VI. Far West Traditions

The Far West includes the Pacific Coast of North America with the Northwest Coast and California; and the Intermountain Region (between Sierra/Cascades and Rocky Mountains) that includes the Plateau and Basin. Some consider the American Southwest as part of what is called the West, but we will consider it separate in these notes and the course outline. The four areas of the Far West have their own particular differences that American Indians adapted to, which resulted in many different cultures. The common aspect is that these people were almost exclusively hunting and gathering (H&G). Also, the general environmental pattern is that the Northern areas are forested and in some cases are temperate rain forests with precipitation levels reaching 200+" rainfall per annum. As you travel into the Southern areas and east the environment becomes arid and semi-arid with precipitation dwindling down to < 15" rainfall per annum. Coastal environs, rivers, lakes, altitude, soil and relative orientation to the sun (North facing slopes vs. South facing slopes) further account for differences in weather and biological variations/diversity. The archaeological record and data tell a story of increasingly complex Archaic H&G adaptations by the people, in conjunction with climatic fluxuations referred to as:

 In actually there various small anathermals and altithermals, even as late as the 1940's and even today (with the resultant controversy of causes). So as people in the Far West improved their Archaic adaptations they were sometimes met with climatic changes with resultant socio-political crises, including the migration of new peoples.

We have simplified these changes into three basic phases Early (9,000-4500 BC) (11,000-6,500 BP), Middle (4,500-1,000 BC) (6,500-3,000BP) and Late (1000 BC - AD 1500) (3,000-500 BP). Such simplification has its drawbacks and distortions, but is useful in the beginning.

A. The Northwest Coast was inhabited by Paleo-Indian people and later groups from the Arctic, Subarctic, and Plateau. Recent genetic evidence indicates the people of the Northwest today have a much greater diversity than was ever imagined for such a narrow geographic region. The Cascades and the Rockies come together in British Columbia that forms a weather barrier very close to the Pacific Ocean. The mountains eventually run into the ocean at Glacier Bay, Alaska. The warm Japanese Current sweeps down the Northwest Coast and provides a virtual temperate rain forest, that rich in sea and land resources. The Pacific Ocean was rich in fish and sea mammals. The most important were the seven species of salmon (Oncorhynchus sp.). The salmon are anadromous. They are born in fresh water streams in the Rocky Mountains and then migrate into the Pacific Ocean only to return upon maturity to their freshwater origins to spawn and die. On the land, in the rich rain forest, were many plants and game, but the cedars were the most useful for houses, utensils, canoes and totem poles.

 The archaeological record and artifacts in early sites indicate that people initially exploited the forest and riverine environment and later moved closer to the mouths of the rivers and the ocean. Artifacts indicate lithics for H&G of game animals, barred fish spearheads, and net/fish basket trap weights. Around 1000 BC (3,000 BP) people had moved to the coast at the mouths of rivers and began to develop maritime lifestyles including whaling. Recently, a whaling village, Ozette, along the Olympic Peninsula, Washington was excavated. The site is unique in that a mudslide partially buried houses and preserved entire house artifacts including cordage, textile, baskets and wood.

SITES: Site #2:Ozette, WA; Hoko River, WA; Friendly Cove, Vancouver Is., Canada

B. Plateau people were located in an interesting intermountain region of Oregon, Washington, Idaho and British Columbia between the High Cascades and Rocky Mountains. This environment was considerably drier than the coast, but it had two great river systems, the Frazer River running from the Canadians Rockies, through the Cascades and into the Pacific Ocean at Vancouver, B.C. and the Columbia River system running from the Canadian Rockies and U.S. Rockies, through the Cascades between the states of Washington  and Oregon.  Many species of salmon migrated up these rivers through the Cascades into the Rockies to spawn. Such a resource provided a great deal of added food to the land base resources. On land deer, sheep and elk were abundant as well as many lake and river plants. In the mountain meadows the camas bulb ( blue camas/Camassia quamash) was an important staple. People were hunting and gathering in this environment as early as 10,600 BC (12,600 BP). Initially they live in in rock shelters and later in semi-subterranean pit houses. Fish were part of the diet early on (7,000 BC +/-) but as the area became more arid so too fishing became more important; with summer and fall runs for different species of salmon. Many fishing techniques were used, including nets and traps with weirs and platforms along narrow rapids to get access to the running of the fish. One of the most important places for this was on the Columbia River at Celilo Falls and Five Mile Rapids near the Dalles, OR. This was one of the great rendezvous points on the continent and up to 10,000 Indians came to trade at this point in the Fall, since the abundant salmon could support so many. The Dalles dam has since flooded the area and destroyed the falls. The Plateau riverine culture was most developed beginning about 2,500 BC (4,500 BP). After, AD 1750 some of the Plateau people, like the Yakima and Nez Perce acquired horses and added summer buffalo hunts into the Plains to their seasonal patterns. However, they never left the river salmon runs like some of the other cultures that migrated to the Plains. The people wanted to return for the Fall salmon runs and spend winters on the rivers.

