Investigations by Dennis L. Jenkins and Thomas J. Connolly
Field work conducted September 7-22, 2004
Suttle Lake occupies a trench gouged by a Pleistocene glacier a short distance east of the Cascade Range summit near the central Oregon town of Sisters. A terminal moraine forms a natural dam at the east end of the lake, through which Lake Creek ultimately drains to the Deschutes River.
Archaeological sites near the lake extend from the Suttle Lake Lodge to the U.S. Highway 20 corridor and beyond, covering more than 50 acres. Proposed bridge replacement and highway work at Lake Creek led to archaeological excavations at the affected sites in the fall of 2004.
The base of site stratigraphy is a glacial moraine deposit that includes cobbles and boulders, which is in turn capped by fine ash from multiple volcanic eruptions, including the ca. 7500 year-old Mt. Mazama eruption and the ca. 3200-2700 years old Sand Mountain eruption. Cultural deposits are found within these fine sediments. The site is capped by a thick deposit of cinders from the Blue Lake eruption, a feature within the Belknap Volcanic Field which was last active ca. 1300 years ago. This 80 to 100 cm thick deposit generally protects the undisturbed cultural layers below from modern disturbance. However, the bridge replacement project called for a temporary highway diversion through previously undisturbed portions of the site and the data recovery excavation was carried out on the detour area near Lake Creek.
After heavy equipment removal of the vegetation from two areas of investigation, a small tractor removed 90 centimeters of culturally sterile Blue Lake cinder overburden before manual excavations began.
An important project goal was to establish the relationship of the excavation areas to other previously investigated portions of this large (50+ acre) site complex. The excavations recovered 60,000 pieces of chipping debris left behind by during the process of stone tool making (99% obsidian and and 1%CCS). Only 3 ground stone items, indicating food preparation at the site, were recovered during the current project. The excavated areas apparently served as tool making stations that may have been set apart from the main living area of the site, where food processing tasks were generally carried out.
Excavations in Progress
Completed Excavations
Artifacts include a preponderance of fragmentary triangular to oval projectile point preforms and large bifacial core fragments. Time-sensitive artifacts, especially projectile points, include Large Corner (Elko series) and Side notched (Northern Side Notched) types characteristic of the Middle Holocene. This estimate is consistent with the radiocarbon dates from the site, which range from 5000 to 2000 years ago.
Groundstone
Quarry Blanks
Tool Preforms
Finished Tools
Because of its high elevation, and the seasonal availability of nearby food resources, the Lake Creek site was probably used primarily during the summer. The making of finished projectile points from prepared obsidian performs-made at Obsidian Cliffs some 20 miles south of Suttle Lake-suggests that preparations were under way at the site for either hunting or trading trips to the west side of the mountains where little obsidian for tool making was available. Hunting, gathering of plants, and possibly fishing (sockeye salmon are known to have come to the lake to spawn early in the 20th century) were activities which probably also occurred while the site was occupied. The site is within the historic territory of the Molala, but rendezvous at high elevation resource areas commonly attracted people from diverse communities both east and west of the Cascades. Such trips are still recalled by members of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Indian Reservation (Warm Springs, Wasco, and Northern Paiute).
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