Plant Cultivation on the Northwest Coast: A Reconsideration

Conventional wisdom suggests that the peoples of the Northwest Coast did not cultivate plants prior to European contact. Considerable evidence suggests the contrary, however, particularly the well-documented practice of estuarine root gardening among the Kwakwaka'wakw and other indigenous peoples of the region. These gardens were maintained through transplanting, weeding, selective harvesting, soil modifications, and the production of mounds or low terrace-like structures within individually demarcated root plots. The scholarly oversight of these practices can be attributed to a number of biases rooted in the colonial and academic agendas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In turn, scholarly legitimation of the region's “nonagricultural” label has served to undermine indigenous land claims on estuarine sites into the present day.     

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.     

Obsidian source characterization in the Cordillera Real and eastern piedmont of the north Ecuadorian Andes

Recent research in the Quijos and Cosanga valleys of the eastern piedmont of Ecuador’s Cordillera Real has revealed and substantiated previous knowledge of obsidian sources that are unrelated to obsidian flow systems in the Sierra de Guamaní, Ecuador. Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA) and X-ray Fluorescence (XRF) were carried out on 47 obsidian source samples collected from several contexts in and adjacent to the study area. From samples within the study area three distinct obsidians were characterized: Cosanga A, Cosanga B, and Bermejo. These obsidians originate from a number of obsidian-bearing rhyolitic domes recently identified in the hills west of the Río Cosanga. Extensive survey of these dome localities has identified obsidian cobbles large enough for formal and informal tool manufacture. Beyond the study area, samples were collected and analyzed from the El Tablón source in the Sierra de Guamaní, providing much needed data on this poorly understood source. In addition, a sample from the newly identified Conda Dome source, near the Cotopaxi volcano, was characterized with XRF. All samples were then compared to 57 pre-existing samples from the Mullumica–Callejones, Yanaurco–Quiscatola and Carboncillo sources in the Ecuadoran Cordillera Real, as well as to artifacts from the Sumaco area in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Results of the elemental characterization indicate that the Cosanga Valley, El Tablón and Conda Dome obsidians are chemically distinct. Further, visual characteristics of Cosanga Valley obsidian types are useful in source attribution for the large artifact samples from the region. Finally, obsidian collected from the El Tablón flow suggests that this source may have produced obsidian suitable for tool manufacture.     

Obsidian types from Holocene sites around Lake Turkana,and other localities in northern Kenya

Obsidian has been widely used by early Holocene hunter-gatherers and succeeding Pastoral Neolithic peoples in northern Kenya. Here we report the results of over 2000 electron microprobe analyses of artifactual and non-artifactual obsidian from the greater Lake Turkana region. Of the 15 compositional types of obsidian observed, a preponderant type is widespread across the region from the Barrier in the south to Ileret in the north and east as far as Kargi. This obsidian is the principal type at Lowasera and most Pastoral Neolithic sites, including the Jarigole Pillar site and Dongodien (GaJi4). The source of this obsidian is not known, but based on its distribution the source may be located on the Barrier or in the Suguta Valley immediately to the south of Lake Turkana. Although there are several possible sources of local obsidian identified for minor types, in stark contrast to the central part of the Kenyan Rift, major sources of obsidian available for artifact manufacture are not known in the Lake Turkana region. The lack of obsidian from demonstrable Ethiopian Rift and central Kenyan Rift sources, and the absence of obsidian with compositions found at the Turkana area sites in assemblages in the central part of the Kenyan Rift suggests that the earlier Pastoral Neolithic peoples around Lake Turkana interacted with each other, but perhaps not as strongly with people farther south along the Rift Valley, even as herding practices were expanding to the southward into central Kenya.     

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.     

