Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions among the Pre-contact Coast Salish of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America 9781407315836, 9781407344942

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Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions among the Pre-contact Coast Salish of the Pacific Northwest Coast of North America Adam N. Rorabaugh

BAR International Series 2863 2017

Published in by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions among the Pre-contact Coast Salish of the Pacifi c Northwest Coast of North America © Adam N. Rorabaugh Artistic interpretation of traditional lithic craft knowledge being inherited. UK Copyright, The Author’s moral rights under the Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reser ved. No par t of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any for m of digital for mat or transmitted in any for m digitally, without the written per mission of the Publisher.

ISBN 9781407315836 paperback ISBN 9781407344942 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407315836 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

BAR titles are available from: BAR Publishing Banbury Rd, Oxford, [email protected] + ( ) + ( ) www.barpublishing.com

,

Acknowledgements This manuscript is a revised version of my doctoral dissertation. First and foremost, I thank my advisor and committee chair, Dr. Colin Grier. His guidance throughout the process of its writing was invaluable. Of equal importance, I wish to acknowledge the numerous First Nations that permitted me to examine their traditional material culture. I also thank two members of my committee in particular, Dr. William Andrefsky, Jr. and Dr. Luke Premo for their insightful comments at the various stages of this project. I thank Patrick Dolan, Kristin Safi, Erin M. Smith, Kathryn Harris, and Jacob Adams for their comments and feedback on early drafts. Special thanks are due to Douglas Drake, Annette Ruzicka, Juliette McGraw, Tiffany Fulkerson, and Robbie Zinna for moral support through some of the last stages of research and writing. I also wish to acknowledge several collaborators on projects that contributed to the findings in this manuscript including Tiffany J. Fulkerson, Caitlyn McNabb, Nichole S. Bettencourt, and Craig Skinner at Northwest Research Obsidian Studies Laboratory. There are numerous individuals I wish to thank for their assistance and insights during my time examining the numerous research collections in the Pacific Northwest. I wish to thank Dr. Grant Keddie and Martina Steffen of the Royal British Columbia Museum. I also thank Laura Phillips, Steve Denton, and Dr. Amanda K. Taylor for their insights and feedback during my time spent at the Burke Museum. I also wish to thank Patricia Ormerod for her thoughtful comments during my time at the University Museum of Anthropology. Finally, I wish to acknowledge Dr. Barbara J. Winters and Dr. Roy Carlson for their feedback and aid while I examined collections at Simon Fraser University. This project would not have been possible without the funding and support of the National Science Foundation, Don F. Crabtree Lithics Scholarship, Association for Washington Archaeology Student Research Grant, Rainshadow Research Award, and the Nicholas Scoales Scholarship.

iii

Contents List of Tables

viii

List of Figures

ix

List of Equations

xii

Abstract

xiii

1

Introduction Characterizing Learning among the Precontact Coast Salish Hypotheses for Restricted Formed Lithic Tool Learning in the Salish Sea Chapter Organization

2

Evidence for the Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning in the Salish Sea Archaeological Data for Social Inequality in the Salish Sea Charles Period (5500-3500 BP) Locarno Beach (3500-2400 BP) Marpole (2400-1000 BP) Late Period (1000 BP-Contact) Ethnographic Discussions of Knowledge Restriction and Embedded Craft Specialization Knowledge Restriction and Coast Salish Lithic Tool Traditions

7 7 8 12 15 17 18 20

3

Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Technologies on the Northwest Coast Hafted Stone Tool Technologies on the Northwest Coast Chronology of Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Tools in the Salish Sea Introduction of Bifacial Technologies on the Northwest Coast of North America (13,000-5000 BP) Chronological Trends in Hafted Stone Tool Form in the Salish Sea (5000 BP-Contact) Toolstone Quality Reduction Sequence for Coast Salish Hafted Lithics Hafted Chipped Stone Reduction Sequence Hafted Ground Stone Reduction Sequence Impacts of Retouch on Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Tool Morphology Interpreting Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Tool Function

23 23 23 23 26 27 28 28 28 29 30

4

Cultural Transmission and the Material Record Cultural Transmission Theory Modes and Mechanisms of Cultural Transmission Transmission Bias Effective Population Size and Cultural Transmission Artefact Style and Function from an Evolutionary Perspective Style and Function as a Dichotomy Style and Function as a Continuum Adding Skill as a Factor: Artefact Attribute Functional and Communicative Potential Employed Archaeological Measures of Cultural Transmission Measuring Discrete Styles Measuring Metric Variation Transmission and Equifinality in the Archaeological Record Previous Cultural Transmission Studies in the Salish Sea

