgraded in 2003. If you either contact me through my email address, which is [e-mail], or maybe contact Michael Roller. I don’t have a Park Service address anymore. So you’d need to do my Outlook number. And Michael would know that. Roller: Yeah, I’ll add your contact info to the next advert for the webinar series. Burtchard: Okay. The three things I just would recommend, if you’re interested in the perspective that I’ve talked about here, I would suggest first of all, that one. Or an easier one, which also deals with the forager collector model and the “Willow Smoke and Dog Tales” morphing into a temporal model in a 2009 article that was published in Archeology in Washington, “Subsistence and Settlement in Mount Rainier and the Cascades.” That would be a good, it’s much easier to get to. It’s dense, but it’s, I think find useful. And then if you want to get on the list for getting a copy of this plant collecting report, which might be more germane to things you’re dealing with lately, get on the list and I’ll, we’re working through it right now. It’s about 40 percent done. I’m hoping it will be very good. And I’ll do my best to make it that way and useful to you. I’m open to any comments or anything. Roller: Great. Shall we open lines for questions? Burtchard: Yeah. Absolutely. Roller: All right. I’m going to put your face back on. Burtchard: Okay. I saw that, all right, so we’re there. I saw that Stan Bond left a while ago. I’ll have to have a word with him about that. I knew Stanley from Hawaii days. Anybody? Roller: Folks, any questions out there? I’ve got a few. Burtchard: Comments? Patrick, was that you in that slide? Are you still there, Patrick Lewis? Maybe he’s given it up. Roller: So I have a quick question about the first part of your presentation, Greg. So in keeping with your [unclear] approach, you talked about spiritual beliefs as being sort of nested within an environmental approach to landscape models. So at Mount Rainier, do you find evidence for things like spiritual beliefs that might conform to the resource exploitation model of these different altitudes? Things like petroglyphs or sacred sites or burials or feasting or anything like that? Burtchard: Interestingly, at Mount Rainier, we have not a single petroglyph. It’s an odd thing, because in places like around Mount Hood, where I worked previously, there’s tons of them. And other places in New Mexico, where I worked, Hawaii, where I worked. But not so much here. So it’s really difficult to tie down what a religious item is in an archeological record. Especially in a place like this where it’s a tough environment. Used seasonally, well degraded in acid soils in terms of burial remains. They just simply don’t exist here, or at least none of them documented. So I would argue that religious beliefs are part of the social mechanism that helps guide human use of any place, because it prescribes correct behavior and proscribes incorrect behavior. And my Indian friends tolerate me for holding that view. And we talk about it, because we go to know each other well enough. But in general, it’s not a perspective they particularly agree with. I think you probably know that. So I’m not sure I’m answering your question at all. I think the answer would be, no. Archeologically, we don’t have clear evidence of that’s something that I can attribute as being clearly ceremonial in nature. Does that answer your question at all? Roller: Yeah, it does, it does. I’ve been working on some National Historic Landmark nominations in the Southwest about petroglyph sites, some pretty impressive ones. So it kind of makes me think about, because those are usually tied to some change in environmental exploitation or territorial markings or— Burtchard: Yes, yes, yes. I think they can be very useful in that fashion. We simply don’t have that here. Territorial markings, you’re seeing a phenomenon there that’s rooted in an empirical, explainable phenomenon. And I think that can be quite remarkable. You’ve got, along the Columbia Gorge of the Pacific Northwest, they have [machine watches?], there’s a Native term for that as well, it’s probably, really, it’s a death mask, and it coincides with the arrival of smallpox in this area. There’s an explanation I’ve seen offered by a Forest Service archeologist, [Noel Kaiser?], that makes sense to me. But again, those kind of things aren’t testable. If you’re going to put yourself into, if you’re going to buy into this sort of materialist, scientifically based thing, you’ve got to have something concrete with which you can reject your ideas. And it’s pretty difficult to do with explanations that are based in ideological phenomena of any kind. It’s the way I see it. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist and they’re not important. Some of my friends in some of those pictures of Nisqually are highly spiritual in character, and they regard them as important and controlling. And I tell you, they tend to focus on natural preservation and things of that character, which is not terribly surprising. So you can see that flowing from a pre-contact society, the value of the natural, and preservation of the natural world. They would resent me, I think, trying to explain it in that simplistic way. But that’s what I do. Happily, we know each other well enough and I think they like me. Certainly like that. Roller: And what kind of feedback do you get for the archeological work from the associated tribes? Burtchard: It’s mixed. It’s been very good, for the most part. Until maybe recently, the Muckleshoot and I have gotten a bit sideways over, I think, a simple misunderstanding. But some of the things they particularly values is that they for years have been dealing with this issue of the Indians—[sound glitch] Roller: Greg, I’m sorry. There was a feedback squall and your mic dropped off again. Let’s try log on, log off one more time. Sorry, folks. I’m not sure. I’m going