Date of Award
2016
Rights
Access is available to all users
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS) in Interdisciplinary Studies
Department
Interdisciplinary Studies
Abstract
"The lack of organized historical and archival documentation regarding the pre-1900s Chinese placer miners in northeastern Washington has left the historical and archaeological records fragmented. Documentation of the Chinese placer mining activities in the region is poor, at best, and the scars left on the landscape by these miners are often inundated by the damming of the Columbia River (and other major waterways), or the sites are heavily eroded and damaged. The available historic and archival data has been organized and synthesized to create an historical context regarding the pre-1900s Chinese placer miners in the region. Furthermore, archaeological sites previously determined to be affiliated with Chinese placer miners have been evaluated and analyzed to create an archaeological context defining significant Chinese cultural features and/or artifacts of the Chinese placer mining operations. These identified features and artifacts are recommended for the pursuit of future archaeological site evaluations and field work for promising Chinese placer mining sites. The historical and archaeological contexts have been combined to create four cultural components of Chinese placer mining sites that should be evaluated during future archaeological investigations of potential Chinese sites: artifacts, oral traditions, structures, and placer mining features. The combination of two or more of the abovementioned components located within the northeastern Washington State historic Chinese placer mining context is indicative of a Chinese placer mining site, camp, or other operational feature. It is recommended that future archaeological investigation be conducted for the sites identified within this project, with special attention given to the assessment of the four Chinese placer mining cultural components described, in order to determine their potential Chinese affiliations"--Leaves iv-v.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Evenson, Lindsey M., "Pre-1900s Chinese placer mining in northeastern Washington State: an archaeological investigation" (2016). EWU Masters Thesis Collection. 358.
https://dc.ewu.edu/theses/358
