Household Archaeology at Bridge River, British Columbia: The Early Floors of Housepit 54

FAIN: RZ-230366-15

University of Montana (Missoula, MT 59801-4494)
Anna M. Prentiss (Project Director: December 2014 to February 2021)

Excavation, analysis, and interpretation of a single dwelling with fifteen superimposed floors occupied from 300 A.D. over a period of 1,400 years in British Columbia and the preparation for publication of two books. (24 months)

The Bridge River Archaeological Project, a partnership of The University of Montana and the Bridge River Indian Band, will complete excavations of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site in southern British Columbia. Housepit 54 is a deeply stratified housepit within a village of 80 such houses. This particular house offers the extraordinary opportunity to examine household history on an inter-generational basis spanning a period in which the greater village more than doubled in size, developed socio-economic inequality, suffered economic turmoil, and was eventually abandoned.

Associated Products

The Last House at Bridge River: The Archaeology of an Aboriginal Household in British Columbia during the Fur Trade Period (Book)
Title: The Last House at Bridge River: The Archaeology of an Aboriginal Household in British Columbia during the Fur Trade Period
Editor: Anna Marie Prentiss
Abstract: The Last House at Bridge River offers a comprehensive archaeological study of a single-house floor and roof deposit dated to approximately 1835–1858 C.E. Although the Fur Trade period of the nineteenth century was a time of significant change for aboriginal peoples in the Pacific Northwest, it is a period that is poorly understood. These studies of Housepit 54 at the Bridge River site offer new insights, revealing that ancestors of today’s St’a´t’imc people were actively engaged in maintaining traditional lifestyles and making the best of new opportunities for trade and intergroup interaction. Among its major contributions, the book includes a first-ever historical ecology of the Middle Fraser Canyon that places aboriginal and Euro-Canadian history in ecological context. It demonstrates that an integrated multidisciplinary approach to archaeological research can achieve insights well beyond what is known from the ethnographic and historical records. Because the project derives from a long-term partnership between the University of Montana and the Bridge River Indian Band, it illustrates the value of collaborations between archaeologists and First Nations. Together, contributors present a Fur Trade period aboriginal society at a level of intimacy unparalleled elsewhere.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/960641968
Primary URL Description: WorldCat link
Secondary URL: https://uofupress.lib.utah.edu/the-last-house-at-bridge-river/
Secondary URL Description: Publisher's listing
Access Model: Book
Publisher: Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press
Type: Edited Volume
ISBN: 9781607815433
Copy sent to NEH?: Yes

Testing the Malthusian Model: Population and Storage at Housepit 54, Bridge RIver, British Columbia (Article)
Title: Testing the Malthusian Model: Population and Storage at Housepit 54, Bridge RIver, British Columbia
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Thomas A. Foor
Author: Ashley Hampton
Abstract: Considerable debate exists concerning drivers of social change in human societies. One perspective asserts that demographic and economic conditions play a critical role in conditioning human organizational decision-making. Another argument suggests that human agency conditioned by innovative thinking outside of demographic and economic pressures is the more fundamental source of change. The Bridge River site, British Columbia is an optimal locality to explore variable effects of subsistence economy and demography on social change. Previous research indicates that Malthusian processes played important roles in demographic, socio-economic, and political change. This paper presents a test of the Malthusian model drawing data on storage capacity and population size from a single long-lived house within the Bridge River village. Results suggest that household occupants likely experienced two Malthusian periods, persisting through the first but abandoning the house and village during the second. An important implication is that economic and demographic conditions have critical impacts on social process but that specific episodes of collective action also remain dependent upon human agency.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.02.015
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Publisher: Elsevier

The Evolution of Material Wealth-Based Inequality: The Record of Houspeit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia (Article)
Title: The Evolution of Material Wealth-Based Inequality: The Record of Houspeit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia
Author: AnnaMarie Prentiss
Author: Thomas A. Foor
Author: Ashley Hampton
Author: Ethan Ryan
Author: Matthew J. Walsh
Abstract: The evolution of material wealth-based inequality is an important topic in archaeological research. While a number of explanatory models have been proposed rarely have they been adequately tested. A significant challenge to testing such models concerns the occupational resolution in the archaeological record. Sites often lack evidence for temporally persistent inequality or, when present, the palimpsest nature of the deposits often make it difficult to define the processes of change on fine-enough scales required to evaluate nuanced model predictions. In this paper, we use the fine-grained record of Housepit 54 from the Bridge River site, interior British Columbia, to evaluate several alternative hypotheses regarding the evolution of persistent material wealth-based inequality. Results of our analyses indicate that inequality appeared abruptly coincident with a decline in intra-house cooperation associated with population packing and the initiation of periodic subsistence stress. We conclude that persistent inequality in this context was a byproduct of altered social networks linked to a Malthusian transition and ceiling.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://saa.org
Access Model: subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: American Antiquity
Publisher: Society for American Archaeology

