Pipes and Smoking in Pre-Contact Pacific Northwest North America

Summary

Smoking has been practiced by native peoples throughout the inland Pacific Northwest—and especially along the Columbia and Fraser River systems—for several millennia. This is evinced by the presence of stone pipes and pipe fragments in sites across the region. This poster presents the spatial and chronological distribution of archaeological smoking pipes throughout the inland Pacific Northwest based on literature and database searches, with a particular focus on those collections held or formerly held by the Washington State University Museum of Anthropology. In addition, the results of chemical residue analyses determining the material smoked in a number of pipes and pipe fragments from sites spanning the region will be reviewed, including the results of new testing by the authors. The research, developed in collaboration with indigenous communities in the USA and Canada, sheds light on the practice of smoking in the past and addresses questions relating to pipe form and distribution and the traditional use and management of smoke plants throughout the Pacific Northwest.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17284