Patrick M Ritchie

We scrutinize previously untranslated field notebooks of Franz Boas
that relate to the lower Fraser River region of coastal British
Columbia, and contextualize the historical and social position of
his principle interlocutor, siyá:m George StsEē’lis. In doing so, we
reposition the available documentary evidence about this siyá:m
for a different perspective on his people’s history than has been
written. The central themes emerging from our study provide
new insights into genealogy and inheritance, marriage alliances,
and the nature of leadership during a socially tumultuous time.
These insights in turn are the key to interpreting conflicting
anthropological narratives that continue to undermine an
indigenous communities’ assertions of identity, history, and
territorial rights.

This article examines the social and political implications of the
geographically widespread and cross-cultural oral narratives related to the releases of salmon into the rivers of the Pacific Northwest through the destruction of weir-dams. Key themes in these narratives provide insights into indigenous concepts of reciprocity and authority, which in turn reveal dimensions of social organization and intercommunity interactions from a new perspective. These narratives explicitly foreground the inevitable tensions between communities that relied on salmon and also sought to prioritize their own interests, seeking exclusive use of weirs, occasionally to the detriment of other groups. This study illustrates how these narratives convey episodes of contradictory interests, exploitation, social struggle, reconciliation, and a moral charter for communities over a broad area. The analysis also highlights how the messages of these narratives are just as pertinent today as they were in the past.

Short-lived occupation sites are the most common component of the archaeological record at the regional scale level, but are often underrepresented due to their low amount of cultural material and greater visibility of larger sites. Small ephemeral sites can however provide unique information regarding land and resource use, travel routes, harvesting practices, group size, food processing, ceremonial activities and chronology of occupation, especially in pre-urban societies. One of the most prominent proxies for short-lived occupation is combustion features, defined as accumulations of ash, burnt bones, heat-altered sediments and stone tools. These features provide insights into behavioral evolution, food consumption, settlement patterns and foraging strategies, and the preservation of the archaeological record. To obtain this information, a microscopic level of investigation is required in order to address the chemical and mineralogical characteristics of combustion features. We deployed such kind of microarchaeological approach to the study of combustion features at the DjRr-4 rock shelter along the Indian River, British Columbia, settled by Coast Salish peoples at least 1300 years ago. Using a combination of micromorphology of sediments, phytolith and diatom analysis, paleobotany, zooarchaeology, lithic analysis and radiocarbon dating, we were able to show that the shelter was used intermittently over short time spans as a base camp for hunting, likely as a station along a trail that connected the coast to interior regions. Our results are consistent with chronological data for the region and with the adoption of bow and arrow by Coast Salish peoples.

Archaeological interpretations of continuity and abandonment can have significant implications for descendent communities. Such interpretations are contingent on the social and spatial scale of analysis. We assess the evidence for continuity among the Coast Salish at four of social-spatial scales using a suite of radiocarbon dates derived from Tsleil-Wat (Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm) and the Fraser Valley (∼3500–250 cal BP). We define continuity as the ability to pass on place-based knowledge inter-generationally – conservatively a span of 60 years. For each social-spatial scale, we evaluate whether we have the minimum number of radiocarbon dates required to assess continuity. We also utilize demographic modeling of the radiocarbon dates to evaluate whether there are significant gaps in the data that would indicate discontinuities in occupation. Overlapping radiocarbon dates suggest continuity at various social-spatial scales, but our ability to detect long-term continuity increases with sample size and size of the social-spatial unit. The modeling did not reveal gaps in occupation , but low statistical power limits our ability to make conclusive interpretations. These analyses highlight both the importance of choosing appropriate scales of analysis and the potential limitations of archaeological data sets for evaluating continuity at culturally meaningful scales in the past.

The florescence of large, regional radiocarbon data sets allows archaeologists to examine fine-scale, local changes in demography and settlement that are not tied to regional culture historical frameworks. We compile 599 radiocarbon dates from 95 archaeological sites in the Fraser Valley of British Columbia and use two complimentary approaches to explore how populations are distributed over time and across the region. First, we apply a summed probability distribution model to the dataset; this model indicates that populations generally increased over the Holocene with a significant rise 800–600 years ago. We then divide our data into 250-year periods and classify each site based on the number of houses, as a large settlement, small settlement, or camp for every period. We observe that the relative numbers of these site types fluctuate through time, and hypothesize that the larger fluctuations indicate changing patterns of social aggregation and dispersal, and settlement abandonment and reoccupation. Through time we see an increase in the number of sites overall, but with considerable variation in the relative number of site types. We see an underlying stability in settlement organization indicative of long-term cultural continuity and place-based identities linked to both specific sites and general locations within the region.

Edible root resources were widely cultivated and consumed by First Peoples throughout North America from the early to mid-Holocene to historic times. In recent decades, archaeobotanists, ethnobotanists,
archaeologists, and traditional knowledge-holders have explored and clarified many aspects of root food ecology, production, and exchange. This paper focuses on camas, considered a cultural keystone species across much of western North America because of its high cultural value and influence in defining the cultural identities and land use of resident communities. While historic camas use by First Peoples has been widely documented throughout the Pacific Northwest, the archaeology of camas is little known at coastal sites. This paper presents evidence for a concentration of camas bulbs (Camassia spp.) found in an earth oven complex within an ancient Sts’ailes (Chehalis) village in the Upper Fraser Valley of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. We contextualize this find by exploring the abundant ethnobotanical and ethnohistoric camas literature in order to create a picture of the production and exchange of camas amongst coastal communities of the Northwest Coast. We analyze direct and indirect sources of archaeological data for coastal camas production, which helps us to evaluate questions raised by the presence of this resource 150 km outside of its historical growing range.

Legacy is defined as something handed down from the past, like a gift, object, idea, or heritage of an ancestor. The idea of legacy is perhaps most often used in connection with the achievements of an individual, but the concept has been adapted to many other contexts. For instance, ecologists increasingly recognize the prevalence of “land-use legacies”—where past land-use has influenced contemporary ecological patterns
and processes. We can also identify legacies of land use passed on from earlier eras in archaeological contexts. In this paper, we consider
the legacy of red elderberry (Sambucus racemosa) use at two archaeological sites in Tseil-waututh territory, in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. The formation of many contemporary landscapes is
the result of both ecological factors and the legacy of lives lived on the land. Worldwide, we know that almost all ecosystems have been in some way altered by ancient and on-going human actions.

During the pre-contact period, the Harrison River was a major cultural and economic area within the lower Fraser River region and an important transportation corridor linking the coast and interior. Early ethnographers recognized the importance that this waterway and its people had on the coastal-interior interaction sphere. However, despite this early anthropological interest, very little is known about this region archaeologically. Though the research at Chehalis has only just begun, it has the potential to make a substantial contribution to the current understanding of pre-contact Coast Salish society, and the Northwest Coast more broadly.