Lithic Raw Materials and Social Landscapes: Mica-Lamented Quartzite Tools from Slocan Narrows, Upper Columbia River Area

Summary

Utilitarian stone tools produced from raw materials that are linked to a place or landscape of significant social, ritual, and economic importance likely still carry that importance when tools are transported away from their source. Such objects can serve as indices of social relationships, economic priorities, and ritual practices. By transporting and using these objects, communities would have daily reminders of their connections to important places and activities that take place there. Ethnographically, the Sinixt People of the Upper Columbia seasonally migrated within their territorial range from Kettle Falls, WA north to Revelstoke, BC. Slocan Narrows is a pithouse village located in the center of that traditional territory. Excavations at Slocan Narrows recovered an assemblage of mica-lamented quartzite tools from a geological formation at Kettle Falls, nearly 200km away. We demonstrate the utilitarian use of these quartzite tools through microwear and experimental analysis in conjunction with archaeological and ethnographic contexts. We suggest the daily practice of using these tools at Slocan Narrows linked inhabitants at the site to prominent fishing grounds at Kettle Falls that had social, economic, and ritual significance. This highlights the importance lithic raw materials can have in conveying social information and connecting people to landscapes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 83rd Annual Meeting, Washington, DC (2018)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 21097