Zooarchaeology of the pre-Contact Northwest coast of North America

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory G. Monks
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Contact Period ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Short History ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Klamath River ◽  
Culture Area

The Northwest Coast of North America (NWC) is a culture area that extends from the Klamath River in northern California to Yakutat Bay in southeastern Alaska. The area’s topography varies from a relatively linear open Pacific shoreline in Oregon and Washington to a highly irregular shoreline of islands, archipelagos, and fjords with mountains often descending precipitously into the sea. Archaeology on the Northwest Coast of North America has a relatively short history, and zooarchaeology has an even shorter one. This paper presents a summary of that history for the pre-contact period, traces the research that has been done to date and suggests some directions for future studies.

Hierarchy, Communalism, and the Spatial Order of Northwest Coast Plank Houses: A Comparative Study

2009 ◽  
Vol 74 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Coupland ◽  
Terence Clark ◽  
Amanda Palmer
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Relative Importance ◽  
Prominent Feature ◽  
Spatial Order ◽  
Apparent Contradiction ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Culture Area ◽  
The Relationship

The tension between hierarchy and communalism is a prominent feature of social life in transegalitarian societies. How are hierarchy and communalism combined in these societies? How are they materialized in everyday life? In this paper, we examine the relationship between hierarchy and communalism in the transegalitarian societies of the Northwest Coast of North America. We focus on households, the primary socioeconomic units of the culture area, and on the plank houses that contained them. Despite the apparent contradiction between hierarchy and communalism, we find that in Northwest Coast households with highly developed social hierarchies, communal practices remained deeply entrenched, while in households with weaker hierarchies, communalism was less developed. The relative importance of hierarchy and communalism in daily household life was clearly materialized in the spatial order of plank houses. By simultaneously objectifying both principles, the house may have played an important role in easing the tension between them.

The Occurrence and Significance of Southwestern Grooved Axes in California

1946 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 187-193 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert F. Heizer
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Southern California ◽  
Primary Field ◽  
Direct Influence ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Western North America ◽  
Culture Area ◽  
Unfamiliar Object

To the archaeologist whose primary field of endeavor is California, the grooved stone ax is a relatively unfamiliar object, since it occurs but rarely either in the course of excavation or in the perusal of the literature. That the grooved ax occurs at all in this region is significant, chiefly for the reason that in western North America it is a form highly characteristic of, and, with few exceptions, restricted to the Southwestern culture province proper. Since southern California is generally considered a western peripheral extension of the Southwestern culture area, it is not surprising occasionally to encounter the grooved ax here. It is interesting to note that this implement also occurs far to the northward in central and northeastern California, a region commonly thought to be beyond the zone of direct influence by or immediate contact with the Southwest proper. Presumably the grooved ax in central and northern California represents an extreme northwesterly extension from its native locale, which we assume to be the Southwest.

scholarly journals Referee statement on Technology as Human Social Tradition: 15 Trait-Based Datasets of Hunter-Gatherer Material Culture (Northwest Siberia, Pacific Northwest Coast, Northern California). Data Paper

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Prentiss
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Pacific Northwest ◽  
Northwest Coast ◽  
Northern California ◽  
Coast Salish ◽  
Pacific Northwest Coast ◽  
Social Tradition

The data provide significant opportunities for new investigations. The data are structured in such a way that each of Jordan's studies can be replicated spanning Khanty, Coast Salish, and various Indigenous Californian technological traditions.

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