Archaeological Report
Harney County Oregon, Range Seeding Projects

House Butte seeding consists of three tracts of land covering some 2700 acres or 1080 hectares. The area consists of rolling hills, terraces and flood- plains, with elevations between 3600 and 4000 feet. Sagebrush is the dominant vegetation over most of the area but a few sparse stands of juniper occur. Both Warm Springs Creek and Stinkingwater Creek flow through the general area of the seeding, but these streams only intersect the project boundaries at a couple points. A number of springs are also present within and near the project area.

The House Butte Seeding was surveyed between October 1 and November 10, 1979 by Botti, Sounart, Bright, Stephens, Seyer, Andrews, Frisby. Wing, Jech and Kerns. The last seven of these surveryors were technicians working under the guidance of the three archaeologists. Thirty-nine "sites" were recorded and eleven isolated finds. Because this survey was conducted prior to the establishment of a minimal site definition, eight of the lithic scatters recorded as sites fail to meet the minimum standards applied in the other surveys. For the sake of consistency these scatters have been eliminated from consideration here.

Of the 31 sites recorded then, 30 are flake scatters and one consists of stone circles. There were 21 sites less than one hectare in extent, including the stone circle site. These small sites ranged from .003 to .5 hectares in extent, with a mean size of .147 hectare. There were 34 tools recorded from these sites: 16 projectile points, 12 bifaces, two unifaces and four pieces of groundstone. Of these small sites, three were rated S-l, four S-2 and fourteen S-3 in significance.

The ten large sites vary in size from two to 128 hectares, with a mean size of 26.59 hectares. Surprisingly, very few tools were recorded from these sites: only 16 projectile points, seven bifaces and six unifaces. No groundstone implements were noted at any of the large sites. The largest site (128 hectares) is a quarry/workshop area where a milky-white crypto-crystalline material was obtained. Two of the large sites were given S-l significance ratings, one S-2 and the other seven S-3.