Exploring prehistoric subsistence change on the Northwest Coast

Dale Croes

Over the past 10 years, we have conducted a collaborative research program at the Hoko River Archaeological Site Complex, northwestern Washington State, focused on deriving archaeological and environmental data needed to construct and test computer simulations predicting the process of subsistence change through time on the southern Northwest Coast of North America. The project researchers coordinated their efforts to develop increasingly effective strategies for collecting the environmental and archaeological data from the . archaeological site complex and region, so that the data could be used to best test the results of the computer simulations. This essay briefly reviews the simulation modeling approach and results, which have been reported in detail elsewhere (Croes & Hackenberger 1988), and more thoroughly tests the model with available Hoko River and regional archaeological data. The Hoko River Archaeological Site Complex provides evidence for 3,000 years of coastal occupation. It contains two temporally distinct major site areas: (1) an upriver waterlogged (wet) site and adjoining (dry) campsite area (45CA213), dating 3000-2000 BP; and (2) a river mouth living area within a large rockshelter (45CA21), occupied ca. 1000-100 BP. Archaeological data recovery from both sites provided distinct kinds of prehistoric remains, which were useful in different ways for testing the results of the computer simulations of subsistence change through time. The Hoko River wet site provides excellent preservation of perishable artifacts, allowing a much more complete understanding of procurement and processing equipment, such as fishing gear, butchering tools, and transporting equipment (i.e., pack baskets), as well as sensitive styles of basketry and cordage for intrasite comparisons and good preservation of faunal and floral remains reflecting resource uses (see Croes & Blinman 1980). The Hoko rockshelter site provides a classic shell midden site within a large rockshelter "container," with over 3.5 vertical meters and over 1,429 distinct layers representing several types of depositional features associated with occupations from the historic period back to approximately 1000 BP. Using a Harris-Winchester matrix, a 3-D time sequence of layers representing 18 activity episodes was distinguished and defined (Stucki n.d.). Within this geoarchaeological framework, the abundant shell midden vertebrate and invertebrate faunal remains provide the base data for studying subsistence change through time, providing abundant data for testing the evolution of economics as predicted in the simulation models (Wigen and Stucki 1988).

Exploring prehistoric subsistence change on the Northwest Coast

Files and links (1)

Abstract

Metrics

Details