Chinookan Households on the Lower Columbia River: Contact and Complexity

FAIN: RZ-50601-06

Portland State University (Portland, OR 97207-0751)
Kenneth M. Ames (Project Director: November 2005 to September 2011)

To support the analysis and interpretation of the results, especially those relating to social complexity and to fur trade, of four earlier excavations on the North American Pacific coast. (36 months)

The project addresses two significant issues: 1) the social, economic and ecological dynamics of the maritime fur trade (c. A.D 1785 – 1850) on North America's Pacific Coast and 2) hunter-gatherer social complexity, including permanent inequality. The project links these issues by investigating the economies of Native American households in four communities on the Lower Columbia River region using many lines of evidence at multiple temporal and geographic scales. Two communities date A.D. 1400 - A.D. 1840. A third dates approximately A.D. 1700 - A.D. 1854. The fourth, which may represent a specialized trading locality, dates ca. A.D. 1792 – 1820. The archaeological data are the result of excavations and analyses conducted since 1987