North America: Pacific Northwest Coast and Plateau (Geographic Keyword)
1-25 (129 Records)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Camas (Camassia spp.) was among the most important foods for many cultural groups of the Pacific Northwest in the past. The Pend Oreille Valley in northeastern Washington and the Kalispel people were particularly known for their large camas fields and the archaeological record of the valley is replete with earth oven features. Archaeological site 45PO422,...
Analysis of Sorting Errors of Animal Remains from Shell Middens: Lessons Learned from the Čḯxwicən Project (2018)
Zooarchaeologists routinely analyze assemblages that were initially sorted into major animal type (birds, mammals, fish, invertebrates) by students or lab technicians with little experience in zooarchaeology. Sorting errors are likely made, which affect taxonomic representation and understanding of human-animal relationships. Recent study of the immense faunal assemblage (over 500,000 NSP) from Čḯxwicən, a 2800-year-old Lower Elwha Klallam village located on the coast of Washington (USA), allows...
Ancient Herring DNA from the Burton Acres Shell Midden (45KI437) and Pacific Herring Population Dynamics in the South Salish Sea (2019)
This is an abstract from the "From Middens to Museums: Papers in Honor of Julie K. Stein" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Pacific herring (Clupea harengus pallasi) is an important forage fish and staple food of many Northwest Coast indigenous peoples. Archaeological evidence throughout the south Salish Sea extends this ecological relationship back at least several millennia, but the presence of herring in archaeological deposits is often considered...
Ancient Mitogenomes from Oregon Sea Otters (Enhydra lutris): Genetic and Archaeological Contributions to the Historical Ecology of an Extirpated Population (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Zooarchaeology and Technology: Case Studies and Applications" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The sea otter (Enhydra lutris) was nearly driven to extinction on the Pacific Coast in the 19th century due to the commercial maritime fur trade. Despite successful reintroduction efforts in North America, the Oregon sea otter population remains locally extirpated and endangered. Prior studies have used precontact and modern...
Archaeology and Behavioral Ecology of Maritime Hunter-gatherers of the Northeast Pacific Rim (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Human Behavioral Ecology at the Coastal Margins: Global Perspectives on Coastal & Maritime Adaptations" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Human-behavioral ecology (HBE) provides a powerful framework for understanding human adaptations under differing environmental and socio-economic circumstances. In this paper I summarize influential HBE models and approaches as they have been applied to understanding the behavior and...
Archaeology and Ethnobiology of Late Holocene Bird Remains from the Northern Oregon Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Birds in Archaeology: New Approaches to Understanding the Diverse Roles of Birds in the Past" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeological bird remains from the Oregon coast have recently received renewed attention. We contribute to this discussion with an analysis of bird remains from the Late Holocene Par-Tee site (35CLT20) in Seaside, Oregon. We sampled the Par-Tee avifaunal assemblage to near-redundancy and...
Assembling Infrastructure, Detotalizing Communities: Provincial Infrastructure as Situated History and Landscape in British Columbia (2018)
Investigation of the material, spatial and temporal distributedness of large-scale, infrastructure projects holds significant potential to lay bare histories of underlying political rationales and practices that challenge overtly utilitarian narratives of public welfare and economic good. This paper investigates the differential experience and perception of a sample of state-initiated or sanctioned infrastructure projects (e.g., Hydro power lines and substations, pipelines, highways and...
Assessing Settlement Dynamics in the San Juan Islands and Northwestern Washington, a Bayesian Approach (2021)
This is an abstract from the "People, Climate, and Proxies in Holocene Western North America" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Recent developments in Bayesian approaches to radiocarbon dating have enabled reexaminations of questions of population dynamism in the Salish Sea. This study expands on Taylor et al. 2011 using Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) and an expanded data set of 538 radiocarbon dates from academic and cultural resource management...
Avifaunal Remains from the Palmrose Site (35CT47): Establishing Seasonality and Investigating Endangered Species (2018)
Avifaunal remains have great potential to improve archaeological understanding of the economy and subsistence of peoples who lived in the past, as well as to yield information about local ecology, environmental change, and past bird species distribution. The large assemblage of faunal remains from the three archaeological sites comprising the Seaside Collection from Seaside, OR, contains significant quantities of bird bone. Previous analyses of vertebrate remains (including birds) by Greenspan...
Bayesian Analysis of Radiocarbon Assays from the Late Paleoindian Sentinel Gap Site (2021)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2021: General Sessions" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Bayesian analysis of eight calibrated radiocarbon dates from the Sentinel Gap site (central Washington) are presented. Application of a Bayesian framework provides a method of reassessing uncertainty in the age-range provided by this suite of assays. The Bayesian chronology generated through this analysis establishes a higher resolution temporal placement for...
Bayesian Models for the Occupational History of Complex Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Communities in the Interior Pacific Northwest (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Complex Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers of North America" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The interior Pacific Northwest landscape contains a system of waterways that coalesce to form three major drainages with outlets in the Pacific Ocean. Substantial evidence has been provided that complex hunter-gatherer-fisher communities occupied sites in these river drainages during the late Holocene. Some chronological frameworks...
Beringia Underwater: The Search for New Archaeological Sites on the Pacific Northwest Coast (2021)
This is an abstract from the "Advances in Global Submerged Paleolandscapes Research" session, at the 86th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. When and how people first arrived in the Americas remains one of archaeology’s greatest mysteries. The earliest archaeological evidence suggests that people migrated from Siberia across the Bering Strait, Beringia, and into Alaska around 14,000 years ago. Where they went from there is still unclear! One hypothesis is that these First...
