Columbia Plateau Archaeology

Substantial contributions to the archaeological study of gender in the Pacific Northwest have been made over the past 30 years. Despite these advances, considerations of gender—particularly those which embrace feminist epistemologies—continue to be markedly lacking. This article surveys gender/feminist approaches to archaeology in the Pacific Northwest by examining archaeological studies of and references to gender in published and grey literature. It also explores regional trends in research presented at annual Northwest Anthropological Conference meetings from 1990 to 2016. Results suggest that a diversity of approaches to exploring gender have been taken but there is considerable work to be done, particularly on the Southern Plateau which has the least engagement with gender, and in the realm of theory where practitioners have been reticent to embrace feminism and its potential for emancipatory change. Archaeologists in the Northwest are well positioned to more effectively embrace gender and feminist perspectives in their practice, mitigate sexism/androcentrism, and contribute
to contemporary discussions about queer/non-binary, female, and male dynamics.

The research described in this article evaluates the presence and significance of violence among a sample of human skeletal remains recovered from sites in the interior northwestern portion of the continental United States. Violent encounters were measured by analyzing signatures of traumatic injury indicative of violence. All of the burials were recovered from cultures found in the southern portion of the Plateau culture area. Historically, the populations inhabiting the Plateau have been thought of as relatively peaceful, with violence only developing because of contact with Euro-American explorers, soldiers, and settlers. The reality, however, is that more and more evidence is being presented to suggest that violence was always a part of life in this part of the world. This study adds to a growing body of research that supports the notion that violence was an important part of the local inhabitants' ideology and an adaptive strategy for securing resources and maintaining group solidarity. The results indicate a great deal of variation in violence among the groups over time but in general, there were periods of conflict in this region before and after Euro-American contact.

Over the past two decades, archaeology in British Columbia has been marked by two dramatic changes: the steep rise in forest industry-related “cultural resource management” (CRM) and the concomitant increase in First Nations engagement with archaeology and heritage stewardship. These trends have led to conflict between indigenous perspectives and CRM practice, but have also led to alliances and collaborations with archaeologists and the implementation of applied archaeological approaches. This dissertation addresses the implications of indigenous heritage stewardship, from the viewpoints of the St’át’imc and Nlaka’pamux nations, in the historical and contemporary context of CRM practice and applied archaeology in the mid-Fraser region of British Columbia. To place their engagement in perspective, I consider recent theoretical debates in community-based and indigenous archaeologies, as well as the development of participatory action research in archaeology. I also review the involvement of First Nations throughout British Columbia in CRM, stewardship, heritage legislation, and ethics.
The St’át’imc and Nlaka’pamux case studies presented in this dissertation relate their outlooks on archaeology and their specific efforts in heritage stewardship, based on literature reviews, interviews, and direct participation. The St’át’imc case study describes their traditional and contemporary views on archaeology and stewardship, relates their involvement in archaeology since the 1970s, and evaluates the process and outcomes of their recent direct involvement in the business of CRM. The Nlaka’pamux case study recounts their experiences with archaeology since the late nineteenth century, as well as their more recent confrontations with CRM practice, and examines their current efforts at defining Nlaka’pamux heritage stewardship, particularly from the vantage of landscape. The different approaches taken by these two nations have their strengths and shortcomings, and both continue to aspire to greater participation and authority in archaeology and heritage stewardship. Most important, the standpoints and strategies of both nations provide insights into how applied archaeology practice can be transformed to better serve indigenous heritage stewardship, including in the realms of ethics, indigenous authority, intangible heritage, and cultural landscapes. I contend that archaeologists can best accommodate these perspectives through participatory action research and the concept of archaeological praxis.

People have had the moon’s number for a very long time. We figure the moon’s phases were counted by calendar priests in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia at least 5000 years ago, and the unwritten record of prehistoric megaliths and symbolic carvings on monumental stones
has prompted some to speculate the builders of Stonehenge in southern England and Newgrange in Ireland also numbered the moon’s days. In fact, the late Alexander Marshack identifi ed “time-factored
notations” from the upper paleolithic in fragments of antler and bone. In The Roots of Civilization (1972), he argued these sequences of marks indicate lunar talllies. In 1982, American anthropologist W. Breen
Murray reported a large petroglyph panel at Presa de la Mula, in northeast Mexico, and interpreted its 24-cell grid of 207 “tally” marks as a count of seven cycles of the moon. The age of the carvings is
unknown, but through style they are associated with nomadic Archaic hunters and could be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. Murray also analyzed tine counts of antler petroglyphs in the same desert
basins of northern Mexico and found they routinely exceed the number encountered on real antlers. Lunar numbers—7, 14, 15, 28—are common, but Murray speculated the month counts could reference
more than the moon and have something to do with biological cycles of the game.

