Archaeological and ethnoarchaeological investigations of households and perspectives on a Coast Salish Historic village in British Columbia.

摘要

This research encompasses archaeological and ethnoarchaeological investigations of houses and households from two western North American regions. The archaeological investigations focus on the primarily Historic-era Sto:lo (Coast Salish) village of Welqamex in southern British Columbia. Comprising at least five semi-subterranean houses and one above-ground cedar plank structure, this village was situated on the massive Fraser River near Hudson's Bay Company Fort Hope. Surface and subsurface data indicate that the village expanded in the Historic period and that some residents played a prominent role in the 1800s fur trade economy in the upper Fraser Valley. Analysis reveals that households that maintained privileged access to trade networks also allocated substantial resources and labor to the production and maintenance of large houses.; Analysis of subsurface data also reveals that households varied in the labor allocated to the production of tools used for intensive salmon fishing, such as slate knives. Most slate artifacts recovered from Welqamex houses are byproducts of a knife-manufacturing process. I outline a new classification scheme by considering the cognitive underpinnings and material implications of a range of knife-makers' activities. Analysis shows that the production and use of slate knives clearly persisted after the arrival of Europeans in the Fraser Valley. However, despite historical data that suggest a post-contact intensification of fishing activities, household data point to an overall reduction in total labor allocated to knife-making activities at Welqamex houses. I suggest that access to metal tools, particularly iron knives, affected decisions underlying the intensity of fishing activities and the allocation of household labor to the production of tools used for fish butchery.; An analysis of archaeological data recovery procedures reveals that field sieving alone is not sufficient for collecting all or even a significant majority of the artifacts embedded in house deposits at Welqamex. I demonstrate that the rate of artifact recovery in the field is highly variable within and among excavation units, and I discuss several potential sources of recovery bias.; Ethnoarchaeological investigations of contemporary U.S. households permit a detailed study of the relationships of households to physical dwellings that are of interest to archaeologists. I use data from 32 Los Angeles households to examine the effects of household cycling on house attributes, the congruence between dwelling design and household activities, and the relationship of household wealth to house size. Analysis of remodeling data also shows that household growth more frequently compels a conversion and adaptation of living space rather than an expansion of the house footprint.