Mapping of subsurface shell midden components through percussion coring: examples from the Dundas Islands

Following earlier examples of mapping the subsurface of shell bearing sites using augering, we employ percussion coring to identify early Holocene shell midden components at two types of sites on the Northwest Coast of North America. We describe a method for mapping subsurface components at shell bearing sites including basal deposits, paleosols and transitions between distinct cultural components. Our research was undertaken for the purpose of identifying early Holocene shell middens above the modern shore, and as components below large shell midden villages. Our results augment the developmental trajectory of shell middens on the Northwest Coast by suggesting that pre-5000 BP forms of these sites may be more common than previously thought. In light of these results, we argue that the Northwest Coast cultural historical sequence, which locates an increase in the number and rate of accumulation of shell middens beginning 5000 years ago, to be premature. However, there are insufficient data from shell middens in the early Holocene, a sampling problem that the percussion coring methods described here can address.     

Continuity Amidst Change: Village Organization and Fishing Subsistence at the Dionisio Point Locality in Coastal Southern British Columbia

Shifts over time in faunal representation in Northwest Coast archaeological sites have been viewed as reflecting changes in economic organization and social complexity. We use fish faunal data from the Parry Lagoon Midden (site DgRv-006) in the Salish Sea region of coastal southwestern British Columbia, Canada, to evaluate the relationship between change in subsistence strategies and community organization. We describe and compare fish assemblages recovered from a shell midden generated by habitation at two sequentially occupied village sites. The lower midden layers include faunal remains derived from the Marpole Period plankhouse village occupation at site DgRv-003 (1500 to 1300 cal BP), while the upper layers were generated during the occupation of a Late Period plankhouse within site DgRv-006 (1000 to 600 cal BP). We compare the two faunal records to ascertain if subsistence re-organization accompanied the social change associated with abandonment and later re-establishment of a village in the Dionisio Point Locality. Results indicate continuity of a diverse fishing economy for the two occupations, and therefore across the Marpole to Late Period transition. This study adds to the recent trend in Northwest Coast archaeology to reconsider the long-standing view that social and subsistence change necessarily occurred in tandem.     

OCCURRENCES OF GREEN EARTH PIGMENT ON NORTHWEST COAST FIRST NATIONS PAINTED OBJECTS*

An analytical study of First Nations painted objects from the Northwest Coast showed that green earth (celadonite) was used as a green pigment by Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian artists. Green earth appears to have been used less frequently by Heiltsuk and Kwakwa ka ’wakw artists and was not found on Coast Salish or Nuu‐chah‐nulth objects. Microscopical samples of green paint from 82 Northwest Coast objects, as well as several pigment sources and mineral specimens, were analysed using Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy or X‐ray diffraction. Green earth was the most frequently identified green pigment, found in approximately 40% of the samples.     

Magnetic Gradient Survey of the Marpole Period Dionisio Point (DgRv-003) Plankhouse Village,Northwest Coast of North America

Architectural reconstructions of plankhouses are central to the study of household and community organization on the Northwest Coast of North America. However, the sample of substantially excavated houses is constrained by their size, stratigraphic complexity, and typically limited surface expression. We present the results of a magnetic gradiometry survey of the Dionisio Point site (DgRv-003) village, occupied ca. a.d. 500–700 on the coast of British Columbia, Canada. Survey of four house platforms reveals patterning of magnetic anomalies consistent with the structure of shed-roof houses, a design recorded ethnographically and identified archaeologically at the site. These results suggest a consistent pattern of spatial and, potentially, social organization of the households. The similarity of patterns suggests that magnetometry may be useful for guiding plankhouse excavations elsewhere on the Northwest Coast, providing a means for expanding our knowledge of houses without relying solely on traditional excavation methods.     

The Archaeology of War: A North American Perspective

This article reviews recent archaeological research on warfare in prestate societies of native North America. This survey comprises six regions: Arctic/Subarctic, Northwest Coast, California, Southwest/Great Basin, Great Plains, and Eastern Woodlands. Two lines of evidence, defensive settlement behavior and injuries in human skeletal remains, figure prominently in archaeological reconstructions of violence and warfare in these regions. Burning of sites and settlements also has been important for identifying the consequences of war and investigating more subtle aspects of strategy and directionality. Weaponry and iconography have to date provided important but more limited insights. Although considerable disparities exist between regions in the archaeological evidence for intra- and intergroup violence, all regions show a marked increase after A.D. 1000. These findings suggest that larger forces may have been responsible for escalating violence throughout North America at this time.     