C. California is an area that begins in the north with the cedar and redwood forests, and ends in the south with increasingly arid areas of sagebrush scrub. In fact California is one of the most diverse areas of the Far West. The boundaries of the culture area of California does not perfectly match the current state as most scholars extend the culture area into Baja (Lower) California to Ensenada. Some areas east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains are often put into the Basin. Our U.S. state of California was designated Alta (Upper) California by the Spanish. For the original American Indian cultures California, west of the Sierra Nevada, was a relatively rich environment with temperate rainforests in the north and coastal lagoons in the south. Throughout most of these valleys and foothills weres Riparian Oak forest/scrub. The many oak species provided a staple food of acorns, that, once leeched, were a very nutritious food resource. The evidence of the extensive processing of acorns is throughout the state in the form of bedrock mortars and other milling features. As the text author notes, California was not a 'Garden of Eden', but it was rich in wildlife both on land and sea, and had the mildest in climate on the continent. Yet, California was not an untouched wilderness, but a managed park-like environment modified by burning and careful H&G management strategies. At times climatic changes in the form of altithermals  or earthquakes caused difficult times. However, the attraction to the relatively mild climate was for American Indians as it is today....everyone wants to come to California and worse they stay. Alfred Kroeber likened this prehistoric and historic phenomena to a fish-trap...it draws you in but you can not go back. The result is that all the major language groups, except Eskimo-Aleut found their way to California in the last 10,000 years. The Hokan language is the original language with the others coming in from the north and the east 7,000-1,000 years ago.

The  Early Tradition sites indicated general hunting and gathering strategies with a preponderance of lithics; including cores, core tools, bifacial blades, domed scrapers, and side scrappers. During the Middle Tradition specializations adapted to coastal, riverine, lake, valley and foothill  environments. Prevalent artifacts included fishing implements and pecked grinding tools, especially mano/metate. The grinding tools are free standing in some cases or bedrock if available. The Late Tradition reveals increased exploitation of acorns matched  by the increase of portable and bedrock pestle/mortars. California has more species of oak (perennial and deciduous) than anywhere else in the world. Many species had large acorns (nuts) that were protein and fat rich. These nuts had to be leeched of tannin or tannic acid (like cassava, cashews, olives). It is likely that the intensification of acorn use was in part due to increasing aridity and new people coming into the area from even harsher areas like the Great Basin. The Late Tradition began in California about 2000 -3,000 years ago (different from text) and includied a much greater focus on seeds, nuts and less game in the valleys, as well as increased coastal use of shellfish, fish, sea mammals and birds along the coast. The Southern California Channel Islands represented maritime adaptations, including the use of a unique planked canoe (tomol in Chumash) that allowed for to travel from the mainland and the islands. Such rich resources in the ocean, trade networks and acorns produced dense populations and  increased social hierarchies that were represented in the archaeological record by special art objects, money shells (dentalium, clam and olivella) and greater trade networks. Thus the Northwest Coast and California developed relatively dense H&G populations, that mirrored agricultural social hierarchies.

SITES: Gunther Is., Humboldt Bay; Molpa, Tomkav; Site #3-PC-3

D. The Great Basin is, as it's name implies, a high altitude desert basin. The Great Basin is the northern part of the Western Deserts extending into the Southwest, California and Northern Mexico, but it is an intermountain region (Sierra Mts. and Rocky Mts.) which has alkaline soil and drainage only into alkaline sinks like the Great Salt Lake and Mono Lake. These conditions rendered the Great Basin as a harsh and inhospitable environment that became increasingly arid into the present.

The American Indians were sparsely populated and all derived from the Aztec-Tanoan language. During the summer, in some areas of the Great Basin 15 sq. miles of land was required to support one human being. Some people left and went to California, others experimented with CBS agriculture (Fremont Tradition), but those that persisted fine tuned their ability to hunt and gather in seasonally exploited econiches in this high desert environment. By the Late Tradition the people would seasonally move from lower elevations, 2500' above sea level, in the spring to higher elevations,  9,000 ' above sea level, in the fall.

The hunting and gathering during the late tradition focused on Pinyon Pine nuts, seeds, incects, jackrabbit, antelope, and bighorn sheep. Rock shelter sites like Lovelock Cave, Danger Cave, and Hogup Cave provided dry environments that preserved the perishable artifacts like cordage and baskets that add to the lithic inventories during the Early through the Late Traditions of the Great Basin. Furthermore, plant remains preserved in these caves gives an even greater window into the kind and quantity of food used by these people.In the southern regions of the Great Basin in Utah and Nevada maize (CBS) and pottery are added to the H&G inventory. This may represent a Southwest expansion of people and or ideas into the Great Basin and is referred to as the Fremont Tradition. However, around  AD 1300, the Fremont experiment was abandoned and considered part of  a Southwest Tradition expansion.

SITES: Lovelock Cave & Hidden Cave, NV; Danger Cave & Hogup Cave, UT

These patterns and changes were similar throughout the Far West and show that these Archaic cultures had to fine tune their adaptive strategies to survive and in some cases thrive. Certain environments, such as lakes, allowed for very special adaptations. Also, arid environments mentioned gave archaeologists out of the ordinary preservation conditions for 'soft' artifacts. One example of these artifacts were the duck decoys found in the cave sites of the Great Basin. They were made of tule reeds to float but were covered with a duck's skin to make them even more realistic and attractive to the quarry..These were discovered in 1924 and are estimated to be at least 2,000 years old.

Copyright © by S. J. Crouthamel 2013