Environment and Settlement on the Southwestern Louisiana Prairies: A Cultural Resources Survey in the Bell City Watershed

摘要

The Bell City Watershed is located in southwestern Louisiana about 65 kilometers east of Lake Charles. The watershed is primarily situated on a surface formed by Pleistocene deposition in the delta of the ancestral Red River, known as the Prairie Terrace. This name was derived from the natural grasslands which once covered the area. A smaller portion of the watershed falls within coastal marsh formed in recent times by westward transport of sediment from the Mississippi River. In order to determine if proposed dredging within the watershed's drainage channels would be likely to affect cultural resources, Coastal Environments, Inc. (CEI) was contracted to perform a cultural resources survey of a 15% environmentally stratified sample of the channels. The field survey was conducted during the last two weeks in March, 1979.