Archaeological sites in the New World are the fragile and non-renewable remains of cultures which flourished for thousands of years prior to European contact and displacement. Sites which escape the effects of erosion and development often fall victim to vandalism. Cultural resources, including rock art and other archaeological sites, are protected by state and federal laws which prohibit the removal or disturbance of the sites, whether from development or from vandalism. Vandalism is frequently seen as a problem for law enforcement rather than a problem for cultural resource management. Management plans which include cultural resource protection provisions and guidelines often focus on threats to cultural resources from development, and omit planning which targets vandalism. The rock art sites of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area ("Scenic Area") have been affected by developments such as The Dalles Dam and by the vandalism. In this study, the nature and degree of vandalism to the rock art sites in the Scenic Area is considered in the context of public awareness of, and access to, these sites. Rock art sites which are easily located and which have been the focus of public awareness are hypothesized to be the most severely vandalized. To test this hypothesis, fifteen of the 44 rock art sites in the Scenic Area were selected for study, and were assessed for kind and degree of vandalism, and means and ease of access. The results of analysis yielded two statistically significant associations of variables which support the hypothesis: an association between vandalism and public awareness of sites, and an association between vandalism and the primary means of access. The analysis suggests that public awareness is one of the most important issues which land managers must address when designing cultural resource protection plans.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:pdx.edu/oai:pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu:open_access_etds-5732 |
| Date | 26 May 1993 |
| Creators | Wilt, Julia J. |
| Publisher | PDXScholar |
| Source Sets | Portland State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | Dissertations and Theses |
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