33 33 34 35 36 37 37 37 37 38 38 39 40 41

5

Chapter 5. Hypotheses and Expectations Additional Variables and Alternative Hypotheses

43 44

6

Methodology and Sample Coast Salish Hafted Lithic Tool Typology

47 47 v

1 3 4 5

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Metric Attribute Landmarks Measures of Stylistic Variation Changes in Stylistic Diversity by Site Component Monte Carlo Simulations of Sample Size Effects on Richness and Evenness Measuring Metric Variation within Discrete Styles and Reduction Method by Site Component Hypothesized Patterns from Restricted Knowledge in Measures of Stylistic and Metric Variation Additional Variables Examined Toolstone Quality Artefact Curation Tool Function: Dart-Arrow Index Application and Discriminant Function Analysis Sample Examined Archaeological Sites and Site Components Determining Site Component Age Estimates Chronological Distribution of Site Components Artefact Sample Description Artefact Material Identification

50 50 50 52 52 53 53 53 54 54 55 55 55 62 63 66

7

Lithic Technological Organization Impacts of Material Quality and Curation on Variation Curation Impact on Metric Attributes Curation by Period Curation by Region Material Quality Impact on Metric Attributes Material Quality by Period Material Quality by Region Curation and Material Quality Functional Analyses Stemmed Dart-Arrow Index Discriminant Function Analysis for Unstemmed Dart-Arrow Index Stylistic Variation by Functional Class Summary

69 69 69 69 69 69 69 72 72 75 75 75 79 79

8

Assemblage Stylistic Diversity and Metric Variation Sample Size and Time Averaging Effects on Assemblage Stylistic Variation Sample Size Effects on Stylistic Measures Time Averaging Effects on Stylistic Measures Chronological and Spatial Trends in Assemblage Stylistic Variation Temporal Trends in Stylistic Measures Spatial Trends in Stylistic Measures Summary of Stylistic Chronological and Spatial Trends Site Function and Seasonal Rounds Spatial and Temporal Trends in Artefact Styles Trends by 500 Year Period Trends by Region and 500 Year Period Sample Size and Time Averaging Effects on Assemblage Metric Variation Sample Size Effects on Metric Measures Time Averaging Effects on Metric Measures Chronological and Spatial Trends in Metric Variation Temporal Trends in Metric Measure Spatial Trends in Metric Measures Summary of Metric Chronological and Spatial Trends Summary

81 81 81 81 81 81 90 91 91 91 91 91 96 96 96 96 96 107 107 108

9

Inferring Cultural Transmission Key Findings Assemblage Diversity Analyses Sample Size and Time Averaging Effects on Tf and Te Estimating Site Component Deviation from Neutrality (Tf and Theta) Estimating Theta Tf compared to Theta

109 109 109 109 110 110 114

vi

Contents

Spatial and Temporal Trends in Tf-Te Temporal Trends in Innovation Rate and Cumulative Richness Summary

116 116 117

10

Discussion 121 Assessing Knowledge Restriction in the Salish Sea 121 Overall Findings 121 Additional Variables: Material Quality, Curation, Sample Size, Time-Averaging, and Shifts in Tool Function 123 Temporal Trends in Artefact Styles 125 Interpreting Observed Deviations from Neutrality 125 Influence of Prestige on Learning and Patterns in the Record 125 Summary 127 Impacts of Household and Group Interaction on Lithic Craft Learning and Relational Wealth 127 Influence of Household Economics on Dart and Arrow Learning 127 Degree of Group Interaction, Seasonality, and Lithic Craft Learning 128 Assemblage Diversity and Styles Represented at Specific Site Components 131 Locarno Beach (DhRt6) 131 Montague Harbour (DfRu13) 131 Marpole (DhRs1) 132 Glenrose Cannery (DgRr6) 133 English Camp (45SJ24) 134 Musqueam Locality (DhRt4) 135 Cattle Point (45SJ1) 135 Dionisio Point (DgRv3) 136 Cherry Point (45WH1) 136 Biederbost (45SN100) 136 Summary 137 Cultural Transmission Theory and its Utility in Addressing Theoretical Issues in the Salish Sea 137 The Utility of, and Issues With, Studying Older Archaeological Collections 138

