The Archaeology of The Dalles Area: Precontact Settlement and Subsistence

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 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. 

Thin Archaeology

Saw a great talk yesterday. Ken Ames repeated his NWAC keynote address for a PSU audience. The talk was worth it both times, although he did have more of a rush going for the first one, which is hard to recreate.

The thing that struck me was the idea of a “thin” understanding of the past. That is, our knowledge is often dependent on a few sites or a small amount of data. It appears robust and detailed, but one new discovery can change everything.

Some thoughts on prehistoric land use in NE Oregon

So…first blog, first blog entry. Not quite sure what to write, so might as well start off with what I have been working on recently. Two weeks ago, I attended the Northwest Anthropological Conference (NWAC) in Newport, Oregon. Saw a number of good papers, some not so good. In general, the conference was fun and informative.

I presented on some stuff I have been playing with for a little while. It was a pretty simple review of prehistoric land use in the Blue Mountains of NE Oregon. The data was collected for a recent project, but as the project is probably canceled, I thought I should proceed with using the data and what I learned. May work it up into an article.

I only used excavated data, no site forms, ethnographic or historic information. That's all great stuff, but I wanted to try and get a grip on what we are learning from the archaeology. There were a lot of problems with the data. For some strange reason, no one in that part of the state puts quantitative data in tables, which makes collecting info pretty hard.

Anyway, I ended up with about 18 temporally discreet sites dating to the Middle Holocene (8,000 to 4,000) and Late Holocene (4,000 to 0). I used diversity and cluster analysis to try and define site types, then sees how these types varied over time and space.

There were no significant differences in diversity or elevation between the Middle and Late Holocene assemblages.

The most satisfactory clustering provided two primary clusters:

Cluster 1, which included most of the sites, was richer and more even. Overall, these sites seem to have a generalize suite of tools. The mean elevation for Cluster 1 sites is lower and they occur in both the Middle and Late Holocene.

Cluster 2 included three sites, which were less rich and more uneven. This clusters formation appeared driven by very high densities of used flakes, maybe more cores and cobble choppers, but fewer scrapers. I included a site that had only four points and lots of bison bone into this cluster. Due to the small number of tools, I had excluded it from clustering. The mean elevation for Cluster 2 sites is higher and they occur only in the Late Holocene.

All differences in diversity and elevation were significant (p<0.05).>

Overall, it appears land use diversifies in the Late Holocene. At least two types of specialize sites occur and activities are segregated across the landscape.

What’s really important here is what we don’t have. We don’t have villages (at least no housepits), clear quarry sites or specialized plant processing sites. Their lack is probably a sampling issue. We just have not excavated any of these types of site yet. But, that may also not be the case.

Take the lack of quarry sites. The assemblages from 35UN52, the Stockoff Quarry site, don’t really look like a quarry. Assemblages are large and diverse, with moderate biface densities and only a little early reduction debitage. The site seems to be a generalized residential site, rather than a specialized quarry site. Thus, it’s probably a logistical base. While it was certainly used while quarrying basalt at the nearby outcrops, the lack of a typical quarry signature suggests we may be looking at an embedded raw material procurement system.

I would have to do some more analysis, but I also think projectile point densities increase in the Late Holocene, while groundstone decreases. As noted above, this could be a sampling issue and we just have not excavated specialized plant sites. But it does seem that ground stone is more rare at sites dating after about 4,000 years ago. Maybe we are seeing an increase in the importance of hunting and a decrease in plant processing. Hmmm.

What’s really fascinating about all this is all the possibilities for research. I really like this approach for getting a handle on archaeological work.