Dr. Minor’s training includes a BA in Anthropology from California State University Fullerton and an MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Oregon.

As Senior Archaeologist and co-founder of Heritage Research Associates, he has over 40 years of experience as a professional archaeologist, specializing in the prehistoric and historical archaeology of the Pacific Northwest. Rick has investigated a wide range of historical archaeological sites, including contact-era Indian settlements, 19th century U.S. Army posts, urban domestic settings, and industrial sites. His record of research reflects a long history of collaboration with professionals in other fields, especially geologists and historians. In both research and teaching he stresses the importance of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of historical resources. Teaches Thesis Proposal and Historical Archaeology and Preservation.

Dr. Minor advises students whose thesis and terminal projects incorporate historical and/or anthropological perspectives. Previous thesis and terminal project committee work includes:

• John D. M. Arnold, Exploring the Utility of BIM in Buildings Archaeology: A Case Study at the Historic Briggs House, Springfield, Oregon (Terminal Project Chair)
• John Peregrine Hill, All Along the Watchtower: Identifying Trends in Historic Fire Lookout Preservation Through Selected Case Studies and Statistical Analysis (Terminal Project Chair)
• Jobie Hill, Humanizing HABS: Rethinking the Historic American Buildings Survey’s Role in Interpreting Antebellum Slave Houses (Thesis Committee Member)
• Noah P. Kerr, “To Bear All That comes Upon Us”: Resurrecting the Aurora Colony Narrative Through
• Mortuary Analysis. (Thesis Committee Co-Chair)
• Emily A. Sackariassen, Place Among the Displaced: Envisioning Preservation of a Metis Settlement in
• Montana. (Thesis Committee Member)
• Emily R. Scherrer, The Place of Plumes & Pulp: Remembering Georgia Pacific, A Defunct Industrial Landscape on Bellingham Bay (Terminal Project Chair)

Awards
Co-Recipient of 2012 National Preservation Honor Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for collaboration in restoration of the Oswego Iron Furnace in Lake Oswego, Oregon

Co-Recipient of 2013 Demuro Award from Restore Oregon for collaboration in restoration of the Oswego Iron Furnace in Lake Oswego, Oregon

Selected Publications (Last 5 Years)

2014      Takelma Prehistory: Perspectives from Archaeology in the Elk Creek Dam Project in Southern Oregon. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 34(2):247-272.

2014      Large-Scale Fluidization Features from Late Holocene Coseismic Paleoliquefaction in the Willamette River Forearc Valley, Central Cascadia Subduction Zone, Oregon, USA. Open Journal of Earthquake Research 3:82-99 (with Curt D. Peterson and Kurt Kristensen)

2013      Late Holocene Chronology And Geomorphic Development Of Fluvial-Tidal Floodplains In The Upper Reaches Of The Lower Columbia River Valley, Washington and Oregon, USA. Geomorphology 204:123-135 (with Curt D. Peterson, Mike C. Roberts, Sandy Vanderburgh, and David Percy)

2013      Great Basin Obsidian at The Dalles: Implications for the Emergence of Elites in the Southwestern Plateau. Journal of Northwest Anthropology 47(1):25-46.

2012      Correlation of Tephra Marker Beds in Latest Pleistocene and Holocene Fill of the Submerged Lower Columbia River Valley, Washington and Oregon, U.S.A.. Journal of Coastal Research 28(6):1362-1380. (with Curt D. Peterson, Edward Gates, Sandy Vanderburgh, and Kendra Carlisle)

2012      Umpqua/Eden Revisited: Notes on the Archaeology and Ethnohistory of a Lower Umpqua Indian Village on the Central Oregon Coast. Journal of Northwest Anthropology 46(1):39-63. (with Don Whereat and Ruth L. Greenspan)

2011      Pre- and Post-Missoula Flood Geomorphology of the Pre-Holocene Ancestral Columbia River Valley in the Portland Forearc Basin, Oregon and Washington, USA. Geomorphology 129:276-293. (with Curt D. Peterson, Gary L. Peterson, and Edward B. Gates)

2009      Chinookan Survival and Persistence on the Lower Columbia: The View from the Kathlamet Village. Historical Archaeology 43(4):97-114. (with Laurie E. Burgess). Reprinted in The Archaeology of Native American-European Culture Contact, compiled by Timothy K. Perttula, Perspectives from Historical Archaeology No. 3, pp. 243-260 (2010).