Environment, Prehistory & Archaeology of Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
Greg C. Burtchard

Chapter 3:
ARCHAEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF MOUNT RAINIER AND THE SOUTHERN WASHINGTON CASCADES

The preceding chapter described Mount Rainier's environmental characteristics emphasizing expected connections between environmental variables and patterned human use of the mountain and its surrounding terrain during the prehistoric past. If those expectations approximate a true picture of past events, then the archaeological record of Mount Rainier National Park should reflect certain aspects of the relationship as laid out in the concluding section of that discussion.

Here we move to a consideration of the history and character of the archaeological record in Mount Rainier National Park and in the surrounding southern Washington Cascade region. The first section describes the early history of archaeology in the Park from the first known report of a prehistoric artifact in the 1920s through the final project completed prior to initiation of the present reconnaissance. The second section, authored by Rick McClure, provides an overview of what is currently known of the broader archaeological record in the vicinity of the Park.