Reconstructing the Environmental History of the Bear River Massacre Site, Idaho, USA

In 1863, the Bear River Massacre took place in Southeastern Idaho, USA, where about 400 members of the Northwestern Band of the Shoshone Nation were murdered by the United States Government. The massacre caused significant ecological land changes from the massacre itself but also from the colonization of the land, which presented land use changes and the introduction of invasive species. The tribe has since received 350 acres of their traditional land back from the government, but the land has been vastly altered since their ancestors lived on it. The Bear River restoration project, led by the Shoshone tribe, was created with the aim to bring the native vegetation back to the land and to allow the tribe to learn about the relationship between their ancestors and the resources they used. 

This research is contributing to the tribe’s restoration goals by reconstructing the past vegetation and environmental history of the Bear River Massacre Site using a quantitative, multiproxy paleoecological approach. The primary questions of concern that we aim to answer for the tribe are what was the native vegetation like when their ancestors lived on the land, and what is the environmental history of the site being a spring. The methodological approach to answer these questions will utilize pollen counts and loss on ignition from a wetland sediment core collected from a spring along the Bear River to reconstruct the paleoenvironment and identify past changes and disturbances in the environment.