11

Conclusions Areas for Future Work New Directions for Cultural Transmission Studies Further Examining Knowledge Restriction and Lithic Technological Organization in the Salish Sea Conclusion

141 142 142 142 143

Bibliography

145

Appendix A Exploratory Data Analyses

169

Appendix B New Radiocarbon Date Context Summaries 45SN100 Biederbost 45WH1 Cherry Point 45WH17 Semiahmoo Spit

175 175 178 181

Appendix C

183

Radiocardon Dates and Date Provenience Data

vii

List of Tables Table 1. Reported Archaeological Coast Salish Houses

10

Table 2. Summary of Hypotheses and Expectations

45

Table 3. Description of Attributes for Bifaces and Ground Slate Points

48

Table 4. Hafted Stone Tool Typology

50

Table 5. Examined Site Components

57

Table 6. Results of Spearman’s R Correlations of Retouch and Material Quality with CV

71

Table 7. Non-Parametric Test Comparing Metric Analyses by 500 year Period

71

Table 8. Discriminant Function Analysis Structure Matrix

77

Table 9. Dart-Arrow Assignment by Stylistic Class

80

Table 10. Results of Stylistic Analyses

82

Table 11. Spearman’s R Correlations for Stylistic Analyses

86

Table 12. Results of Linear Regressions for Residuals Analysis

88

Table 13. Non-parametric Tests Comparing Stylistic Measures by 500-year Period

89

Table 14. Non-Parametric TestsComparing Stylistic Measures by Site Activity Type

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Table 15. Results of Metric Attribute Analysis

100

Table 16. Results of Spearman’s R Correlations for Metric Attributes

104

Table 17. Mean and Blade Haft Attribute CV Descriptive Statistics

105

Table 18. Non-Parametric Tests Comparing Metric Analyses by 500-year Period

106

Table 19. Results of Assemblage Diversity Analysis

111

Table 20. Spearman’s R Correlations for Assemblage Diversity Analysis

112

Table 21. Theta Estimates

116

Table 22. Summary of Results Compared to Hypotheses

122

Table 23. Reported Site Component Areas in Stylistic Analyses

129

Table A.1 Artifact Metric Attribute Descriptive Statistics by Tool Completeness and Reduction Type

174

Table B.1 Biederbost Excavation History

177

Table B.2 Biederbost Radiocarbon Dates

177

Table B.3 Cherry Point Dates

180

Table B.4 Semiahmoo Spit Dates

182

viii

List of Figures Figure 1. Map of Study Region

2

Figure 2. Example Chipped Stone (Left, 45SJ2:1-934, Photo Courtesy Burke Museum) and Ground Stone (Right, DeRt2:161, Photo Courtesy RBCM) Hafted Tools

3

Figure 3 Salish Sea Regional Chronology

8

Figure 4. Referenced Salish Sea Archaeological Sites

11

Figure 5 Whisker plot of Floor Areas of Largest Reported Domestic Structures at Coast Salish Archaeological Sites (45KP2 Old Man House and Simon Fraser House Excluded) 12 Figure 6 Southern Northwest Coast Demographic Estimate Based on Boyd (1986) projected on Ames and Maschner (1999) curve.

13

Figure 7 Comparison of Labret Frequency, Intentional Labret Breakage, and Interments with Cranial Modification (Adapted from Rorabaugh and Shantry 2016)

15

Figure 8. Coast Salish Socio-political Structure (Adapted from Suttles 1958: 12)

19

Figure 9. Reproduction of Social Class Among the Twana Coast Salish (Adapted from Elmendorf 1960: 336)

20

Figure 10. Major Morphological Trends in Salish Sea Hafted Lithics

24

Figure 11 Referenced Archaic Period Northwest Coast and Siberian Sites and Extent of Clovis

25

Figure 12 Proposed Reduction Sequence for Coast Salish Hafted Chipped Stone (Left) and Hafted Ground Stone (Right) Tools

29

Figure 13. Cultural Transmission Mechanisms

34

Figure 14. Continuum of Artefact Attribute Functional and Communicative Potential

37

Figure 15 Individual Skill as the ‘Intersection’ of Knowledge and Practice (Bamforth and Finlay 2008:3)

38

Figure 16 Attributes for Bifaces and Ground Slate Points

50

Figure 17 Metric Attribute Landmarks for Bifaces (Adapted from Andrefsky and Williams 2010)

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Figure 18 Example HRI Application (Artefact 45WH1: 2680, Photo Courtesy Western Washington University) HRI Value=0.875 Heavily Curated 54 Figure 19 Examined Archaeological Sites