The Best Defense is a Good Offense: Culturally Affiliating the Ancient One by Following the Law (2018)
The 20 year journey to repatriation of the Ancient One was long, arduous, frustrating, eye opening, and an education in the NAGPRA law. Over the years we have discovered how poorly understood the law can be. In the case of the Ancient One, the ownership or control of his remains falls under Section 3 of NAGPRA for inadvertent discoveries on federal lands after 1990. An overview of the evidentiary standard applicable to cultural affiliation determinations under NAGPRA will be presented. All...
The Blown Glass Beads of Garden Bay, British Columbia (2018)
In May 2015, a disturbed burial was uncovered in Garden Bay, British Columbia, within close proximity to the large shíshálh village site of Sexwamin (DjSa-3). Found in association with the burial were 244 intact smooth, unadorned mold-blown (SUMB) glass beads and 40 SUMB glass bead fragments. Due to their extremely fragile nature, blown glass beads are rare in archaeological contexts and the beads from Garden Bay are from one of only five sites in North America where SUMB glass beads have been...
Born and Bred on the Columbia Plateau: The Ancient One in Time and Place (2018)
In looking at all available population specific data for the Columbia Plateau, the Ancient One falls within the variability exhibited on the southern Columbia Plateau at the same time period and throughout time. He was not outside of the norm for the population existing during the Early Cascade period when he was alive and for the population that followed for which he has a shared group identity. The Ancient One’s biological identity, cranial morphology, stable isotope values, and DNA data...
Born on the Columbia Plateau: Cultural Affiliation for the Ancient One (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. NAGPRA’s preponderance of evidence standard is utilized to demonstrate a relationship of shared group identity between the Ancient One (Kennewick Man) and the Colville, Nez Perce, Umatilla, Wanapum, and Yakama tribes. Data is presented within the evidentiary standard applicable to cultural affiliation determinations under Section 3 of NAGPRA. Scientific...
Bridal Veil Lumbering Company: A Glimpse into an Intact Early Logging System in the Columbia River Gorge (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Logging was an economic and cultural pillar of the Pacific Northwest. The Bridal Veil Lumbering Company, a logging company operating in the Columbia River Gorge in Oregon State, was the longest continuously operating early lumber mill west of the Mississippi. The company spanned a timeframe that encompassed a wide range of technologies, immigration trends, and...
Buck Lake, Archaeological Research, and Subsistence and Settlement Patterns at Mount Rainier National Park (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Research and CRM Are Not Mutually Exclusive: J. Stephen Athens—Forty Years and Counting" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. For the past two decades, research directed at establishing onset of human use, patterned use of montane habitats, integration into lowland subsistence and settlement systems, and temporal change has been imbedded into CRM practices at Mount Rainier National Park. Once thought to be of little value...
Building Bridges: Federal, State, and Tribal Collaboration on the US 101 Elwha River Bridge Replacement Project, Washington State (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Byways to the Past: An American Highway Archaeology Symposium" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Dam removal is restoring the culturally significant ecosystem of the Elwha River on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula, but the resulting increase in water flow at the US 101 Elwha River Bridge has accelerated erosion at pier foundations, necessitating replacement. Ethnographic and archaeological evidence indicate the area...
Building Nearest Neighbor Models of Hunter-Gatherer Settlement Systems Using Four Case Studies for the Northwest Coast of North America (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Spatial analysis of settlement patterns have traditionally focused on hierarchical city states. Seldom do settlement pattern studies use spatial statistics to characterize hunter-gatherer settlement systems. Through the application of nearest neighbor analysis this paper characterizes the settlement patterns for four sub-regions of the Northwest Coast of North...
Bury Me with Beads (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Ground stone disk beads represented a tangible signal of wealth within the Salish Sea archaeological record; they appeared continuously from 7,000 – 500 BP across the region in scattered frequencies to massive caches. The massive caches were often observed in a burial context, despite non-burial contexts being more frequent and wide-spread. The differences in...
Call of the Wild: Historic Preservation in Region 1’s Wilderness (2018)
Region 1 of the U.S. Forest Service manages more than 25 million acres in Washington, Idaho, Montana, and North and South Dakota, with more than five million acres designated as Wilderness and Wilderness Study Areas. Because of the Wilderness Act, NHPA Section 106 surveys that would identify potential archaeological sites are generally not undertaken in Wilderness areas. However, a number of known historic structures in these areas have been restored by the Northern Region Historic Preservation...
Can You Hear Me Now? – The History of a Telephone Booth in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (2018)
The Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness is an area that allows its visitors to experience solitude in the nation’s largest wilderness in the lower 48. Often unrealized, is that historically, this rugged landscape had quite an extensive communication network while it was managed as the Idaho Primitive Area. One related historic feature managed by the Payette National Forest is the Coyote Springs Telephone Booth. Telephone communications were developed in the area from the late 1920’s...
Changing Tides: Tribal Engagement in Oregon's Coastal Archaeology (2019)
This is an abstract from the "Sins of Our Ancestors (and of Ourselves): Confronting Archaeological Legacies" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. Archaeology on Oregon’s Coast has been largely limited in scope and lacks a holistic viewpoint of coastal history. Archaeological investigations began in earnest around 1930 with avocational archaeologists like Marcus Seale interested in expanding their "trophy item" collections. The heavily male dominated...
Cobbling Together the Story of the Sinlahkein Valley: Prehistoric Land-Use Patterns in North Central Washington State (2019)
This is an abstract from the "SAA 2019: General Sessions" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology. The prehistory of the Sinlahekin Valley in north central Washington State is not well known. The archaeological record suggests the valley has attracted human occupants since the terminal Pleistocene. Various riparian, lacustrine, and mixed conifer ecosystems with the high elevation of surrounding mountain peaks have provided access to multifarious floral and...