new acquisition THE CONSERVANCY PRESERVES OREGON ROCKSHELTERS

The Conservancy Preserves Two Oregon Rockshelters

One site features myriad pictographs.

The Patricia Campbell sites, the Conservancy’s latest acquisitions in Oregon, lie at the bottom of Rock Creek Canyon, in the north-central part of the state. The two rockshelters were recorded in 1938 by Alex Krieger of the University of Oregon, who was surveying other wellknown sites in north-central Oregon. He noted black and red pictographs at the larger of the two sites and flakes in both. “These rockshelters undoubtedly contain much interesting material,” he wrote.

Wanting to preserve the sites in the name of his deceased sister, Patricia, who previously owned the land, Mac Campbell, the current landowner, contacted Catherine Dickson with the Cultural Resources Protection Program of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation. Dickson and her colleagues visited the sites in 2006.

Rock Creek was used as a travel corridor from the Columbia River to the uplands, according to oral histories from tribal members and local residents. It once offered a variety of fish and game, and the surrounding rocky hillsides produced edible roots. The great-grandparents of today’s tribal members fished and lived at nearby Celilo Falls and traveled up Rock Creek

This panel contains some of the pictographs found in one of the rockshelters.

between salmon runs to gather roots and berries and hunt deer and elk.

The pictograph rockshelter is roughly 400 feet wide, and as much as 24 feet deep and nine feet tall. Dickson found fragments of mammal bones, many of which were burned, and river mussel shells there. She and her colleagues also noted more than 100 flakes, as well as fragments of an obsidian biface and a pestle.

The anthropomorphic and zoomorphic rock art images are generally of a style known as North Oregon

Conservancy Plan of Action

Rectilinear. This style is thought to have originated more than 2,000 years ago and extended into the historical period. The majority of the site is intact, although some looting and vandalism to the rock images has occurred.

Approximately 50 flakes were found in or near the other rockshelter, which is about 100 feet wide and 20 feet deep. A section of that site was badly looted.

Dickson told the Conservancy about the sites, and it is in the process of purchasing them from Campbell. —Julie Clark

Site: Patricia Campbell StatuS: The sites are endangered by looters. acquiSition: The Conservancy has an option to purchase the sites. The purchase price and costs of stabilizing and fencing the sites is $35,000. How You can Help: Please send contributions to The Archaeological Conservancy, attn: Patricia Campbell, 5301 Central Ave. NE, Suite 902, Albuquerque, NM 87108-1517