In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

199 summary Recent use of multidimensional scaling (MDS) has demonstrated the applicability of the technique to the analysis and interpretation of zooarchaeological faunal assemblages. Building on these previous results, we apply MDS to the analysis of 63 faunal assemblages from 39 shell midden sites that span the geographic and chronological range of human occupations on the Northwest Coast of North America. This analysis provides insight into geographic and temporal trends in prehistoric First Nations economies across the culture area. Specifically, temporal patterns suggest that the earliest known economies in most parts of the coast are characterized by moderately generalized adaptations. Later patterns point to a variable shift to even more generalized adaptations in some parts of the coast while other regions became more highly specialized . The results of this analysis provide new insight into pan-coastal patterns in economic development, and highlight the high degree of variability that existed in Northwest Coast economies in relatively recent times. shell middens, zooarchaeology, and economic development on the northwest coast First Nations of the Northwest Coast (NWC) of North America are perhaps the world’s best known examples of complex hunter-gatherers (Ames and Maschner 1999; Arnold 1996; Matson and Coupland 1995; Price 2003; Sassaman 2004). While traditional NWC aboriginal groups relied primarily on hunting, fishing, and gathering to meet their subsistence needs, they ultimately developed ranked societies with clear class distinctions (Ames and Maschner CHAPTER FIFTEEN Shell Middens, Vertebrate Fauna, and Northwest Coast Subsistence Intensification and Generalization of Prehistoric Northwest Coast Economies Trevor J. Orchard and Terence N. Clark 1999; Donald 2003; Matson and Coupland 1995; Owens and Hayden 1997). This complex sociocultural organization has typically been argued to arise from the local presence of abundant, storable resources that could form the basis for surplus production, most notably salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) (Hayden 1981; Johnson and Earle 1987; Matson 1983; Matson and Coupland 1995; also see Monks 1987; Moss 1993). Unfortunately, the long-term development of these characteristics is relatively poorly understood and likely varies across the culture area. Building on these common ethnographic patterns, archaeological reconstructions have tended toward culture area-wide evolutionary models of cultural development. Aubrey Cannon (2001; cf. Ames 1994) has summarized two models that have traditionally dominated discussions of NWC economic development. The first assumes an early development of intensive salmon harvesting after ca. 6000 BP, largely independent of later cultural and social developments (Cannon 2001; Cannon and Yang 2006; Carlson 1996), most notably associated with evidence for very early salmon intensification at the site of Namu on the central coast of British Columbia. The second model ascribes a more direct link between the late (ca. 3500 to 3000 BP) intensification of salmon harvesting, the development of storage, and other factors such as population increase and social differentiation (Ames 1998, 2003; Coupland 1988, 1998; Croes and Hackenberg 1988; Matson 1983, 1992; Matson and Coupland 1995), a pattern more consistent with faunal data from Prince Rupert Harbour and the Gulf of Georgia. It is increasingly evident, however, that these models speak to locally variable subsistence trajectories (cf. Ames 2003; Cannon and Yang 2006), and that they do 200 Trevor J. Orchard and Terence N. Clark not account for the variability now evident on the coast (Acheson 1998; Maschner 1991; McMillan et al. 2008; Monks 2006; Orchard 2007, 2009; Orchard and Clark 2005). Regardless, a commonality among virtually all discussions of NWC cultural development is an assumption that a more focused and intensive use of salmon must ultimately occur at some point in the precontact cultural historical sequence for all regions of the coast. Ultimately, a more refined understanding of long-term economic development on the NWC can only be attained through the analysis of archaeological evidence for longterm trends in subsistence patterns. Shell middens are the dominant archaeological site type along the coastal margins of the NWC and have thus been the primary focus of most archaeological research in the region. Furthermore, the naturally acidic forest soils in the area provide very poor conditions for faunal preservation (Cannon, Burchell, and Bathurst 2008; Stein 1992). The abundant shell middens on the NWC, which speak to the importance of invertebrate resources, provide a more basic environment through the neutralization of acidic soils by the calcium carbonate matrix of the shells themselves (Ham 1982; Stein 1992; also see Klokler, chap. 11 in this volume). NWC shell middens thus provide a necessary context for the preservation , and thus archaeological recovery, of vertebrate and invertebrate faunal remains. While...

Share