Some Like it Hot: Exploring the Archaeobotany of Roasting Features in SOuthern British Columbia (Article)
Title: Some Like it Hot: Exploring the Archaeobotany of Roasting Features in SOuthern British Columbia
Author: Natasha Lyons
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Sandra Peacock
Author: Bill Angelbeck
Abstract: Roasting features, also known as earth ovens, have been used by First Nations Peoples since the late Holocene to cook food for both immediate consumption and winter storage. Across southern British Columbia, earth ovens built by Salish communities in low- and mid-elevation meadows and riverine villages were part of carefully coordinated, multi-layered annual patterns of movement within the landscape to harvest and produce food. In this paper, we examine the patterning of floral—and to a lesser extent, faunal—data from earth oven complexes located in four village and four upland sites, finding differences between assemblages that appear to relate to the nature and diversity of use between site types. Our preliminary results support the contention that earth ovens in village contexts were used in more ways, and potentially by a wider array of cooks, than those in upland contexts. This analysis forms a first step towards a broader and more detailed study of ancient plant production as rendered through the lens of earth ovens in upland and lowland settings across southern British Columbia.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: https://journal.archpress.lib.sfu.ca/index.php/inlet/index
Access Model: open access
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Inlet: Contributions to Archaeology
Publisher: Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University

Scrambles, Potlatches, and Feasts: The Archaeology of Public Rituals amongst the St’át’imc People of Interior British Columbia. (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Scrambles, Potlatches, and Feasts: The Archaeology of Public Rituals amongst the St’át’imc People of Interior British Columbia.
Abstract: Public sharing of food and gifts remains important to St’át’imc communities of interior British Columbia today despite decades of prohibition by Canadian authorities. The archaeological record offers evidence that public events involving large-scale food preparation and sharing were commonly practiced at least since ca. 1300 years ago. Yet, we have little understanding of variation in how such events were developed and operated. We know even less about the social dimensions of public rituals involving sharing of food and goods. This paper explores the archaeology of food-related public ritual (feasting) and related activities (e.g. potlatching) in the Middle Fraser Canyon of British Columbia. Drawing data from the Bell, Bridge River, and Keatley Creek sites, we assess (1) variation in time and space in the nature of such rituals; (2) potential socio-economic and political explanations for variation; and (3) relationships between historical and contemporary practice.
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Alysha Edwards
Date: 04/12/2019
Location: Society for American Archaeology meetings, Albuquerque NM
Primary URL: http://saa.org

Social Relatedness and Power: Determining Lineages and Multi-Clan Connections within a Singular Housepit (HP54) (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Social Relatedness and Power: Determining Lineages and Multi-Clan Connections within a Singular Housepit (HP54)
Abstract: This paper focuses on understanding how lineage-based and clan-based connections structured labor patterns and access to prestige/power within a multi-generational housepit (HP54) over time. The Bridge River site (EeRl4), located in the Mid-Fraser Canyon, British Columbia, Canada, was generally egalitarian, but shows variation and situated power-differentials in terms of wealth and influence of individuals or groups based on familial, lineage, and/or clan connections across several generations. These relationships were likely negotiated both within households and externally between houses as well. Due to the longevity of occupation of HP54 (roughly 346 years), this housepit may be representative of long-lived kin groups who were connected to the initial construction of the housepit, and/or to each sequential expansion of the space. Clan-based resource connections and spatially-defined traditions were potentially passed down through generations, a possibility reinforced by the presence of multifloor/multi-generational site furniture (e.g. in situ grinding stones). Through an examination of changing patterns in subsistence resource management and the use of space across these occupational floors, we examine micro- and macro-scale shifts in lineage-based connections or alliances at this household level in order to illuminate how such connections interplay with the development of prestige-based social distinctions and subsequent access to power. [
Author: Ashley Hampton
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Date: 04/13/2019
Location: Society for American Archaeology meetings, Albuquerque NM
Primary URL: http://saa.org

Bayesian Models for the Occupational History of Complex Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Communities in the Pacific Northwest (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Bayesian Models for the Occupational History of Complex Hunter-Gatherer-Fisher Communities in the Pacific Northwest
Abstract: The interior Pacific Northwest landscape contains a system of waterways that coalesce to form three major drainages with outlets in the Pacific Ocean. Substantial evidence has been provided that complex hunter-gathererfisher communities occupied sites in these river drainages during the late Holocene. Some chronological frameworks suggest there are similarities across the region while others indicate disparate timing of cultural developments spanning material culture, settlement patterns, and sociopolitical organizations. This paper presents Bayesian models for late Holocene sites the Middle Fraser and Upper Columbia River areas. Results suggest that while region-wide chronologies have been adopted, Bayesian models predict very different occupational histories for villages in the Mid-Fraser and Upper Columbia River areas. Intensive excavations from the sites Bridge River (EeRl4) and Slocan Narrows (DkQi-1, 2, and 17) will be case studies for discussion.
Author: Nathan Goodale
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Alissa Naumann
Date: 04/11/2019
Location: Society for American Archaeology Meetings, Albuquerque NM
Primary URL: http://saa.org

