Archaeology of the Yale Reservoir, Lewis River, Washington

Extract

Pacific Power and Light Company of Portland, Oregon, has now completed construction of the Yale dam, flooding 9 miles of one of the largest river valleys in southwestern Washington. Before the dam was completed an agreement was made between E. Robert de Luccia of the Company and Douglas Osborne of the University of Washington and the Washington State Museum to assure that archaeological resources within the reservoir would be permanently recorded. Correspondence was initiated by Dr. Osborne with Mr. de Luccia, who is Vice-President and Chief Engineer of Pacific Power and Light. The understanding of an archaeologist's aims and needs displayed by Mr. de Luccia and his associates is most heartening. The company employed two archaeologists, Thomas Kehoe and Alan Bryan, and supplied subsistence for a period of two weeks for these men and a third student, Ralph Turman.

According to all ethnographic and historical information, the upper Lewis River Valley was not peopled by the Indians until quite recently, and then not from the coastal area, but from the Plateau over the Klikitat Pass.