Cetacean Hunting on the northern Oregon Coast: Evidence from the Par-Tee Site (35CLT20)

Summary

Indigenous whale hunting on the Pacific Northwest Coast is predominately associated with whaling cultures north of Oregon in northern Washington and British Columbia’s Vancouver Island. Ethnographic and ethno-historical records from the northern Oregon Coast suggests whaling occurred locally, at least opportunistically. To date the only physical evidence of local whaling is a humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) phalanx with an embedded elk (Cervus elaphus) bone harpoon point. A calibrated date for the embedded harpoon places the whale-hunting event between ~ cal AD 430 and 550. These dates suggest that whale hunting took place on the Oregon Coast more than a millennium before historic contact. This paper synthesizes recent research on Oregon Coast whaling including ethnographic and ethno-historical data, artifact analysis, and blood residue analysis to investigate whale hunting during prehistoric times along the northern Oregon Coast.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Whales and Whaling: New Perspectives and Approaches for Documenting Long-Term Exploitation of Cetaceans

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15122