Testing Hypotheses about Emergent Inequality (Using Gini Coefficients) in a Complex Fisher-Forager Society at the Bridge River site, British Columbia (Book Section)
Title: Testing Hypotheses about Emergent Inequality (Using Gini Coefficients) in a Complex Fisher-Forager Society at the Bridge River site, British Columbia
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Thomas A. Foor
Author: Mary-Margaret Murphy
Editor: Timothy A. Kohler
Editor: Michael E. Smith
Abstract: Gini coefficients are used to address questions of material wealth-based inequality at the Bridge River site, British Columbia. Results demonstrate markers of inequality in multiple data sets reflecting inequality in goods and food on an intra- and inter-house basis. results are compared to similar indices from the Northwest Coast. A model of inter-village clan organization is offered.
Year: 2018
Primary URL: http://uapress.arizona.edu
Access Model: purchase
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 978-0-8165-377

Malthusian cycles among semi-sedentary Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers: The socio-economic and demographic history of Housepit 54, Bridge River site, British Columbia (Article)
Title: Malthusian cycles among semi-sedentary Fisher-Hunter-Gatherers: The socio-economic and demographic history of Housepit 54, Bridge River site, British Columbia
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Matthew J. Walsh
Author: Thomas A. Foor
Author: Kathryn Bobolinski
Author: Ashley Hampton
Author: Ethan Ryan
Author: Haley O'Brien
Abstract: Models in demographic ecology predict that populations in agrarian villages experience cycles of growth and decline as tied to relationships between founding population sizes, birth and mortality rates, habitat constraints, landscape productivity, and socio-economic practices. Such predictions should be equally applicable to fisher-hunter-gatherers. Intensive research at the Bridger River site on the Canadian Plateau has provided significant new insight into the dynamics of population growth and decline, subsistence productivity, cooperation, and development of social inequalities in material goods. In this paper, the authors present new evidence drawing from the fine-grained stratigraphic record of Housepit 54 to assess details regarding change in subsistence and technology as related to population and social dynamics.
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0278416519301898?via%3Dihub
Primary URL Description: Article site
Secondary URL: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-anthropological-archaeology
Secondary URL Description: Journal site
Access Model: Subscription
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology Volume 59, September 2020, 101181
Publisher: Elsevier Inc.

A multivariate perspective on lithic technological organization at Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (EeRl4), British Columbia (Report)
Title: A multivariate perspective on lithic technological organization at Housepit 54, Bridge River Site (EeRl4), British Columbia
Author: Anna Marie Prentiss
Author: Thomas A. Foor
Author: Ethan Ryan
Author: Ashley Hampton
Author: Matthew J. walsh
Abstract: The management of lithic raw materials is a significant concern to anthropological archaeologists interested in hunter-gatherer socio-economies. A wide range of studies have implicated quarry distance, work needs, occupational longevity, and consumer population to variation in tactics for reduction, use, and maintenance of chipped stone tools. Fewer studies have examined socio-political factors in the organization of stone tool technology. This study examines the interactive effects of population, occupational longevity, favored prey, and socio-political complexity on the tactics by which lithic raw materials were managed in a long-lived winter pithouse in North America’s interior Pacific Northwest. Results of bivariate and multivariate analyses implicate variability in toolstone economies as related to different classes of lithic items. Lithic cores and flake tools were more extensively reduced in contexts of productive subsistence economies, high populations, long winter occupations, and material wealth-based inequality. Bifaces were produced and maintained in relation to needs associated with intensity of deer hunting. The creation and maintenance of slate tools was affected at least in part by the intensity of salmon fishing. Combined, these data suggest that the organization of lithic tool technology responded to multiple factors across the lifespan of the house.
Date: 8/17/2020
Primary URL: file:///C:/Users/lmedici/Downloads/BR%20HP54%20JASR%20Sept%202020.pdf
Primary URL Description: Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports
Access Model: Open access

The Record of Dogs in Traditional Villages of the Mid‑Fraser Canyon, British Columbia: Ethnological and Archaeological Evidence (Article)
Title: The Record of Dogs in Traditional Villages of the Mid‑Fraser Canyon, British Columbia: Ethnological and Archaeological Evidence
Author: Anne M. Prentiss
Abstract: Dogs (Canis familiaris) are ubiquitous in human settlements. A range of studies suggests that uses of dogs vary with ecological context. High seasonality and reliance upon large game appears to favor investments in the uses of dogs as aids in hunting and hauling. Regional cultural traditions may also play signifcant roles in attitudes and behaviors towards dogs. We use ethnographic and archaeological data to assess six hypotheses concerning the roles of dogs in the traditional villages on the Mid-Fraser Canyon in British Columbia. We fnd that it is likely that village dogs lived in traditional Mid-Fraser villages where they may have consumed human food waste, but were also used for hunting, possibly hauling loads, as a source of products, and as a target of ritual treatments. Given their importance in numerous activities, dogs may have been wealth items for select households.
Year: 2021
Primary URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-021-00276-3
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Human Ecology
Publisher: Human Ecology

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