Atomic age training camp: The historical archaeology of Camp Desert Rock

Abstract

Located in the southeast corner of the Nevada Test Site, Camp Desert Rock was established in 1951 when U.S. military leaders decided American ground troops needed physical and psychological training in the tactics of atomic warfare. For the next six years, Camp Desert Rock was home for the nearly 60,000 soldiers that participated in military exercises during atmospheric weapons testing. With the end of atmospheric testing the camp was partially dismantled and abandoned; The focus of this thesis was to identify and describe the material remains of Camp Desert Rock and to test the utility of Robert Schuyler\u27s historic ethnographic approach for the investigation of Cold War related archaeological sites. A synthesis of three different yet complementary data sets (archaeological, historical, and anthropological) was employed to develop the appropriate context for interpretation of the camp and define its place in history