Defensibility of large prehistoric sites in the Mid-Fraser region on the Canadian Plateau

Based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analysis, this paper assesses the defensibility of winter village sites in the Mid-Fraser region on the Canadian Plateau during the Late Prehistoric Period (ca. 3500–200 B.P.), particularly the Plateau and Kamloops Horizons (ca. 2400–200 B.P.). Although there is variability in prehistoric village locations in terms of defensibility, highly defensible prehistoric sites in the Mid-Fraser region are concentrated in two localities. The high defensive values of these village sites indicate that the threat of intergroup conflict had a significant impact on choice of settlement location. The approach used in this paper demonstrates the importance of past defensive considerations in the decision making processes pertaining to settlement locations. As conflict is a common feature of many cultures and time periods throughout the world, this approach has potential applications to other defensive sites globally.     

Trace element and Pb isotope provenance analyses of native copper in northwestern North America: results of a recent pilot study using INAA,ICP-MS,and LA-MC-ICP-MS

Several indigenous groups in northwestern North America used native copper prior to EuroAmerican contact. The Arctic, Subarctic, and Northwest Coast culture areas all have archaeological finds and geological sources of native copper. The copper-rich region of south-central Alaska and southwestern Yukon has often been credited as the source of archaeological native copper found on the Northwest Coast despite the presence of native copper sources further south. This paper presents the results of a pilot study using INAA, ICP-MS, and LA-MC-ICP-MS to assess the potential for native copper provenance research in Alaska and the Yukon Territory. Discrete native copper sources could be distinguished from one another intra-regionally. Difficulties associated with future native copper provenance research in northwestern North America are discussed.     

Modeling ground slate knife production and implications for the study of household labor contributions to salmon fishing on the Pacific Northwest Coast

Despite longstanding anthropological concerns with the origins of intensive delayed-return subsistence economies and the timing of the development of increasingly complex political systems on the Northwest Coast, the use and production of slate knives—one of the most archaeologically visible tools used to process seasonally available salmon—has received little attention in the archaeological literature. This can be attributed, in part, to the persistence of artifact typologies that have failed to generate behavioral implications for variability in slate artifact assemblages. In this article, I use data derived from ethnographic, experimental, and actualistic research to develop an approach to the classification of slate artifacts expected of knife-production activities. Emphasis is placed on framing slate knife production as a temporally emergent and situated activity, but also as an operational sequence that can be modeled due to regularity in the decisions and motions expected of tool makers producing functionally specific tools. Using slate assemblages recovered during the partial excavation of seven Late and Contact period Coast Salish houses in southern British Columbia, I then evaluate and demonstrate the utility of this approach by considering variability in household labor contributions to salmon fishing.     

Using ancient DNA identification and osteometric measures of archaeological Pacific salmon vertebrae for reconstructing salmon fisheries and site seasonality at Dionisio Point,British Columbia

Determining the diversity of salmon species represented in archaeological contexts is critical to understanding patterns of salmon harvesting and consumption, storage practices and seasonal patterns of resource exploitation by precontact peoples of the Northwest Coast. We present species determinations generated for salmon vertebrae from the Dionisio Point site (DgRv-003) in coastal southwestern British Columbia, a well-preserved village site that dates to between 1500 and 1300 cal BP. Molecular species identification was possible for 70 Pacific salmonid vertebral elements recovered from one excavated plankhouse at the site. Coupled with osteometric measures, we determine that residents of the plankhouse fished primarily for chum, sockeye and pink salmon, with a lesser emphasis on chinook, coho and steelhead. These results indicate a diverse fishery that likely occurred between July and December, suggesting a mid summer through winter season of occupation for the village.     

Reflections on North American Pacific Coast prehistory

The Pacific Coast of North America was occupied by many distinctive groups of coastal hunter-gatherers at the times of early contacts with Europeans. Despite significant cultural diversity, Pacific Coast peoples shared lifeways oriented toward generally similar marine, nearshore, littoral, and estuarine habitats. In this paper, we examine some major issues that guide much of the archaeology done along the Pacific Coast, then discuss some of the theoretical and methodological problems that limit the efficacy of archaeological reconstructions. Most archaeological research conducted on North America's Pacific Coast has been oriented toward the search for the origins and development of a variety of cultural patterns. A comparative review of California and Northwest Coast sequences provides interesting parallels and discrepancies in the approaches taken in studying some of the major issues in Pacific Coast prehistory.     

论胜海舟的国家思想

幕末与明治时期的政治家胜海舟,在1853年美国海军上将培理来航后民族危机意识高涨的形势下,于培理离去一个月时撰写了《海防意见书》并得到幕府的赏识。《海防意见书》中阐述的海防国家思想具有以下几个特点：其一,贴近现实,解决问题的可能性高;其二,主张开国,提倡贸易立国,期待实现富国强兵;其三,体现了胜海舟对国际关系中力量变化的体得与认知,可以认为是对冲突理论的诠释。     

Differential Avian Skeletal Part Distribution: Explaining the Abundance of Wings

An abundance of wings relative to other skeletal parts has been observed in avifaunal assemblages from many different types of archaeological sites from numerous locations around the world and of various time periods. Both cultural and post-depositional hypotheses have been proposed to explain this pattern. One of the most powerful explanations to account for this phenomenon is differential survival of avian elements due to bone density. Although bone density has not been systematically measured for all types of birds, I test this hypothesis using predictions derived from observations about the functional anatomy of birds using archaeological data from numerous sites in the Pacific Northwest Coast (U.S.A.). I conclude that the density hypothesis is not supported at these sites, and that other hypotheses must be examined further.     