The antiquity of Olivella shell beads at CA-ORA-64: AMS radiocarbon dated between 9420 and 7780 cal BP

Investigations in the 1960s and 1970s showed the Irvine site (CA-ORA-64) to be among the oldest shell middens known from the Pacific Coast of North America. The site chronology, based on conventional analysis of mixed shell samples collected from heavily bioturbated soils, extended back to ca. 8440 RYBP. Recent work at the site provided an opportunity to refine the CA-ORA-64 chronology via AMS ¹⁴C dating of single shell fragments, including 14 Olivella beads. Long considered to be one of the earliest ornament types made by Pacific Coast peoples, such spire-removed Olivella beads were used through much of the Holocene and generally are not good chronological indicators. AMS analysis of the CA-ORA-64 specimens, however, produced a consistent series of Early Holocene dates that includes some of the oldest securely dated shell beads in North America. Along with obsidian from interior sources, Olivella beads played an important role in early exchange networks between coastal and interior peoples. Methodologically, our research demonstrates the utility of AMS ¹⁴C dating in determining the age of key artifact types found in multicomponent sites with assemblages affected by stratigraphic mixing.     

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.     

Testing the accuracy of portable X-ray fluorescence to study Aztec and Colonial obsidian supply at Xaltocan,Mexico

This article demonstrates the accuracy of non-destructive portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) for the study of obsidian in central Mexico. Obsidian sources were identified for a sample of 103 artifacts from the site of Xaltocan, which spanned the rise and fall of the Aztec empire and the first centuries of Spanish colonial rule (AD 900–1700). Sources were assigned by comparing pXRF measurements with previously published source data and were verified using the standard techniques of laboratory XRF (lXRF) and instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA). Additional tests of potentially confounding factors show that neither length of read time, presence of surface residue, nor incomplete detector coverage due to small artifact size compromised our ability to attribute sources to artifacts. Concave surfaces did decrease the accuracy of readings because of the greater distance between the artifact and the detector. Our results provide new insight into the stability of supply networks and markets well into the Colonial period as well as the homogenizing tendencies of the Aztec market system.     

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.     

From nation to population: the racialisation of ‘Métis’ in the Canadian census†

ABSTRACT. Between 1996 and 2001 the ‘Métis population’ of Canada skyrocketed from 204,000 to 292,000, an astonishing and demographically improbable increase of 43 per cent. Most puzzling about this ‘increase’ is not so much the unpersuasive explanations offered by statisticians and others but, more fundamentally, the underlying assumption that such a thing as a ‘Métis population’ exists at all. In contrast, I argue that such an idea constitutes an artifact of Canada's racial/colonial episteme in which ‘the Métis’– formerly an indigenous nation invaded and displaced in the Canadian nation‐state's westward expansion – have been reduced in public and administrative discourse to include any indigenous individual who identifies as Métis: reduced, in other words, to (part of) a race. The paper argues further that the authority of the Canadian census as a privileged forum of contemporary meaning‐making in Canadian society is such that the lack of explicit Census categories to distinguish Métis Nation allegiance further naturalises a racialised construction of Métis at the expense of an indigenously national one.     

Returning home: heritage work among the Stl’atl’imx of the Lower Lillooet River Valley

This article focusses on heritage practices in the tensioned landscape of the Stl’atl’imx (pronounced Stat-lee-um) people of the Lower Lillooet River Valley, British Columbia, Canada. Displaced from their traditional territories and cultural traditions through the colonial encounter, they are enacting, challenging and remaking their heritage as part of their long term goal to reclaim their land and return ‘home’. I draw on three examples of their heritage work: graveyard cleaning, the shifting ‘official’/‘unofficial’ heritage of a wagon road, and marshalling of the mountain named Nsvq’ts (pronounced In-SHUCK-ch) in order to illustrate how the past is strategically mobilised in order to substantiate positions in the present. While this paper focusses on heritage in an Indigenous and postcolonial context, I contend that the dynamics of heritage practices outlined here are applicable to all heritage practices.     

Measuring prehistoric mobility strategies based on obsidian geochemical and technological signatures in the Owens Valley,California

We compare the organization of obsidian flaked stone technologies in two different time periods at CA-INY-30, a village site in southern Owens Valley, eastern California. Previous archaeological studies suggest a reorganization in settlement patterns between the Newberry (ca. 3500–1500 BP) and Marana (ca. 650-contact) periods, from a highly mobile to a more residentially sedentary one. New geochemical data, based on laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) analyses of obsidian artifacts associated with discrete house floors, support this basic settlement model, but reveal new detail in how people moved across the landscape and accessed, extracted, reduced and used obsidian resources. In the earlier Newberry period, there is no relationship between flake size and distance-to-source, and the falloff curve relating frequency of obsidian against distance is more gradual, as expected, but contrary to our expectations, source diversity is not higher. These factors suggest extremely high mobility, but also selective extraction of particular sources. Newberry obsidian may have been acquired by groups of hunters who embedded quarrying within long-distance trips to distant hunting grounds, and subsequently transported bifacial cores to base camps. By contrast, Marana patterns show strong relationships between flake size and distance from source and steeper fall-off curves, suggesting groups acquired their obsidian primarily from closer sources, likely via exchange networks. At the same time, geochemical diversity, especially among smaller resharpening flakes, is higher in the Marana period, highlighting the wide-ranging conveyance systems through which obsidian moved.     

