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From L-R: The public is invited to the Burns Elks Lodge on Friday, Feb. 10 at 6 p.m. to watch a presentation by archaeologist Pat O’Grady. An archaeology site near Wagontire has unveiled significant evidence of habitation in Harney County as early as 18,000 years ago. 

Pat O’Grady will present information about ongoing research at a local archaeology site, which has unveiled significant evidence of habitation as early as 18,000 years ago. The Friday evening presentation at Burns Elks Lodge starts at 6 p.m. There is no charge for attending the presentation. Dinner will be available for purchase from the Elks Lodge.

Since 2011, the University of Oregon has been conducting archaeological research at Rimrock Draw Rockshelter, located in Harney County near the community of Wagontire. The rockshelter fronts a stream channel that was a raging torrent between approximately 18,000 to 13,000 years ago. Stone tools and other evidence indicates that humans camped there intermittently when the stream was active.

Ice Age bison, horse, and camels appear to have been butchered there, represented by bone fragments and blood residue on stone tools. Burned plant seeds and twigs found in the remnants of cooking fires in the rockshelter show that a wide variety of marsh, streamside, and upland plants were available in close proximity, part of a vegetation community vastly different from that of today.

O’Grady will present the results of analyses conducted on plant and animal remains from archaeological features at the site, new information about the stream and its transition through time, and how the explosion of Mt. Mazama 7,500 years ago changed everything for the people who once camped there.

Growing up in Southern Oregon, O’Grady first came to Harney County in 1967 on a family hunting trip to Steens Mountain. He started working in the Burns area as a highway archaeologist in 1995 on two projects near the Sand Hills and another in Hines in 1997.

O’Grady’s research focuses on the early colonization of North America. He was happy to discover that some of the earliest sites in the United States are right here in Harney County where he is able to teach a field school for the University of Oregon through a long-standing partnership with the Burns District Bureau of Land Management. O’Grady worked briefly for the Oregon Department of Transportation and has been a staff archaeologist for the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History since 2005.

Invited to speak by the Harney County Historical Society, O’Grady’s visit is sponsored by the Harney County Cultural Coalition, which received funds from Oregon Community Foundation and Oregon Cultural Trust to provide cultural programs and events for our frontier community.