Kenneth M. Ames

Chiefly Power and Household Production on the Northwest Coast

Inequalities may have always existed in human societies, at least at the level of relationships between individuals (e.g., Bender 1989; Olszewski 1991), relationships that are fluid—depending upon the interplay between individual character, age, and gender—since they are structured by social organization, culture, and economy, among other factors (including our biological heritage as terrestrial primates). Why and how do permanent elites grow from this seedbed? There are two broad classes of materialist answers: elite-as-managers and elite-as-thugs (cf. Gilman 1981). The first category includes Haas’s (1982) integrationist school and the second his conflict school.

Evolution of Social Ranking On the Northwest Coast of North America

The small, hierarchically organized societies on the Northwest Coast provide excellent examplex of the evolution of social complexity in nonagricultural contexts and thus can serve as an important testing ground for current models. Available archaeological data indicate that ranking appeared on the coast between 3,000 and 2,000 years ago. It is argued here that ranking developed from the interaction of two systems constraints and two processes: subsistence specialization, environmental circumscription and population growth, and promotion. Ranking develops because, given certain conditions, it provides both improved monitoring of the environment and improved responses to environmental shifts through information flow.

The archaeology of the longue durée : temporal and spatial scale in the evolution of social complexity on the southern Northwest Coast

The emphasis on temporal and geographic scale of the French Annales school of history (cf. Braudel 1980; Baker 1984; Lewthwaite 1988) is the inspiration for this paper. Braudel (1980) divides time into three durations: short term events (days, weeks, months, a few years), medium length conjunctures (years, decades, even major portions of centuries), and longterm structures (which may last centuries, even millennia). This last duration is the longue duree. Basic to Annales’ thought – and the longue duree – is the idea that to understand historical developments, to explain their causes and dynamics, one must know their temporal and their geographic scale; one must know what happened at their edges and their centre, why they developed and why they passed away; and how they changed during their span. To do this, since we cannot assume we know the scales relevant to the phenomena which interest us (Braudel 1980), we must continually play different temporal and geographic scales off against each other.

Household Archaeology of a Southern Northwest Coast Plank House

Abstract Five seasons of excavation at the Meier site, near Portland, Oregon, have exposed portions of a very large (14 m × 35 m) plank house dating to late prehistoric times. The Meier house is unusual not only because of its size but because it is part of a Northwest Coast residential site that is not a deep shell midden. Detailed information about the frequency of repair and modification of the house indicates the great extent to which the sites occupants recycled deposits associated with the dwelling for construction and maintenance purposes, and supports the inference that the Meier house and other, similar structures represent, over their use lives, several hundred thousand board feet of lumber and a major labor investment by the occupying household. The vast majority of other Northwest Coast residential sites are incorporated into large shell middens and the Meier excavations suggest that their stratigraphy must be the result of deliberate construction activities as well as dumping.

Hierarchies, Stress, and Logistical Strategies among Hunter–Gatherers in Northwestern North America

Publisher Summary This chapter discusses hierarchies, stress, and logistical strategies among hunter–gatherers in northwestern North America. It focuses on the shape of social change in western North America during the past 5000 years, the period when hierarchic societies developed along the Pacific Coast and perhaps in the interior as well. Processes working themselves out in particular, historical situations differ in their rates, pulses, and duration. The processes can be identified through comparisons among lengthy historical sequences and by diachronic comparisons of equivalent spatial scales. The social hierarchies arise out of changes in domestic labor organization among hunter–gatherers. The adaptive problems of interest involve labor organization and coordination. The organization of the domestic group is an accommodation to a number of sometimes contradictory circumstances, including group size and the labor requirements for production.

Comments on Anarchism and the Archaeology of Anarchic Societies: Resistance to Centralization in the Coast Salish Region of the Pacific Northwest Coast

Throughout human history, people have lived in societies without formalized government. We argue that the theory of anarchism presents a productive framework for analyzing decentralized societies. Anarchism encompasses a broad array of interrelated principles for organizing societies without the centralization of authority. Moreover, its theory of history emphasizes an ongoing and active resistance to concentrations of power. We present an anarchist analysis of the development of social power, authority, and status within the Coast Salish region of the Northwest Coast. Coast Salish peoples exhibited complex displays of chiefly authority and class stratification but without centralized political organization. Ethnographically, their sociopolitical formation is unique in allowing a majority of “high-class” people and a minority of commoners and slaves, or what Wayne Suttles described as an “inverted-pear” society. We present the development of this sociopolitical structure through an analysis of cranial deformation from burial data and assess it in relation to periods of warfare. We determine that many aspects of Coast Salish culture include practices that resist concentrations of power. Our central point is that anarchism is useful for understanding decentralized (or anarchic) networks—those that allow for complex intergroup relations while staving off the establishment of centralized political authority.

Slaves, chiefs and labour on the Northern northwest Coast

Northwest Coast societies, at the beginning of the Modern period, were stratified. The coasts élite wielded power over a class of slaves whose labour produced at least some of the wealth upon which high status depended. While it is possible to trace the development of an élite on the northern Northwest Coast back 3000 calendar years, if not more, documenting the presence of slavery has proven far more intractable. Understanding the evolution of slavery is dependent on our understanding of the archaeology of élite formation, labour, warfare and gender. Three key lines of evidence for slavery are burial practices, evidence of warfare and raiding and evidence about changing labour demands. Slavery plausibly developed during either of two periods: c 1500–500 BC or c. AD 500–1000. The data at present do not allow us to eliminate either. Each has interesting implications for our understanding of the evolution of stratification.

DART AND ARROW POINTS ON THE COLUMBIA PLATEAU OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA

The timing of the bow and arrows introduction, spread, and replacement of the atlatl is an important research question in North American prehistory. Although regional archaeologists have not focused on the issue, it is generally thought that the bow and arrow were introduced on the Columbia Plateau ca. 2,300 years ago and completely replaced the atlatl by 1000 B.P. We apply two sets of discriminate functions and four threshold values to three large projectile point samples from the Columbia Plateau and a control sample from the Western Great Basin. Our results indicate that the atlatl was used on the Plateau by ca. 10,800 B.P. While the bow and arrow may have been present by 8500 B.P., they were ubiquitous in the region by 4400 B.P. Atlatl use appears to have increased for a while after 3000 B.P. At the same time, metric differences between dart and arrow points strengthened. Darts became rare after 1500 B.P. but seem to have been in use in small numbers at least until contact.

Going by Boat

In 1990, Binford argued that logistical mobility strategies… are the consequence of two major evolutionary changes that occurred long ago: (1) the “aquatic resource revolution” with its early occurrence primarily in higher latitudes. and (2) the perfection of transpon technologies, particularly water transport vessels and the use of pack and draft animals. (Binford 1990: 138)

Large Domestic Pits on the Northwest Coast of North America

Abstract Excavations of prehistoric and Contact-period houses on the southern Northwest Coast of North America have exposed very large interior pit complexes. The complexes are either long trenches or rows of pits beneath the house floors. They are associated with substantial permanently occupied houses dated to between 300 CAL B.C. and A.D. 1830. The pits add significantly to the storage potentials of these houses and suggest surplus production.