56

Figure 20. Site Component Frequency by 500 cal BP Period

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Figure 21 Hafted Stone Tool Frequency by Reduction and 500 cal BP Period Type

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Figure 22 Site Component Minimum, Mean, and Maximum Age Estimates Years cal BP

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Figure 23 Hafted Stone Tool Frequency by Reduction Method

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Figure 24 Hafted Stone Tool Component Sample Size by Region, Reduction Type, and Cultural Period

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Figure 25 Hafted Tool Completeness Frequencies

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Figure 26 Hafted Tool Material Type by Reduction Method

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Figure 27. Curation Impact on Component and Style Mean Attribute CV (N=1562)

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Figure 28. Component and Style Curation Whisker plot by 500 Year Period (N=1562)

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Figure 29. Component and Style Curation Whisker plot by Region (N=1562)

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Figure 30. Material Quality (Log16) Impact on Component and Style Mean Attribute CV (N=1562)

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Figure 31. Material Quality (Log16) Whisker plot by 500 Year Period (N=1562)

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Figure 32. Material Quality (Log16) Whisker plot by Region (N=1562)

74

ix

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Figure 33. Assemblage Curation by Material Quality (Log16) (N=1562)

75

Figure 34. Stemmed Dart-Arrow Index Histogram (Log10)

76

Figure 35. Stemmed Point Functional Category by 500 Year Period

76

Figure 36. Unstemmed Point Functional Category by 500 Year Period and Stem Presence/Absence

77

Figure 37 Discriminant Function Category Frequencies by 500-year Period and Region

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Figure 38. Comparison of Curation Index with Unstemmed Discriminant Scores

78

Figure 39. Chipped and Ground Stone Component Richness (Log10) by Component Sample Size (Log10)

84

Figure 40.. Chipped (Top) and Ground (Bottom) Stone Component Evenness (J-Score) by Component Sample Size (Log10) 85 Figure 41. Component Richness and Evenness Scatterplot

86

Figure 42. Component Sample Size, Richness, and Evenness by Component Duration

87

Figure 43. Component Richness Residual Z-Scores by 500 Year Period, Reduction Type, and Region

88

Figure 44 Component J-Score Residual Z-Scores by 500 Year Period, Reduction Type, and Region

89

Figure 45. Chipped Stone Artefact Class Frequencies by 500 Year Period (N=3086)

92

Figure 46. Ground Stone Artefact Class Frequencies by 500 Year Period (N=911)

93

Figure 47. Chipped Stone Class Frequencies by Region: Fraser Delta (N=422) and Southern Gulf Islands (N=150)

94

Figure 48. Chipped Stone Class Frequencies by Region: NW Washington (N=36), San Juan Islands (N=261)

95

Figure 49. Chipped Stone Class Frequencies by Region: Puget Sound (N=318)

96

Figure 50. Ground Stone Class Frequencies by Region: Fraser Delta (N=356), Gulf Islands (N=161)

97

Figure 51. Ground Stone Class Frequencies by Region: NW Washington (N=20), San Juan Islands (N=60)

98

Figure 52. Ground Stone Class Frequencies by Region: Puget Sound (N=2)

99

Figure 53. Component and Style Mean Blade and Haft Attribute CV by Sample Size

103

Figure 54. Component and Style Mean Blade and Haft Attribute CV by Component Duration

104

Figure 55. Component and Style Mean Blade Attribute CV by Region, Period, and Reduction Type

105

Figure 56. Component and Style Mean Haft Attribute CV by Region, Period, and Reduction Type

106

Figure 57. Site Component Tf and Range of Theta estimates (in grey) by 500 YBP Period and Reduction Type

110

Figure 58 μ (# New Styles/N) by 500 Year Period and Reduction Type

111

Figure 59. Component Tf (circles) Compared with Te (squares) by Reduction Type

113

Figure 60. Tf-Te by Component Sample Size (Log10) (N=2050)

114

Figure 61. Component Tf, Te, and Tf-Te by Component Duration

115

Figure 62. Site Component Tf-Te Scatterplots by Region, Reduction Type, and 500 YBP Period

117

Figure 63. Number of Novel Styles by 500 Year Period and Reduction Type Compared to Cumulative Number of Styles

118

Figure 64. Richness by 500 Year Period and Reduction Type Compared to Cumulative Richness

118

Figure 65. Cumulative Novel Traits by 500 Year Period and Reduction Type Compared to Cumulative Richness