In this issue, naturalist Bernie Taylor returns to the Griffiffith  Observer and explores detailed connections between lunar counts among traditional peoples and animal behavior. He last appeared in the August, 2006, issue with his 2005 Boeing writing contest article “Are There Geese on Cygnus 3?” He has written two books and hundreds of articles. In Biological Time (2004), he examined the relationship between the rhythms of plants and animals and the cyclical performances of the sun and moon. His work has generated high interest at biological conferences. Fish and game biologists are using his hypotheses to study and manage natural resources. Mr. Taylor has also spotlighted and analyzed archaeological evidence that suggests our ancient and prehistoric ancestors also understood the world and managed their access to its resources in terms of time measured and marked by the sun and the moon.

The Grissom site (45KT301) is a multi-component archaeological site in northeast Kittitas Valley excavated by Central Washington State College from 1967-1971. The site is significant because it is one of few scientifically excavated upland sites in the Columbia Plateau and likely represents part of Che-lo-han, the intergroup gathering of Plateau cultures known to occur annually in the Kittitas Valley. Furthermore, the Grissom site collection is a rehabilitated archaeological collection and, therefore, provides a cost- effective way to explore research questions while still gaining new knowledge about the past. Excavations at the site produced 13,622 catalogued bags of precontact and historic artifacts that were not analyzed or reported at the time. Site records, archival records and literature were reviewed to provide insight into the immense research potential inherent in the Grissom collection. This thesis is a summary of investigations at the site and a synthesis of what is known about the site.

Whole dentalium and segments of dentalium shell have been used as beads in the Northwest Coast and interior Plateau culture areas both prehistorically and ethnographically. Incised whole shells, and no more than five known examples of incised segments, have been recovered from the Plateau, limited to archaeological contexts. A review of the reported incising clearly shows the use of design elements typical of the Plateau Culture Area as often also used on bone, antler, wood, and historic copper in addition to dentalium. The Asotin site (45-AS-9), one of the few well-dated Plateau burial sites with incised beads indicates that this phenomena has a broad and, as yet, poorly defined chronological occurrence, largely from the protohistoric to the early historic.

In this study, ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis was used to assign species identifications to a sample of Middle (7,000 to 4,500 years BP) and Late (4,500 to 200 years BP) Period fish remains from EeRb-144, a large campsite located in the Interior Plateau region of south-central British Columbia, Canada. The results of this analysis indicate that largescale sucker (Catostomus macrocheilus) (NISP=12) and northern pikeminnow (Ptychocheilus oregonensis) (NISP=8) are the most abundant species in the assemblage of Late Period fish remains from EeRb-144. This suggests these two taxa were the focus of the Late Period fishery at EeRb-144. Smaller quantities of peamouth chub (Mylocheilus caurinus) (NISP=3), longnose sucker (Catostomus catostomus) (NISP=1), and Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) (NISP=1) were also identified in the assemblage. Ecological data concerning the seasonal availability of these taxa and limited ethnographic accounts suggest EeRb-144’s Late Period fishery likely occurred during the spring and summer. The Middle Period fishery at the site also harvested largescale sucker (NISP=2), peamouth chub (NISP=1), and longnose sucker (NISP=1). These findings indicate locally abundant resident fish species were a potentially significant component of EeRb-144’s pre-contact fisheries, corroborating and refining the results of morphological faunal analyses from the area. In addition, the identification of largescale sucker, peamouth chub, and longnose sucker in both assemblages suggests there was some long-term continuity in fishing practices at the site.

This study demonstrates the feasibility of using ancient DNA analysis to identify fish remains from a variety of taxa to the species-level even when they lack taxonomically informative morphological features. The results also highlight that in order to improve aDNA analysis’ ability to discriminate between fish species there needs to be continued research into identifying useful DNA markers for species identification.

The attached report has been edited to protect archaeological site and artifact locations. For information on testing methodology, findings, and detailed analysis of results please contact the Idaho Panhandle National Forests Heritage Program Manager to request the unedited version of this report.

Mount Spokane is an important heritage resource area for the Spokane Tribe of Indians, traditionally known as the .  The mountain is a creation site, as recounted in the story , as well as a vision quest and pilgrimage location.  Mount Spokane is a critical hunting and gathering destination, and remains important for huckleberries and other plants.  This paper provides an overview of the Tribal history and use of Mount Spokane.  It highlights our ongoing efforts to preserve intact portions of this site from encroachment by a proposed ski area expansion.  This is a part larger goal to record and preserve important TCPs and traditional plant patches across the Tribe’s ceded territory for the benefit of present and future Tribal members.

