Archaeology on a Million Acres by Cliff Shaw

"Archaeology on a Million Acres" is the subject of Cliff Shaw’s presentation to the Blue Ridge Archaeology Guild (BRAG) in July 2024. He discusses his extensive archaeological experiences in the Bridgeport Ranger District in the Neveda/California area.
The Bridgeport Ranger District within the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest spans over one million acres across eastern California and western Nevada. The district is home to thousands of cultural resource sites, many still undiscovered or undocumented.
To gain a deeper insight into some of the district's significant yet undocumented sites, Cliff Shaw, a retired forester from the U.S. Forest Service dedicated his time as an archaeological volunteer at Bridgeport for the Forest Service between 2001 and 2015. During that period, Cliff carried out extensive landscape surveys, guided by the District Archaeologist, to ascertain the locations and boundaries of Bridgeport's significant historic and prehistoric cultural resource sites.
The findings from his surveys, as well as his involvement with the Forest Service's Passport in Time Program and the Anthropology Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, is the focus of this presentation.
Cliff has authored a number of self-published books about the history of Aurora, Nevada, a Civil War-era mining town turned ghost town where Mark Twain started his writing career. Much of Cliff’s historical research and a number of his archaeological discoveries have been incorporated by others in seven master’s theses, one doctoral dissertation, numerous published academic journal articles, and a newly published book by Texas A&M University Press entitled “Large-Scale Traps of the Great Basin” by Bryan Hockett and Eric Dillingham.