Anth 3511 Professor Gibbon
Later Prehistoric Societies of the Pacific
Coast
1.Introduction. Trend after 2000/1000 BC on Northwest Coast and
coastal California toward dense populations, social stratification, large
semi-permanent settlements, and intense economic specialization. Some of
the world's most socially and politically complex hunter-gatherer societies
at contact.
2. Northwest Coast (c. 1000 BC to modern times)
A. Characteristics of Northwest Coast prehistory after 1000 BC:
(1) Increasingly large, semi-sedentary large villages with 20-60 people
in large plank houses.
(2) Spread of bow and arrow (after c. 500 BC)
(3) Rapid rise in locally dense human populations.
(4) Regular conflict, warfare; settlements fortified and placed in defensible
positions in some areas.
(5) Redistribution of food resources and heavy reliance on stored food.
(6) Intense manipulation of the environment (e.g., fish weirs, harvesting
of fish).
(7) Increase in social and political complexity; ranked societies with
chiefs, an elite, and commoners denoted by status markers such as differences
in house size, hat shapes, tattoos. Altered organization of domestic activities
(i.e., commoners did the work).
(8) Increase in large-scale regional social networks whose members were
marked by diagnostic ornaments, tattoos, and associated art styles.
B. Why did cultural complexity emerge?
(1) "Garden of Eden" hypothesis: abundant and predictable
food resources
(2) Population increase: More efficient ways of exploiting rich marine
food resources to feed a rising population led to emerge of a managerial
elite.
(3) Power, prestige, and competition for resources. Once populations
were 'packed' and could not move away Big Men grabbed power and vied with
each other for prestige and wealth.
(4) Combination theories (e.g., population packing, local resource depletion,
uneven resource distribution, greater focus on anadromous (river spawning)
and offshore fish. Efficient exploitation required managerial elite to
coordinate work and redistribute resulting food.)
Other points of interest:
(1) Archaeologists use indicators to identify cultural items such as
'ranked society': status artifacts, house size differences, warfare, cranial
deformation, hat shapes. Archaeological and cultural context. Scale of
usefulness of 0-10.
(2) Social complexity on Northwest Coast waxed and waned in areas.
(3) Although a modern climate by c.3500 BC, still many temperature and
moisture fluctuations (see table at end of notes).
(4) Noteworthy sites: Hoke River Sites complex and Ozette (Cape Flattery)
on the Olympic Peninsula.
(5) Historic links: Athapaskan-speaking Eyak, Tlingit, and Haida to
north; Penutian-speaking Tsimshian in British Columbia, Wakashan speakers
(Bella Bella, Kwakiutl, Nootka), and Coast Salish speakers to south.
Interior Plateau (8500 BC to modern times)
A. Between Pacific Coast and Great Basin. Bisected by Columbia (south)
and Fraser (north) rivers, which dominate the Plateau. Dry and open in
south, wooded to north. Western Plateau linked to Northwest Coast, eastern
to Great Basin.
B. Earliest occupants Clovis tradition hunters. By 8500 BC San Dieguito
complex broad-spectrum Archaic hunter-gatherer way of life established.
Archaic projectile points, scrapers, knives, choppers, milling stones.
Marmes Rockshelter and Windust Caves on Lower Snake River, Lind Coulee
in eastcentral Washington, Drynoch on Fraser River, The Dalles on Columbia
River. General characteristics:
(1) At contact, Salish speakers in north, Penutian speakers in south.
(2) Winter pithouse villages, increased fishing, and greater concentration
on plant foods at least by 3000 BC. Number and size of pithouse settlements
increase with time. Riverside winter villages of 5-10 large, substantial,
semi-subterranean earth lodges established by 500 BC (if not 3000 BC).
(3) Classic western Plateau way of life based on summer salmon fishing
(stored for winter), large winter settlements in sheltered major canyons,
scatter in spring and fall to hunt and gather camas lily and other roots
in the uplands. Fewer, more scattered food resources in eastern Plateau.
(4) Specialized, more complex tools appear with increasing focus on
fish (e.g., barbed fish spears, composite toggling harpoons, nets, and
weirs). Bow and arrows by 500 BC.
(5) Earth ovens to roast large quantities of wild onions, balsam roots,
and other tubers
(6) Complex trade networks established with neighboring areas by 2500
BC (sea shells, turquoise, fish grease, slaves, hides, exotic raw materials);
trade fairs at strategic locations.
D. The most nearly complete and best-described cultural sequence is
for the lower Snake River. Windust, Cascade, Tucannan, and Harder phases.
Emerge in history as the Net Perce.
E. The Dalles of the Columbia River a long narrows filled with rapids
(5 Mile Rapids). The most productive salmon fishery on the Plateau at contact.
California (c. 1000 BC to modern times)
A. General characteristics:
(1) Great diversity of languages and societies, from small, mobile bands
to large settlements with chiefs. 300,000 people in California at contact.
(2) Many local adaptations, but basic coastal way of life involved acorn
and other root harvesting in fall, sea mammal hunting and ocean fishing
in spring and summer, and use of stored foods in winter villages. Hunting
year round. Artifacts essentially the same along coast with local styles.
(3) Managed food resources with burning, planting, etc.
(4) Non-egalitarian social ranking around Big Men (chiefs). Result of
population increase, packing, circumscribed territories, uneven distribution
of food resources? Led to complex exchange networks based on kin ties,
alliances, ritual obligations, etc
.
(5) Shell bead money in south to exchange for important resources. Reciprocity
on the north coast (few concentrated important food resources that could
be controlled by a local elite).
(6) Periodic resource stress caused by environmental shifts, etc., may
have been a stimulus to social and political change (e.g., more efficient
organization ofresource acquisition activities).
B. Local sequences, such as Gunther and Augustine patterns in north, and
Windmiller, Berkeley, and Augustine patterns on central Coast. C. Osteobiography.
Use of skeletal evidence to reconstruct life histories.
(1) Use stable isotope analysis on human bone collagen (a fibrous protein
constituent ofbone) to demonstrate that people closer to marine environments
relied more on marine foods than those inland.
(2) Island women had more severe dental caries than men because ate
more plant foods until marine resources became more important.
(3) Shift to sea foods led to increased arthritis in both men and women,
and less stress to women' s backs and knees as a result of plant processing.
(4) With unequal food redistribution after AD 500 see more malnutrition
reflected in dental hypoplasia. Also dramatic increase in wounds caused
by bow and arrow, which reached California c. AD 500.
.
Postglacial climatic episodes in North America (after Reid Bryson)
| Climate episode |
sub-episode |
dates |
character |
| |
Modern |
1915 |
warmer |
| |
Neo-Boreal (Little Ice Age) |
|
colder |
| |
|
1550 |
|
| |
Pacific |
|
cooler |
| Post Sub-Atlantic |
|
1150/1200 |
|
| |
Neo-Atlantic |
|
Medieval |
| |
|
700/750 |
Warm period |
| |
Scandic |
|
|
| |
|
AD 300/400 |
|
| Sub-Atlantic |
|
|
cooler |
| |
|
950 BC |
|
| Sub-Boreal |
|
|
glacial advances |
| |
|
3000 BC |
|
| Atlantic (Climatic Optimum) |
|
|
very warm, dry |
| |
|
6000 BC |
|
| Boreal |
|
|
glacial advances |
| |
|
7200 BC |
|
| Pre-Boreal |
|
|
rapid warming |
| |
|
8500 BC |
|