While it is generally accepted that the initial Pleistocene human colonizers of the Americas likely entered the continents via the Pacific coast, formal models of their entry and dispersion into the continental interior are scarce. The ability to identify colonizer period archaeological sites for development of such models requires that researchers identify landforms of appropriate age and depositional character to target for large-scale archaeological survey. Well-preserved Upper Pleistocene and Early Holocene landforms are present across the Pacific Northwest. From coastal environs to the Palouse, these landforms represent a remnant landscape which initial colonizers explored at some point subsequent to the last glacial maximum. The types of landforms suitable for deposition and preservation of colonizer period archaeological sites include a broad array of settings, including: Coastal environments, characterized by relict Pleistocene-age landscape features shoreward of the submerged continental shelf; Continental ice-marginal and ice-distal depositional environments, where a variety of glaciomarine and long-standing glacial lakes formed behind the retreating Puget Lobe of western Washington State; Interior Scablands where cataclysmic outburst floods created scoured topographic lows that acted as local depositional basins—often holding paleo-lakes and marshes; and the Palouse loess within the Columbia Basin province, where eolian deposition has buried and preserved the Pleistocene and early Holocene landscape. Along the major drainageways, Upper Pleistocene to Early Holocene alluvial chronologies vary locally, but overall regional trends indicate that climate-controlled aggradation initiated between 12.0 to 11.0KBP, forming distinct terraces in the major river systems and their tributaries. Regional soil formation is evidenced by the Bishop Geosol which dates between 13.5KBP and 11.2KBP, present in a broad variety of depositional environments. Upper Pleistocene archaeology is sparse but present across the region; initial colonizers were broad-spectrum foragers whose toolkit included distinctive stemmed and shouldered bifaces, macroblade tools and crescents.

This project focuses on whether determination of physical differences among closely affiliated Native American populations inhabiting the southern Plateau is possible. The study includes 318 individuals and approximately 100 recorded measurements of the cranium, humerus, femur, and tibia of each individual. The compiled measurements were evaluated in terms of their implied genetic affiliation, environmental location, and cultural identity. Along with metric measurements, pathological conditions were also compared to provide a control experiment to confirm or reject the findings. The results indicate that there are slight differences detectable among the populations as a result of environmental and European contact factors. The most apparent disparities are seen in relation to the size and shape of the lower extremities, which are highly associated with environmental and dietary stress. Pathological analysis supports the findings of the osteological analysis, suggesting that if the location of the burial and a general time period for interment are known, cultural identification is possible.

This study addresses the relative absence of archaeological considerations of gender and, specifically, the underrepresented role of women in the pre-contact period of the Southern Plateau. Ethnographic and ethnohistorical records are reviewed in search of material and contextual correlates for gender in the past, revealing that paleoethnobotanical remains, digging sticks/handles, cooking features, pounding/grinding implements, needles and awls, and basketry and matting are particularly useful correlates for female task differentiation. "Power" is offered as a useful framework for exploring gender relations in economic and other social spheres of society. It is argued that gender-differentiated work organization operated as a mechanism for maintaining gender equality and also as a source from which power and autonomy were enacted, reinforced, and derived. It is also argued that there was greater fluidity and flexibility of gender roles than has often been presented in ethnographic literature.

Mount Spokane is an important heritage resource area for the Spokane Tribe of Indians, traditionally known as the snzmene/. The mountain is a creation site, as recounted in the story Ou/ sPeRt, as well as a vision quest and pilgrimage location. Mount Spokane is a critical hunting and gathering destination, and remains important for huckleberries and other plants. This paper provides an overview of the Tribal history and use of Mount Spokane. It highlights our ongoing efforts to preserve intact portions of this site from encroachment by a proposed ski area expansion. This is a part larger goal to record and preserve important TCPs and traditional plant patches across the Tribe's ceded territory for the benefit of present and future Tribal members.

Recent years have seen the development of large radiocarbon databases such as the Canadian Archaeological Radiocarbon Database, 14SEA Project, and the Irish Radiocarbon and Dendrochronological Dates. Many archaeologists are using radiocarbon dates as proxy data for demographic modeling, to explore regional trends in human settlement. This poster session proposes to examine models of Holocene climate change and its impact (or lack thereof) on regional human subsistence and settlement. We are open to submissions examining regional palaeoclimate and archaeological records from across Western North America (from the Rockies to the Pacific coast). We are particularly interested in models that include multiple palaeoclimatic and demographic proxies.