Archaeological Survey of Dynamic Coastal Landscapes and Paleoshorelines: Locating Early Holocene Sites in the Prince Rupert Harbour Area,British Columbia,Canada

We present and test a predictive archaeological survey model that targets early Holocene paleoshorelines in the Prince Rupert Harbour area using LiDAR bare earth digital terrain models and a 15,000-year reconstructed history of relative sea level change. Despite a century of archaeological research in the study area, no sites dating earlier than 6000 cal b.p. had been identified prior to our research. Our field survey identified three early Holocene sites associated with paleoshorelines 7–10?m above current sea level (masl). These locations demonstrate repeated use through the Holocene even as shoreline position changes. We discuss these new data in relation to the early Holocene archaeological record from the rest of the northern Northwest Coast and suggest that the region was ubiquitously occupied by this time and that the lack of recorded early Holocene sites in some areas is likely a result of survey and preservation bias, rather than historical reality.     

Identifying expedient glass tools from a post-contact Tsimshian village using low power (10–100×) magnification

Glass shards from post-contact contexts at the Northern Tsimshian site of Ginakangeek, on the north coast of British Columbia Canada, are identifiable as expedient tool artifacts through analysis of usewear patterns. In this study, we have examined the nature of glass and argued that its mineralogical properties make it analogous to other lithic materials. Although other researchers have found evidence of a lithic-like industry of glass artifacts based on macroscopic features, we have demonstrated that expedient artifacts are identifiable even in the absence of macroscopic traits, through low-power magnification of usewear. We have also tested this thesis against the possibility that microscopic usewear-like patterns were the product of fragmentation or post-depositional effects, and argued that a suite of usewear traits correlates only with use activity. Our experimental suite of glass artifacts indicates that specific actions (such as cutting, scraping, sawing, and chiseling) and the relative hardness of specific substrates produce particular usewear patterns. A number of potential explanations are considered for the appearance of such an industry on the Northwest Coast more than a century after contact with Europeans.     

Recent Trends in Northwestern America

The Northwest Coast has long held a seminal role in the ethnographic and theoretical development of anthropology in North America. Both that role and the saliency of Native American Indigenous peoples have seemingly waned over time. Almost invisibly, however, a critical mass of new ethnographic perspectives and a new aspiration toward synthesis have emerged across the sub-disciplines and subject areas of Americanist anthropology in the United States and particularly in Canada. The Northwest Coast as the quintessential culture area has become a more fluid continuum of contact zones intersecting across Northeastern North America, as reflected in the works discussed here.     

Do you never get tired of salmon? Evidence for extreme salmon specialization at Prince Rupert harbour,British Columbia

Faunal evidence from five village sites at Prince Rupert harbour, British Columbia reveals very high levels of dependence on one food resource, salmon, during the period from 500 BC to AD 1000. At some of these sites, it appears that little else in the way of vertebrate fauna was consumed. Comparisons with faunal data from other parts of the Northwest Coast show that the Prince Rupert villagers during this period were extreme salmon specialists, as highly focused on this one resource as any the Northwest Coast culture, and among the most highly resource specialized hunter–gatherer cultures worldwide.     

Assessing Conflict and Exchange: The Defensive and Access Layout of La Alumbrera (c. AD 1000–1480, North-west Argentina)

Abstract

The Regional Development Period (c. ad 1000–1480) in north-west Argentina is characterized, among other important features, by the coexistence of two phenomena seemingly opposed: a constant situation of violent conflict between communities and the maintenance or even intensification of interregional goods exchange networks. Although recent studies recognize the simultaneity of these processes, only a few scholars asked how communities dealt with the necessity of protecting themselves as well as obtaining distant resources. In this paper we present the analysis of the defensive and access layout of La Alumbrera archeological site which has the peculiarity of condensing features that may illustrate an example of how conflict and exchange coexisted at a local scale.     

Diversity in North Pacific shellfish assemblages: the barnacles of Kit’n’Kaboodle Cave,Alaska

Although the dietary importance of barnacles is recognized in Europe and elsewhere around the world, indigenous use of barnacles on the Pacific coast of North America has not been well-documented. On the Northwest Coast, most shell middens located along estuaries are dominated by clams (such as Saxidomus, Protothaca, etc.), while those on the outer coast are dominated by mussels (Mytilus californianus). At Kit’n’Kaboodle Cave in southeast Alaska, the acorn barnacle Semibalanus cariosus is unusually abundant over a 3500-year period, but is replaced by mussels over time. These results are placed within a larger geographic context to more closely examine patterns of barnacle use by First Nations of the Pacific Northwest.