119

Figure 66. Comparison of Assemblage Tf, theta, and mu by 500 Year Period and Reduction Type

122

Figure 67. Discriminant Function Analysis Relative Dart-Arrow Classification Percent by 500 Year Period

124

Figure 68. Component N, Richness Residuals, Evenness Residuals, and Tf by Log10 Site Area (m2) and Reduction Type

130

x

List of Figures

Figure A.1 Artifact Total Dimension Histograms by Tool Completeness and Reduction Type

169

Figure A.2 Blade Metric Attribute Histograms by Tool Completeness and Reduction Type

170

Figure A.3 Haft Metric Attribute Histograms by Tool Completeness and Reduction Type

170

Figure A.4 Base Metric Attribute Histograms by Tool Completeness and Reduction Type

170

Figure A.5 Maximum Length Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

171

Figure A.6 Maximum Width Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

171

Figure A.7 Maximum Thickness Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

171

Figure A.8 Blade Length Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

172

Figure A.9 Blade Width Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

172

Figure A.10 Haft Length Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

172

Figure A.11 Haft Width Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

173

Figure A.12 Base Length Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

173

Figure A.13 Base Width Whisker plot by Tool Completeness, Reduction Type, Region and 500 year BP Period

173

Figure B.1 Biederbost Map (Adapted from Nordquist 1976: 187; Ostrander 2008

176

Figure B.2 Wet Site Component Profile (Adapted from Nordquist 1976: 188)

177

Figure B.3 Cherry Point Map (Adapted from Blodgett 1976: 117; Dubeau 2012: 55; Markham 1993: 14; Rorabaugh 2009: 151)

179

Figure B.4 Semiahmoo Spit (Adapted from Montgomery 1979: 53; Rorabaugh 2009: 145)

181

xi

List of Equations Equation 1 Theta Statistic

38

Equation 2 Te Statistic

39

Equation 3 Tf Statistic

39

Equation 4 Coefficient of Variation

40

Equation 5 J-Score (Kintigh 1984, 1989)

52

Equation 6 Derivation of Andrefsky’s (2006) Hafted Retouch Index

54

Equation 7 Hildebrandt and King’s (2012) Stemmed Dart-Arrow Index

54

xii

Abstract Using cultural transmission (CT) models, a shift towards more restricted household learning in a wide range of technologies was predicted, not simply the prestige items typically associated with the emergence of peer-elite exchange networks during the Marpole period (2400-1000 BP). According to CT models, restricted access to technical knowledge should result in decreased stylistic and fine-scale metric variation through time in craft traditions. The presence of such a reduction in variation in formal stone tool technologies over time serves as evidence of a shift in learning practices having occurred in concert with the emergence of hereditary inequality. High resolution analyses of formed lithic tools from previously excavated archaeological collections was conducted to examine fine scale stylistic and metric variation in assemblages in sites throughout the Salish Sea. In addition, the impacts of additional factors on variation often not considered in CT research such as material quality, tool curation, and time-averaging effects were examined, which did not appear to be factors significantly patterning this sample. The timing of the introduction of new technologies such as hafted ground stone tools and the bow and arrow, and their potential impacts on learning and variation were also assessed, and the gradual adoption of that technology did not appear to have a major impact on stylistic or metric variation. Stylistic variation in hafted chipped and ground stone tools was found to increasingly depart from the expectations of neutral cultural variation through time. The number of new styles introduced was also found to crash during the Marpole period. Combined with spatial heterogeneity in assemblage richness and evenness, it appears that lithic craft knowledge became increasingly restricted through time and space. However, metric variation did not exhibit any strong chronological trends. Tool blade elements had significantly higher variation in metric attributes than haft elements. Haft metric variation was consistently low through time when considering the poor material quality of used toolstone. Overall these data suggest that the learning of these technologies may have been restricted by gender and kin lines, and became increasingly influenced by prestige over the past 5,000 years.

xiii

1 Introduction

Investigating how knowledge is managed and controlled in small scale societies is critical for furthering our understanding of the emergence and reproduction of hereditary inequality (Feinman 1995; Bowles et al. 2010). On the Northwest Coast of North America, ethnographic and archaeological data present a complex dynamic of social, economic, and political relationships that involved disparities in material wealth, differential access to resources, and social stratification (Ames 1995; Carlson 1996; Coupland 1988; Grier 2003; Maschner 1991; Matson and Coupland 1995; Matson 2010). Central to these dynamics were restrictions on production, reproduction, and access to knowledge in the form of technical craft training and ritual prerogatives (e.g. Elmendorf 1971; Suttles 1958, 1960). Examining how the production and management of knowledge changed through time is central to understanding the fundamental shifts in social organization that occur with the emergence of hereditary forms of social inequality.