This study revisits Schwede's (1970) ethnographic Nez Perce (Nimiipuu) settlement model data using a fresh ensemble of visualization techniques and quantitative methods: 1) The distribution of ethnographic villages and camps with respect to ordinal-scale elevation and stream size-class data is assessed using cumulative proportion plots and the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) test; and 2) The chi-square (X 2) test is used to examine village and camp settlement distribution with respect to nominal-scale food resource data. Schwede's three settlement research questions are redesigned into testable H 0 hypotheses. The measures of significance provided by the K-S and X 2 tests are used to assess the strength of settlement patterning in order to reject or accept the hypotheses. Many elements of Schwede's ethnographic Nimiipuu settlement model are corroborated by this re-analysis. The additional visualization methods and quantitative techniques reveal subtle details of ethnographic settlement patterning not easily discernible in frequency and percentage tables alone. This re-analysis presents alternative interpretations of the distribution of ethnographic villages and camps with respect to ethnographic food resource areas: village occupations tend to be associated with dual-resource fish and root areas, camps have higher than expected frequencies within single-resource game or root areas, but are most strongly associated with triple-resource (fish, roots, and game) areas, and villages and camps have similar frequency distributions within single-resource fishing areas.

Ciudad Perdida (Lost City) is an archaeological site in Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
This site is believed to have been part of a larger city that existed once in the same location.
As it is often the case, the Haitian proverb "Behind the hills, there are more hills" holds true for this site also.
Using proprietary technology developed by the author to extract underground features from satellite radar data, we will be able to see in the next few pages what our eyes and Lidar scans did not reveal.

The Wells Dam Project area of the Upper-Middle Columbia River has been central to developing our understanding of long-term use of the central Washington Plateau and the development of Plateau land-use models as well as to understanding complex sedentary -foragers more broadly. A key aspect of models developed for the area has been tied to apparent occupational hiatuses in the regional record. This study reevaluates the chronology of the Wells project area, focusing on Cassimer Bar, by examining radiocarbon dates acquired in the project area since the last major synthetic study of the region over 30 years ago. Calibrated radiocarbon dates using a Kernel Density Estimation model, an updated shell calibration curve, and georeferenced historic aerials and maps shed light on the timing of the formation of Cassimer Bar as a landform, and on changes in the bar’s habitation patterns over the Holocene. Combined data suggest continuous occupation of the landform with periods of more intensive use and highlight taphonomic biases resulting from inundation.

Multiple proxy records compiled for the Columbia Plateau document a significant degree of variability in paleoclimates during the Holocene. Included in this record are intervals of abrupt or rapid climate change (RCC), the most prominent of which appear to be global in scale. These episodes comprise well-known climate change chronozones, most notably, the Pleistocene-Holocene Boundary, c. 11,200-10,000 B.P., mid-Holocene warming (Altithermal), c. 8,000-4,000 B.P., Medieval Warm Period (WMP), c. 1150-850 B.P., and the Little Ice Age (LIA), c. 650-150 B.P. Comparisons of large- (RCC) and smaller-scale (regional) changes to published chronologies of regional culture change identify significant correspondences in these records. Using current interpretations of the timing, intensity, and landscape manifestations of changes in Holocene climatic conditions, this paper re-evaluates the magnitude and direction of reported shifts in human adaptive strategies on the Columbia Plateau.

