1973 Biderbost (45SN100) Ancient Basketry and Cordage Collection Characterized and Compared to Other Wet Archaeological Site Collections Along the Northwest Coast of North America

Dale R. Croes

doi:10.7273/000008400

The Biderbost wet archaeological site was excavated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, approximately 50 years ago, by the Washington Archaeological Society (WAS) from the banks of the Snoqualmie River, Snoqualmie Tribe traditional territory, near Duvall, Washington, USA (Figure 1). The recovery represents the first larger scale wet/waterlogged site removal of preserved wood and fiber artifacts, especially ancient basketry and cordage, from along the Northwest Coast of North America. The site was dated to approximately 2,000 years ago (Nordquist 1976). In 1973 I was conducting my research on basketry and cordage from the Makah Ozette Village wet site for my dissertation and visited and recorded (in photographs, drawings, data sheets and pin cards (see above)) the Biderbost collection in Del Nordquist’s garage where 70% of it was stored at that time. The site was misnamed Biederbost in many articles (the actual owners name was Biderbost) so it is call this in the dissertation (Croes 1977). The Biderbost site represents one of the largest and most complete ancient basketry and cordage wet site collections. This collection would be an ideal basis for a museum presentation on ancestral Coast Salish and Snoqualmie people’s basketry and cordage from a major fishing camp on the Snoqualmie River. Being approximately 2,000 years old, the site demonstrates an early and highly sophisticated ancient Coast Salish tradition of basketry, with large pack baskets made of what appears to be cedar splints and with structural reinforcement rows, cordage handles with elaborate criss-cross wrapped rims. Several 2-3 strand twisted ropes twisted of cedar boughs may represent harpoon lines or net edge-lines. This Snoqualmie River site deserves a detailed and complete analysis and cataloging, including cellular identification of the basketry/cordage plant materials, as a basis for future museum exhibit planning. My goal here is to report how I characterized this important collection over 40 years ago so an expanded and more comprehensive analysis and synthesis can be made of the complete collection currently housed at the U.W. Burke Museum. The synthesized collection is 30% larger than the collection in the garage I recorded in 1973 (Laura Phillips, U.W. Burke Museum Archaeological Collections Manager, personal communcations 2014). This objective was accomplished with our publication of Re-Awakening Ancient Salish Sea Basketry, Fifty Years of Basketry Studies in Culture and Science (2018) by Ed Carriere and Dale R. Croes (available in hard copy from Amazon).

1973 Biderbost (45SN100) Ancient Basketry and Cordage Collection Characterized and Compared to Other Wet Archaeological Site Collections Along the Northwest Coast of North America

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