to get my tech help to work on this. At least the technical issues are pattern behavior. (laughs) [unclear] What’s that? ?: Providing testable hypotheses. Roller: Yes. Providing testable hypotheses. Feedback and static. Burtchard: All right, I’m back. Are you there? [unclear] pretty remarkable. Thanks for sticking with us, you guys. Anything else? Roller: I’m kind of curious, if other folks don’t have questions, about how you see some of the difficulties with the plant collecting strategies. Did you encounter any issues? I mean, it’s kind of experimental and it’s probably situated by park, quite a bit, in the relationships between tribes and each individual park and the kinds of resources that are being requested for gathering. Do you foresee difficulties in the future? Burtchard: Oh, yes. I mean, I don't think that Peter will drop the issue. And I suspect that they won’t believe what we write. I’m trying to pursue the document thoroughly enough that it will be tight. That’s been part of our work all along with the Nisqually. Basically, let’s have this good enough that we’ll withstand court challenge. And I’m really anticipating that. They’ve been wonderful to work with, and supportive all along. So what we’ve been doing so far, and what I’ve written so far is to talk basically about, deal with the long term use of these environments. But [glitch] before we went off the air, you asked me about benefits that the Indian folks might see, tribal folks might see to the archeological record. And one of them certainly is that it establishes what they’ve long believed. That they’ve had a long-term affiliation with the mountain, that they’ve used the mountain widely and generally and for a variety of reasons, including spiritual reasons as well as resource reasons, and they’ve used it for a long time. And the archeological record certainly supports that. So in that plant-gathering one, that first want to deal with the non-fact that Indians are new to the landscape, they argue. And it’s not true. And we can demonstrate that archeologically. Put that out of mind and deal with why traditional collect gathering strategies are conservative in nature, and make a case for what we believe is the fact that those conservative qualities can be integrated into a collecting system even if it’s not based in the, they still can [unclear] individual tribe, because we know what the common denominator was. So that’s the reason that this, I think, the hope lies that other parks, even with different resources, can apply some of our learning, is that you can, whatever your plant base is that’s of interest to tribal people that want to gather, even if the traditions have been loss, it is possible with botanical understanding to develop collecting strategies that do not impair the viability of the plants collected or the habitats in which they’re collected. I hope that was somewhat germane to what you asked. Roller: Yeah. That’s fascinating. Burtchard: But we are going to have some trouble. I don’t expect the environmental community to accept it easily. They’re concerned. I mean, these are good people, don’t get me wrong about this. They’re concerned about losing the habitat, and they’re concerned that we can’t adequately protect it. We in the parks. And I believe we can. We have at Mount Rainier. I think it can be. So that will probably come up as an issue. It doesn’t make me mad. I understand it. But I think they’re wrong. We can do it. And hopefully the book will serve to help us do it better. And I was going somewhere else with all that. Oh, and some of the tribes. There are different perspectives. The Nisqually have been very forthcoming, for example, in dealing with us, and what plants they collect and allowing us to work with them. Some other groups, the Muckleshoot Indian tribe is one, that’s also interested in collecting but is far more wary about sharing their information with us. They don’t trust the federal government. I don’t blame them, either. I get it. I do. So this is not an easy situation. It’s not made any easier, in a way, well, I won’t say that. I’m glad we got that plant gathering [relation?] in place. It is cumbersome in the way it was written. Try to compromise some different viewpoints and you’re going to find it difficult to work with. But I think it can be done, and hopefully we will. Okay? Roller: Great. Great. Any questions from out in the world? Again, you can ask questions by chat, if you do have a question. Burtchard: We may have lost everybody. Roller: A couple of people are out there still. Burtchard: If anybody’s interested and wants to ask later at a later date, feel free to contact me anytime. Email [e-mail] or you know, relay it through Michael. Is that okay I volunteer you for that? Roller: Sure. Absolutely. Yep. Burtchard: Good. Roller: Okay. Great. Let’s wrap this up, then. Thank you so much, Greg, for presenting. And we’ll be, I’ll be adding your resources. I’m sure people have a lot of questions about the plant collecting strategy and the report, which will be pretty fantastic, I think, for distribution. Not only for the people collected to this call, but park managers all over the country. Burtchard: All right. Give it six months. Roller: Okay. All right. I want to thank Archeology Southwest for sponsoring the webinar series. Our next talk will be coming up in two weeks, and it will be Will Griswold from the Northeast Region will talk about the Saratoga landscape, past, present and future, and talking about battlefield landscapes. So another two for a Cotter Award winner and part of our landscape series. So folks, have a good afternoon. Thanks again, Greg. Keep in contact. And I’ll relay any questions people might have to follow up. Burtchard: Okay. Thanks again. Roller: Have a good afternoon. Thank you. Burtchard: You, too. Bye. 1:18:49 [End Session.]

Duration:

1 hour, 18 minutes, 49 seconds

Greg Burtchard, 9/28/2017, ArcheoThursday