Preliminary Results from the Tse-whit-zen Project: Zooarchaeology and Geoarchaeology of a 2000 yr old Lower Elwha Klallam Village on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington State

DOCUMENT Citation Only Susan Larsen.

Archaeologists have given little direct attention to the taphonomic effects of cooking methods for marine invertebrates, particularly the effect on shell mineralogy. Various methods of heating and steaming shellfish directly in the shell are recorded as traditional for Northwest Coast peoples and the shell samples at the Tse-Whit-Zen Village site in Port Angeles, Washington State, contain many specimens that visually appear to be thermally altered. This type of heat exposure has been shown...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Rennaker. Virginia Butler.

In 2010, the Salish Sea stock of Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) was listed as a species of concern, which resulted from declining commercial and recreational catches that have not increased despite harvest reductions. Fishery managers typically use historical data from the past 40 to 50 years to create baselines to manage reduced fisheries; archaeological data can extend these baselines much further back in time. The Tse-whit-zen village site, located on the southern shore of the Strait of...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristina Dick. Virgina Butler. Sarah Sterling.

Digital databases promote consistency and data quality, facilitate analysis of patterning at multiple temporal and spatial scales and promote accessibility to a wide range of potential users. The value of digital databases is especially clear with large complex projects that involve collaborators working in separate research settings with different collections, but where data integration is essential to meeting project goals, such as with the Tse-whit-zen project. This presentation reviews...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Lisa Catto. Virginia Butler.

Websites have become a relatively common way to share findings from archaeological research with the public. They are easily adaptable, can reach a wide audience (e.g. location, age, education levels), and can supplement other outreach programs. What makes a "good" one? Answering this requires that one has established goals; and that one has developed ways to assess whether the goals have been met. In our background research, explicit goal-setting and assessment of archaeological-based...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Sterling. Ian Hutchinson. Jennie Shaw.

The use of high precision dates provides a chronological framework for reconstructing environmental conditions at the Tse-whit-zen site (45CA523) in Washington state. The geochronology of the site in is derived from high-precision radiocarbon dates taken from finely excavated deposits, with ages spanning the time period from ca. 2000 BP to contact. We have added 36 high precision AMS dates from short lived organic material, recovered from intact contexts, to the 52 original dates reported in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Reno Nims. Virginia Butler.

Though the study of human-prey animal relationships in the Pacific Northwest has focused largely on salmonid species (family Salmonidae) and their hypothetical connections to ancient increases in social complexity, a growing body of research demonstrates that many more fishes than have been previously recognized played key roles in the diets and social systems of peoples past and present. The Tse-whit-zen fauna, with over 80,000 fish bone specimens identified by ongoing zooarchaeological...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Laura Phillips. Frances Charles.

More than 900 incised and painted pebbles were recovered from the Tse-whit-zen Site in Port Angeles WA, yet, few have been reported elsewhere in the Pacific Northwest region. Similar stones from two sites on the Canadian side of the Strait of Juan de Fuca were reported by an art historian, but no spatial or temporal data was provided. Anecdotal accounts by archaeologists indicate that some incised stones have been found elsewhere in the Salish Sea, but have not yet been reported in...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kristine Bovy. Michael Etnier.

Birds are often relatively scarce in Northwest Coast shell middens in comparison to fish, mammal and shellfish. However, large numbers of bird bones have been recovered from Tse-whit-zen. In fact, bird bones are both more numerous and more identifiable than mammal bones at the site. In the largest house structure, 47% of the bird bones greater than ¼" in size were identified to taxon (79% of those were identified to element). In contrast, the mammal identifiability rate ranged from 7% to...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Virginia Butler. Kristine Bovy. Sarah Campbell. Michael Etnier. Sarah Sterling.

On the northern Pacific Coast of North America, animals play an extremely important role in conceptual models related to hunter-gatherer evolution and social dynamics of household production and resource control. Our ability to rigorously apply faunal remains to these models is limited by substantial data requirements including well-documented contexts, high-resolution chronology, control over complex site formation processes and taphonomy, as well as large sample sizes. Unique circumstances...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Sarah Campbell. William Damitio. Ryan Desrosiers.

In faunal analysis, rare taxa can potentially provide valuable biogeographic or socioeconomic information, but are inherently difficult to interpret and to integrate with quantitative measures. Working with extremely large assemblages highlights these issues. Among the half million specimens of shell identified from the Tse-Whitzen village site are more than 20 taxa represented by less than 30 specimens. There is no single explanation for the presence of taxa in very low numbers, and the...