Our understanding of the precontact nature of the Northwest Coast has changed dramatically over the last twenty years. This book brings together the most recent research on the culture history and archaeology of a region of longstanding anthropological importance, whose complex societies represent the most prominent examples of hunters and gatherers. Combining archaeology, ethnohistory, and ethnography, this collection investigates several aspects of this cultural complexity, carrying on the intellectual traditions of Donald H. Mitchell and Wayne Suttles.
For more than ten thousand years, Native Americans from Alaska to southern California relied on aquatic animals such as seals, sea lions, and sea otters for food and raw materials. Archaeological research on the interactions between people and these marine mammals has made great advances recently and provides a unique lens for understanding the human and ecological past. Archaeological research is also emerging as a crucial source of information on contemporary environmental issues as we improve our understanding of the ancient abundance, ecology, and natural history of these species. This groundbreaking interdisciplinary volume brings together archaeologists, biologists, and other scientists to consider how archaeology can inform the conservation and management of pinnipeds and other marine mammals along the Pacific Coast.
The Salish Archipelago includes more than 400 islands in the Salish Sea, an amalgamation of Canada’s Georgia Strait, the United States’ Puget Sound, and the shared Strait of Juan de Fuca. The Salish Sea and Islands are named for the Coast Salish Indigenous Peoples whose homelands extend across the region. Holiday homes and services have in many places displaced pristine ecosystems, Indigenous communities, and historic farms. Will age-old island environments and communities withstand the forces of commodity-driven economies? This new, major scholarly undertaking provides the geographical and historical background for exploring such questions. Salish Archipelago features sections on environment, history, society, and management, accompanied by numerous maps and other illustrations. This diverse collection offers an overview of an embattled, but resilient, region, providing knowledge and perspectives of interest to residents, educators, and policy makers.
For over 50 years, J. V. Wright was a ground-breaking leader and inspiring mentor for the Canadian archaeological profession. This publication brings together 23 scholarly articles on various aspects of Canada’s ancient past that pay tribute to and reflect J. V. Wright’s diverse geographic and cultural interests in relation to Canadian archaeology and pre-history. This exceptional festschrift includes an annotated bibliography of J. V. Wright’s works.
This book contributes to the current discussion on climate change by presenting selected studies on the ways in which past human groups responded to climatic and environmental change. In particular, the chapters show how these responses are seen in the animal remains that people left behind in their occupation sites. Many of these bones represent food remains, so the environments in which these animals lived can be identified and human use of those environments can be understood. In the case of climatic change resulting in environmental change, these animal remains can indicate that a change has occurred, in climate, environment and human adaptation, and can also indicate the specific details of those changes.
Animals have played a fundamental role in shaping human history, and the study of their remains from archaeological sites - zooarchaeology - has gradually been emerging as a powerful discipline and crucible for forging an understanding of our past. This Handbook offers a cutting-edge, global compendium of zooarchaeology that seeks to provide a holistic view of the role played by animals in past human cultures. Case studies from across five continents explore ahuge range of human-animal interactions from an array of geographical, historical, and cultural contexts, and also illuminate the many approaches and methods adopted by different schools and traditions instudying these relationships.
Archaeology of Households, Kinship, and Social Change offers new perspectives on the processes of social change from the standpoint of household archaeology. This volume develops new theoretical and methodological approaches to the archaeology of households pursuing three critical themes: household diversity in human residential communities with and without archaeologically identifiable houses, interactions within and between households that explicitly considers impacts of kin and non-kin relationships, and lastly change as a process that involves the choices made by members of households in the context of larger societal constraints. Encompassing these themes, authors explore the role of social ties and their material manifestations (within the house, dwelling, or other constructed space), how the household relates to other social units, how households consolidate power and control over resources, and how these changes manifest at multiple scales. The case studies presented in this volume have broader implications for understanding the drivers of change, the ways households create the contexts for change, and how households serve as spaces for invention, reaction, and/or resistance. Understanding the nature of relationships within households is necessary for a more complete understanding of communities and regions as these ties are vital to explaining how and why societies change. Taking a comparative outlook, with case studies from around the world, this volume will inform students and professionals researching household archaeology and be of interest to other disciplines concerned with the relationship between social networks and societal change.
Winner of the 2020 Basil Stuart Stubbs Prize Winner of the 2019 Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Historical Writing A celebration of the richly diverse flora and fauna of Vancouver Island as explored through the records of explorers, settlers, and visitors, and with due respect to the wealth of Indigenous traditional knowledge of the island’s ecosystems. In Nature’s Realm gathers initial reports, recorded histories, and personal accounts left by Vancouver Island’s early naturalists who studied the region’s flora and fauna. Many, such as Archibald Menzies, accompanied English and Spanish explorations investigating the coastal geography for colonial expansion. Doctor–naturalists such as John Scouler, David Douglas, and Robert Brown worked with the Hudson’s Bay Company and collected specimens. Irish-born John Macoun, a renowned naturalist, brought his expertise to Vancouver Island, as did botanical artists Sarah Lindley (Lady Crease) and Emily Henrietta Woods. In Nature’s Realm is a companion volume to Layland’s two previous titles: A Perfect Eden: Encounters by Early Explorers of Vancouver Island, shortlisted for a BC Book Prize in two categories; and The Land of Heart's Delight: Early Maps and Charts of Vancouver Island, shortlisted for the Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Prize, and for the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize.
This Element provides an overview of pre-modern and ancient economies of the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The region is widely known for its densely occupied semisedentary villages, intensive production economies, dramatic ritual life, and complex social relations. Scholars recognize significant diversity in the structure of subsistence and goods production in the service of domestic groups and institutional entities throughout the region. Here, domestic and institutional economies, specialization, distribution, economic development, and future directions are reviewed. The Element closes with thoughts on the processes of socio-economic change on the scales of houses, villages, and regional strategies.
Demonstrating the wide variation among complex hunter-gatherer communities in coastal settings This book explores the forms and trajectories of social complexity among fisher-hunter-gatherers who lived in coastal, estuarine, and riverine settings in precolumbian North America. Through case studies from several different regions and intellectual traditions, the contributors to this volume collectively demonstrate remarkable variation in the circumstances and histories of complex hunter-gatherers in maritime environments. The volume draws on archaeological research from the North Pacific and Alaska, the Pacific Northwest coast and interior, the California Channel Islands, and the southeastern U.S. and Florida. Contributors trace complex social configurations through monumentality, ceremonialism, territoriality, community organization, and trade and exchange. They show that while factors such as boat travel, patterns of marine and riverine resource availability, and sedentism and village formation are common unifying threads across the continent, these factors manifest in historically contingent ways in different contexts. Fisher-Hunter-Gatherer Complexity in North America offers specific, substantive examples of change and transformation in these communities, emphasizing the wide range of complexity among them. It considers the use of the term complex hunter-gatherer and what these case studies show about the value and limitations of the concept, adding nuance to an ongoing conversation in the field. Contributors: J. Matthew Compton | C. Trevor Duke | Mikael Fauvelle | Caroline Funk | Colin Grier | Ashley Hampton | Bobbi Hornbeck | Christopher S. Jazwa | Tristram R. Kidder | Isabelle H. Lulewicz | Jennifer E. Perry | Christina Perry Sampson | Thomas J. Pluckhahn | Anna Marie Prentiss | Scott D. Sunell | Ariel Taivalkoski | Victor D. Thompson | Alexandra Williams-Larson A volume in the series Society and Ecology in Island and Coastal Archaeology, edited by Victor D. Thompson and Scott M. Fitzpatrick
