ABSTRACT
In Frederick Johnson's interim report on the Interagency Archaeology Salvage Program (IASP), he presents 23 photographs that reveal something of the nature of the program. Of the 23 photos, only two have as their subject archaeological material of the Columbia Plateau. A tremendous amount of work was accomplished in other areas; amounts that make the work on the Columbia Plateau appear relatively miniscule. Much of what people know about the Columbia Plateau's prehistory today has its intellectual roots firmly in the groundbreaking work of the River Basin Surveys (RBS) archaeologists who labored in the area at a time when virtually nothing was known about local prehistory. The chapter explains the analytical work accomplished by RBS researchers to show that not only was local RBS-affiliated archaeological research a product of its time, it provided the basis for establishing knowledge of an early Holocene occupation of the area and for the construction of a detailed cultural chronology.
