This project funded archeological studies of Native American mitten mounds at seven sites to determine the distribution and abundance of historical populations of alewife, blueback herring, American shad, American eel, hickory shad, striped bass, Atlantic sturgeon, and shortnose sturgeon within the Roanoke River Basin. These studies, conducted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, relate directly to the Service's mandate to prescribe fishways under the FERC relicensing process.

Personnel from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill Research Laboratories of Archaeology analyzed over 134,000 scale and bone fragments in support of this effort. These analyses documented the historical presence of American eel above the three lower most dams in the basin (Roanoke Rapids, Gaston, and Kerr) and sturgeon and striped bass above the two lower most dams (Roanoke Rapids and Gaston). These analyses did however fail to document the presence of any of the other anadromous species above these barriers. The information will be used in regulatory processes (e.g., assessing impacts of proposed Federal actions, developing mitigation schemes and fishway prescriptions) and non-regulatory processes (e.g., planning related to habitat requirements to protect fish and wildlife in light of regional scale environmental changes and development trends).

The final report, An Archeological Assessment of Pre-Columbian Fauna in the Roanoke River Basin was transmitted to the Service on December 10, 2001. The author, Amber VanDerwarker, also disseminated the information in a paper entitled "Late Woodland Subsistence in the Roanoke River Valley" delivered at the Southeastern Archeological Conference and as a journal article entitled "An Archeological Study of Late Woodland Fauna in the Roanoke River Basin" published in Volume 50 of North Carolina Archeology.