Preliminary characterization and regional comparison of the Dasht-i-Nawur obsidian source near Ghazni,Afghanistan

Archaeologists have known that an obsidian source exists in the Dasht-i-Nawur basin of central Afghanistan since at least the 1970s; however, regional political turmoil and instability have prevented in-depth study of this source. Data presented here from recent analyses of archival specimens of obsidian collected during a 1976 survey provide a preliminary geochemical profile for this obsidian source. These data suggest that the Dasht-i-Nawur source is easily distinguishable from other obsidian sources in the Near East and southwest Asia. Comparison of these data to an existing database of artifact compositional profiles suggests that initial hypotheses about restricted distribution of the Dasht obsidian may be correct. These data provide for the first time the characterization of a long-known but poorly studied obsidian source. Additionally, this study serves as one example of the benefits gained through working to maintain and preserve data archives of now-closed laboratories.     

Environment and collapse: Eastern Anatolian obsidians at Urkesh (Tell Mozan,Syria) and the third-millennium Mesopotamian urban crisis

The Early to Middle Bronze Age transition in Northern Mesopotamia has received great attention for the apparent concurrence of aridification, deurbanisation, and the end of the Akkadian empire around 2200 BCE. Our understanding of the “crisis” has been almost exclusively shaped by ceramics, demography, and subsistence. Exchange and the associated social networks have been largely neglected. Here we report our sourcing results for 97 obsidian artefacts from Urkesh, a large urban settlement inhabited throughout the crisis. Before the crisis, six obsidian sources located in Eastern Anatolia are represented among the artefacts. Such a diversity of Eastern Anatolian obsidians at one site is hitherto unknown in Mesopotamia. It implies Urkesh was a cosmopolitan city with diverse visitors or visitors with diverse itineraries. During this crisis, however, obsidians came from only two of the closest sources. Two to three centuries passed before varied obsidians reappeared. Even when an obsidian source reappears, the raw material seems to have come from a different collection spot. We discuss the likely exchange mechanisms and related social networks responsible for the arrival of obsidians at Urkesh and how they might have changed in response to climatic perturbations and regional government collapse.     

Trade,tribute, and neutron activation: The colonial political economy of Xaltocan,Mexico

In Trade, Tribute, and Transportation, Ross Hassig argues that indigenous towns in the northern Basin of Mexico during the colonial period were largely self-sufficient. They traded with Mexico City mostly in elite goods, but for the most part they produced for their own subsistence or traded with nearby towns. Chemical characterization by instrumental neutron activation analysis (INAA) and portable X-ray fluorescence (pXRF) of ceramics and obsidian from post-conquest contexts in Xaltocan, a site in the northern Basin of Mexico, reveals that Hassig’s model is partly correct for describing Xaltocan. The town focused on trade with nearby towns and it produced some ceramics for local consumption. However, Xaltocan was hardly isolated and self-sufficient in the post-conquest period. Instead, the data suggest that the people of Xaltocan also obtained ceramics and obsidian from a greater variety of sources than under Aztec domination. Rather than being an isolated rural site, Xaltocan either increased its external connections and number of trading partners after the Spanish conquest, or it managed to obtain a greater variety of products than before through a bustling market system.     

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.     

