Photo By Maj. Wayne Clyne | Oregon State University Archaeology Field School students document a test unit as...... read more read more
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NAJAF TRAINING CENTER, Ore. — The elk found it first. Bedding down beneath the hazel trees on a wooded hillside here, the animals churned up ground that had rested undisturbed for generations, and when Oregon State University archaeologists walked the site, stone flakes left by Indigenous toolmakers were lying exposed in the elk beds.
"We knew that there had been sites recorded from the '90s, but nothing was recorded down in here," said Andrew Pauly, a second-year master's student in archaeology at Oregon State University helping teach the field school. "We got here, and there's a rodent burrow with a flake in it. We found dozens of flakes in the elk beds. They really did us a favor."
That chance discovery is now one of the focal points of a new archaeology field school underway at Najaf Training Center, a roughly 527-acre military training area about 10 miles north of Corvallis, Oregon. The four-week intensive course, offered through a three-year intergovernmental agreement between the Oregon Military Department and Oregon State University, brings undergraduate and graduate students onto the land to learn professional archaeological methods while helping the department meet its federal cultural resources responsibilities.
On July 14, 2026, students spread across the hillside were excavating test units, screening soil and documenting artifacts on ground that has proven far richer than anyone anticipated.
"We're finding cultural materials in places that aren't sites, and as we're trying to further expand the site boundaries, it just keeps going," said Dr. Molly Carney, an assistant professor of anthropology at Oregon State University and the field school's instructor. "We can't really find the ends. The entire hillside is probably a cultural place."
The property, which is federal land managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and licensed to the Oregon Military Department for military training, was first surveyed in the 1990s, when archaeologists identified 10 sites across the wooded hillside. The area holds what Carney described as a multi-component site, containing both pre-contact Indigenous materials and the historic homestead of Greenberry Smith, an early settler who claimed land there. In the field school's first month, students have recovered roughly a dozen projectile points along with ground stone tools, stone flakes and historic-era glass and ceramics.
The work directly supports the Oregon Military Department's obligations under federal historic preservation law. The department needs to thin the forest and clear invasive vegetation to make the terrain more usable for Soldier training, and before that can happen, it must determine whether the archaeological sites are significant and how they might be affected.
"Part of our federal responsibility is to determine, are these sites important, and if they are, are our actions going to impact them? And if they are going to be impacted, how do we mitigate that effect?" said Matt Diederich, environmental branch chief for the Oregon Military Department. "It all stems to forest management. That's the goal, to better manage the forest here."
Joshua Henderson, cultural resources manager for the Oregon Military Department, said the findings will eventually be evaluated for eligibility to the National Register of Historic Places, in consultation with the State Historic Preservation Office and the appropriate Tribes.
That consultation runs throughout the project. The Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde Community of Oregon, along with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians and the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation of Oregon, maintain ancestral connections to the Willamette Valley. Grand Ronde representatives have visited the field school weekly to share their perspective with students, including their preference for the term "belongings" rather than "artifacts" when describing recovered items.
"This isn't just a data point," said Michael Lewis, senior archaeologist for the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. "This is a place on a cultural landscape with memory, continuing practice on the landscape, and a connection to the past."
For Carney, that spirit of partnership defines the field school. During a recent week of geophysical survey training, she looked around at lunch and saw agency archaeologists, private-sector archaeologists, Tribal specialists and academics all working side by side.
"That's really what the field school is all about," she said. "It's about collaboration, about moving into the future while also thinking about the past, and training folks to explore different career opportunities related to cultural resource management or heritage more broadly."
For at least one student, the setting carries a personal connection. Nathan McCaslin, an undergraduate archaeology student, previously served in the Oregon Army National Guard, where he supported training operations across the state. His interest in the field was sparked in part by the cultural resources at Biak Training Center in Central Oregon, where remnants of World War II-era training still rest on the surface of the high desert landscape. He used military education benefits to pursue his degree.
"I think there's a lot of work out there to maintain the memory of those things," McCaslin said, "because we might not have them in the future."
The field school continues through the summer, with additional seasons planned in different portions of the hillside over the next two years. Wherever the students dig next, the ground beneath Najaf Training Center seems ready to keep offering up its history — with or without the elk's help.
| Date Taken: | 07.15.2026 |
| Date Posted: | 07.16.2026 18:33 |
| Story ID: | 570131 |
| Location: | CORVALLIS, OREGON, US |
| Web Views: | 17 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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