It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times: Mobility and Subsistence in a Tale of Two Sites in the Smith River Basin of Northwestern California

This symposium will present information from several sites that have been investigated in recent years in the Smith River Basin of northwestern California, an area in which little archaeological work has been done in recent decades. Red Elderberry Place (CA-DNO-26), a habitation site in Jedidiah Smith State Park on a low terrace above the main branch of the Smith River, contains evidence of multiple occupations spanning the Early Holocene (ca. 9000 -7000 B.P.) to the late 19th Century Tolowa, including plank houses dating to several of these occupations. Approximately 25 river kilometers upstream from Red Elderberry Place, excavation at the Hurdy Gurdy Bridge site (CA-DNO-1028) at the confluence of Hurdygurdy Creek and the South Fork that contained evidence of intermittent occupation from the Early Holocene to the late Contact Period. This symposium will update the prehistory of the Smith River Basin and provide insight into how mobility and subsistence strategies changed through time and differed between points along the river in response to changing social and natural environments.