The Elmenteitan Obsidian Quarry (GsJj50): New Perspectives on Obsidian Access and Exchange During the Pastoral Neolithic in Southern Kenya

Early pastoralists in southern Kenya exploited obsidian sources to supply large regional exchange networks that persisted from c. 3200 to 1400 years ago. Obsidian exchange networks have been a source for speculation on the social and political nature of early pastoralism in eastern Africa. Herders who produced a discrete set of material culture called “Elmenteitan” mainly relied on a particular obsidian quarry site on the upper slopes of Ol Doinyo Opuru (Mt. Eburru), in the Central Rift Valley. These implications of the Elmenteitan pattern for herder social organization have not been systematically investigated. This paper reports on recent surveys and initial excavations at the Elmenteitan Obsidian Quarry (GsJj50) on Mt. Eburru as the central node of a prehistoric herder exchange network. Research revealed a series of stratified extraction and workshopping loci concentrated across a roughly 200-m² extent. Spatial, faunal, ceramic, and lithic datasets support communal resource access by small groups, rather than centralized control. This research has implications for interpreting the role of centralized quarries and resource nodes in the formation of mobile herder exchange and alliance. Networks were an important risk-reduction strategy in unpredictable environments and helped facilitate the spread of African pastoralism.     

Patterning in procurement of obsidian in Chaco Canyon and in Chaco-era communities in New Mexico as revealed by X-ray fluorescence

X-ray fluorescence analysis of obsidian artifacts from sites located in Chaco Canyon and from three Chaco-era communities in New Mexico permits determination of their geological origin. These source data are used to describe patterning in obsidian procurement in sites located in Chaco Canyon dating from A.D. 500–1150, and in a three non-Canyon communities occupied during the period of Chaco Canyon's regional prominence (ca. A.D. 875–1150). These data demonstrate that the most proximate sources generally dominate the sourced obsidian assemblages from sites of all periods, but also suggest differences in procurement patterning both over time and across space. Within Chaco Canyon, there is a notable shift from Mount Taylor obsidian to use of Jemez Mountains sources over time. These data also suggest that earlier analyses of obsidian from sites in Chaco Canyon misidentified some obsidian artifact sources; these new data indicate the central areas of disagreement and provide a revision of procurement patterning. In the Chaco-era communities located outside Chaco Canyon, procurement patterning diverges. The Blue J community shows an increase in use of the nearby Mount Taylor source over time. Two communities located toward the southern extent of the Chaco great house distribution reveal a markedly distinct procurement pattern, obtaining nearly all of their obsidian from southern sources largely unrepresented at Chaco Canyon. Combined, these data provide new insights into raw material procurement and artifact production at sites in Chaco Canyon, and in communities occupied during the Chaco Phenomenon, the period of the Canyon's greatest regional influence.     

Age and exploitation of obsidian from the Medicine Lake Highland,California

The relationship between major and minor elements, trace element composition, and age of obsidian sources within a volcanic field, is of considerable interest for obsidian source and artifact research in the New and Old World. The present study investigates this relationship in the Medicine Lake Highland of western North America. Geological evidence had indicated a very young age for all obsidian sources in the Highland, yet archaeological evidence suggested that obsidian was utilized for several thousand years. X-ray fluorescence analysis distinguished the latest flow (Glass Mountain) from the Cougar Butte, Grasshopper Flat, and Lost Iron Wells sources. Data obtained from two nearby archaeological sites showed that obsidian from the latter two sources was used by c. 7500 bc, while Glass Mountain material was not used (or available) until after 1360± 240 bp. These findings indicate that inferences of an extremely recent age for all obsidian sources in the volcanic field were unwarranted. Further analysis of major and minor elements indicated different hydration rates for these sources. The results argue that significant geochemical variability, as well as age differences, can exist between obsidian sources within the same volcanic field.     

Resource Intensification and Resource Depression in the Pacific Northwest of North America: A Zooarchaeological Review

In the Pacific Northwest of North America, researchers routinely suggest changes in human use of animals explain hunter-gatherer organizational changes and development of cultural complexity. For example, most models developed to explain developing cultural complexity invoke salmon in some fashion. Yet until recently, fish remains were not carefully studied and more generally, zooarchaeological evidence has not been systematically used to test models of culture change. This study reviews the 10,000-year-old faunal record in the Pacific Northwest to test predictions drawn from models of resource intensification, resource depression and hunter-gatherer organizational strategies. The records from two subareas, the South-Central Northwest Coast (Puget Sound/Gulf of Georgia) and the Northern Columbia Plateau, are examined in detail, representing 63 archaeological sites. While minor changes in animal use are evident, the overall record is characterized by stability rather than change.