Marmes Rockshelter: A Final Report on 11,000 Years of Cultural Use

The Marmes Rockshelter is one of the most significant archaeological sites in the Pacific Northwest, not only due to its 11,000-year record of human use, but also because of the attention it generated towards American archaeology throughout the Northwest, the nation, and the world. The political story behind the discovery and excavation of early Holocene human skeletal remains at the Marmes site encapsulates, and helped incite, changes in archaeological studies following passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. This contributed to current Cultural Resources Management processes, driven by federal government mandates to preserve archaeological materials and information and to seek greater public involvement in management program. These mandates, in fact, have led full-circle to this study, a complete analysis and interpretation of all of the available information from the rockshelter and floodplain areas of the site, and completion of a final report some thirty years after the Marmes site was excavated.

Brent Hicks is vice president of cultural resources management and principal archaeologist for Historical Research Associates, Inc. Skilled in all aspects of research and fieldwork in both historic and prehistoric archaeology, as well as lithic artifact analysis, he has over three decades of experience in cultural resources management, and has conducted and managed archaeological investigations in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California.