This project considered the deposition history of a burned structure located on the Kalispel Tribe of Indians ancestral lands at the Flying Goose site in northeastern Washington. Excavation of the structure revealed stratified deposits that do not conform to established Columbia Plateau architectural types. The small size, location, and absence of artifacts lead us to hypothesize that this site was once a non-domestic structure. We tested this hypothesis with paleoethnobotanical, bulk geoarchaeological, thin section, and experimental firing data to deduce the structural remains and the post-occupation sequence. The structure burned at a relatively low temperature, was buried soon afterward with imported rubified sediment, and was exposed to seasonal river inundation. Subsequently, a second fire consumed a unique assemblage of plant remains. Drawing on recent approaches to structured deposition and historic processes, we incorporate ethnography to argue that this structure was a men-strual lodge. These structures are common in ethnographic descriptions, although no menstrual lodges have been positively identified in the archaeological record of the North American Pacific Northwest. This interpretation is important to understanding the development and time depth of gendered practices of Interior Northwest groups. Este proyecto reconstruye la historia de deposición de una estructura quemada al sitio Flying Goose ubicado en las tierras ancestrales de los indios Kalispel en el noreste del Estado de Washington. La excavación de la estructura, Feature 2, reveló depósitos estratificados reveló que no se ajustan a características culturales de los tipos ya establecidos en la Meseta de Columbia. El pequeño tamaño, la ubicación y la ausencia de artefactos nos llevan a suponer que Feature 2 era una estructura no tienen una función doméstica y podría una estructura de las mujeres o de menstruación. Sin artefactos, hemos probado esta hipótesis con datos géoarqueológicos, paléobotanicos, láminas delgadas y los experimentos de calentamiento para deducir la estructura y la secuencia después de la ocupación. La estructura fue quemada a una temperatura relativamente baja, fue enter-rado poco después con el sedimento rubified importada y fue expuesta a la inundación de los ríos estacionales. Posteriormente, un segundo incendio consumió un conjunto único de restos de plantas. Basándose en los recientes enfoques estructurados de deposición (structured deposition) y de los procesos históricos, incorporamos la etnografía para argumentar que Feature 2 en el sitio de Flying Goose fue una estructura menstrual. Estas estructuras son comunes en las descripciones etnográficas, aunque estructuras menstruales ya no han sido positivamente identificados en el registro arqueológico de la Noroeste del Pacífico de los Estados Unidos. Esta interpretación es importante para entender el desarrollo y la profundidad temporal de prácticas de género de los grupos del Interior Noreste.

"Recent excavations conducted at the Cooper‘s Ferry site of western Idaho revealed several areas of modified sediment bearing unusual artifact and faunal concentrations, which are interpreted as cultural features. In this paper, we explore the nature of these features through the use of portable x-ray fluorescence, soil micromorphology, and spatial analysis of associated objects. From these perspectives, we offer more detailed functional interpretations of these features and shed light on the character of human occupation at the site.""""

This project considered the deposition history of a burned structure located on the Kalispel Tribe of Indians ancestral lands at the Flying Goose site in northeastern Washington. Excavation of the structure revealed stratified deposits that do not conform to established Columbia Plateau architectural types. The small size, location, and absence of artifacts lead us to hypothesize that this site was once a non-domestic structure. We tested this hypothesis with paleoethnobotanical, bulk geoarchaeological, thin section, and experimental firing data to deduce the structural remains and the post-occupation sequence. The structure burned at a relatively low temperature, was buried soon afterward with imported rubified sediment, and was exposed to seasonal river inundation. Subsequently, a second fire consumed a unique assemblage of plant remains. Drawing on recent approaches to structured deposition and historic processes, we incorporate ethnography to argue that this structure was a mens...

The 31st Annual Northwest Anthropological Conference (NWAC) was hosted by Washington State University (WSU) and the University of Idaho (UI, 8 miles apart) from April 6 - 8, 1978 with papers presented at WSU. I was the Program Chairman with Kjerstie Nelson.  This was the very first Program and Abstracts printed using computer word-processing on what was called a Daisy-Wheel typewriter (looked like a typewriter with a round disk that rotated to type the font on that metal disk). Our public lecture was "Washington Prehistory:  The Last 12,000 Years", introduced by Dr. Richard Daugherty and the featured speakers were Dr. Carl Gustafson (Manis Mastodon Site , 12,000 yrs old), Dr. Dale R. Croes (Hoko River Project, 3,000 yrs old) and Dr. Paul F. Gleeson (Ozette Village Project, 500-300 yrs old).  The Annual NWAC Banquet was at UI with guest speaker Bill Holm of the Burke Museum, University of Washington (UW): "Current Research on NW Coast Art."  Great history on talks, and I chaired a first full day symposium on the Hoko River with my students the year after our first full-scale WSU fieldschool in 1977. This was the only NWAC I helped chair.

The search for and discovery of early archaeological sites is an inherently geoarchaeological problem. Archaeological sites of late Pleistocene-age are known to be located in the Intermountain West, however, the record of these early sites remains limited to only a few examples. In the lower Salmon River canyon (LSRC), the Cooper's Ferry site has been shown to be of late Pleistocene age, however this early archaeological record remains limited to this site. In order to accelerate the process of discovery of these early sites in the LSRC, the present study mapped landforms, and investigated several natural exposures of sediments and soils in the Horseshoe Bend area of the Salmon River, Idaho. AMS radiocarbon ages were obtained on bulk soil organic matter from the truncated B horizons and A horizons of several buried soils. Soil morphology, radiocarbon ages, and sedimentary sequences suggest that a stable paleolandscape, signaled by soil formation across several landforms, was buried sometime after 12,700 yr BP in the study area, and has the potential of holding late Pleistocene to early Holocene age archaeological sites.