The University of Oregon is assisting ODOT to help preserve historical and heritage landmarks

The museum will map out locations in fire zones across the state that have Native American sites, historical landmarks, and archaeological sites.

Tom Connolly, Director of Archeological Research at the museum, said they have worked with ODOT for decades on numerous projects.

He said this project will be a team of three and they are going to use government and local databases to create these maps.

Connolly said the goal is to make sure sites are not damaged further than they already are from the wildfires when crews are cleaning up fire zones. He said preserving these sites is important to understand the past.

“Everything we know about that deep past comes from the archeological record,” Connolly said. “It’s a record that is fragile and is disappearing at kind of an alarming rate.

It’s the only record of human history to tell the story of the place we live.”