Oregon History: The "Indian Tombs" of Gold Hill is a fascinating story...for many reasons. It involved a local southern Oregon rancher & farmer by the name of Bill Hittle and prestigious University of Oregon anthropologist, Luther Cressman.First, a little about Luther and then we will move on to the rest of the story... Luther was born in 1897 in Pennsylvania and studied at Penn State University. Troubled by the war and prospects of killing others, Cressman dedicated his life to becoming an Episcopalian priest. In 1928, Luther left the Episcopal church to pursue his Sociology career at the University of Oregon. An interesting factoid about Luther; he married anthropologist Margaret Mead in 1923 but the couple later divorced in 1927.
Cressman is known as the father of Oregon anthropology for work that punched holes in the standing theories of the prehistoric Northwest. Cressman firmly believed that early man moved from south to north along the western side of North America, not the traditional north to south belief. He claimed that culture among prehistoric Oregon Indians predated known civilization. In 1938, he discovered immaculately preserved 9,000 year old shredded sage back sandals at Fort Rock Cave, Oregon (located in central Oregon). Until radiocarbon dating verified his find, the belief was that human occupation of the far west went back no further than 4,000 years. In 1968, Cressman discovered ashes from a fire at the Fort Rock Basin that suggested humans moved from Alaska to the New World at least 30,000 years ago!
This amazing man was the natural professional to turn to when Bill Hittle (we mentioned him earlier), discovered Indian graves while leveling a dirt mound on his southern Oregon property in 1930. This would turn out to be one of the largest and oldest American Indian sites ever found in Oregon and Cressman was eager to explore it.
"These people were buried long before Lewis and Clark made their expedition to the coast," Cressman told a reporter. "Earliest burials go back perhaps two millenniums or more."
Obsidian blades and spear points, probably from the Klamath region, and a mixture of colorful seashells from the Oregon Coast -- and even from California waters far to the south -- left no doubt that these people were part of a large trading network.
In December of 1964, flood waters rushing down the Rogue River swept to the west around the curve at Gold Hill, ripping away the riverbank and flushing across the graveyard.
For thousands of years it had been a favored location for native peoples. Then, in just a few hours, it was all swept away and gone forever.
Photo Credit: Bill Miller
