to be published somewhere soon...
The Archaeology of The Dalles Area: Precontact Settlement and Subsistence
by Paul S. Solimano and Daniel M. Gilmour
Introduction
The Archaeology of The Dalles Area: Precontact Settlement and Subsistence
by Paul S. Solimano and Daniel M. Gilmour
Introduction
The stretch of the Columbia River around The Dalles, Oregon,
holds a special position in Pacific Northwest anthropology. Before twentieth
century hydropower development, the Columbia River was recognized as one of the
greatest salmon-producing rivers in the world (Butler and O’Connor 2004;
Northwest Power Planning Council 2000), with the ten mile stretch between The
Dalles and the mouth of the Deschutes River a foremost North American precontact
Native fishery. (Butler and O’Connor 2004; Netboy 1980) (Figure 1). Ethnographic
and ethnohistoric accounts detail large, dense populations, villages, and
complex seasonal movements (DeSmet 1978; Moulton 1991; Stern 1998; Wilkes 1844).
Records show the area was the center of an extensive travel and trade network
connecting people from as far away as the Pacific coast, Canada, California,
and the Bitterroot Mountains (Anastasio 1972; Hayden and Schulting 1997; Stern 1998).
Intensive fishing with complex systems of rights and access is also documented
(Boyd 1996; French 1961; French and French 1998; Spier and Sapir 1930). Ninety
years of archaeological work, albeit with varying degrees of professionalism,
has revealed numerous large, dense sites with deposits spanning the Holocene
and containing some of the most extraordinary precontact material culture known
on the Columbia Plateau (Minor 1988a, 1988b).
As a result, Northwest archaeologists have generally viewed The
Dalles area as having some of the most complex cultural systems on the Plateau
during the precontact period (Ames et al. 1998; Butler 1993; Hayden and
Schulting 1997; Minor 1988b, 1988c, 2012). Minor (1988c:76) succinctly
expresses the common view among archaeologists when he states:
“If the assumption is accepted that elaboration in material
culture in the form of wealth items, mortuary goods, and portable and rock art
are intimately associated with social organization and ideological systems, then
the level of cultural complexity in the Dalles-Deschutes area was higher than
in any other area of the Columbia Plateau in prehistoric times, perhaps
rivaling the classic cultures of the Northwest Coast.”
Despite this special place in the region and a large number of
recorded sites, numerous and sometimes vast excavations and staggering numbers
of collected artifacts, our understanding of precontact settlement and
subsistence for The Dalles area remains nearly non-existent.