As opposed to examining learning, technological analyses on the Northwest Coast have primarily emphasized typological concerns or addressed ethnographic issues of function (Burley 1988; Carlson and Magne 2008; Carlson 1954, 1983; Campbell 1981; Collier et al. 1942; Croes et al. 2008; King 1950; Kornbacher 1992; Matson 1976; Smith 1950; Strong et al. 1930). The relationship between knowledge and social inequality has received increasing recognition as a fundamental anthropological issue (e.g. Bowles et al. 2010). Cultural transmission theory provides a theoretical framework for examining the implications of fundamental social transitions as they are reflected in material culture. Using cultural transmission (CT) models, a shift towards more restricted access to knowledge (e.g. Henrich and GilWhite 2001; Henrich and Henrich 2007) may result in decreased stylistic diversity at the site and regional levels in a wide range of technological traditions over time, not only status items.

The social and political organization of the pre-contact southern Northwest Coast provides an ideal setting for examining shifts in the production and reproduction of material culture (sensu Ames 2001, 2008; Angelbeck 2009; Burley 1981; Coupland 1988; Donald and Mitchell 1975; Donald 1997; Elmendorf 1960, 1971; Suttles 1951, 1958, 1960). This manuscript documents the material impacts of broader transformations in pre-contact Coast Salish economic practices, social relations, and political organization occurring over the past 5,000 years through examining how social inequality effects the transmission of craft knowledge. The transition between the Locarno Beach (3500-2400 BP) and Marpole (2400-1000 BP) periods marks substantial social transitions such as the emergence of hereditary inequality and regional peerelite exchange networks (Angelbeck 2009; Burley 1980; Clark 2010; Grier 2003, 2006; Matson and Coupland 1995; Matson 2010; Morin 2012).

Several lines of evidence are examined to assess whether increased uniformity in tool production is evident in the craft traditions of the Salish Sea (the Coast Salish world at contact which is comprised of Puget Sound and the Gulf of Georgia Figure 1) as a result of changes in social organization. Two different technologies (formed chipped stone and ground stone tools) with unique production sequences but similar functions (Figure 2) are examined from dated archaeological sites spanning the past 5,000 years in the Gulf of Georgia and Puget Sound for increased uniformity in overall artefact styles and fine scale metric variation. Several critiques of the cultural transmission literature as applied to lithic technologies (e.g. Shott 2008; Bamforth and Finlay 2008) are also addressed. Specifically, this study accounts for factors such as tool retouch which are often overlooked in learning studies (Andrefsky 2006, 2009). By considering retouch, this study refines approaches to detecting forms of social learning in lithic technologies which have emerged from simulated datasets (Mesoudi and O’Brien 2008) and have been tested on archaeological assemblages from the American Southwest and Great Basin (e.g. Bettinger and Eerkens 1999; Eerkens and Bettinger 2008; Eerkens and Lipo 2005) but not on the Northwest Coast. Refining methodological issues tied to variation in artefact use life permits more nuanced studies of lithic technologies aimed at examining how restricted access to resources and knowledge pattern tool production.

Archaeological evidence for social inequality has traditionally been in the form of exchanged status items (nephrite, dentalia, obsidian, coppers, Marpole ground stone bowls) and the burial record. This study provides a complimentary approach to past studies of inequality on the Northwest Coast. The fundamental social transformations seen over the past 3,000 years should result in increasingly restricted access to knowledge for the production of specific technologies that may be associated with status as the prerogatives for the production of such items become restricted as they are in ethnographic accounts.

1

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Figure 1. Map of Study Region.

2

Introduction

Figure 2. Example Chipped Stone (Left, 45SJ2:1-934, Photo Courtesy Burke Museum) and Ground Stone (Right, DeRt2:161, Photo Courtesy RBCM) Hafted Tools.

Characterizing Learning among the Precontact Coast Salish

challenge set by Grier (2007) of critically using Northwest Coast ethnography to develop research questions.

Understanding the social context of learning in the past is key for understanding continuity and change in human societies and their material culture. Although the emergence of hereditary elites in small scale societies and control of resources has had substantial treatment in the anthropological literature (Ames 2010; Arnold 1993; Brumfiel 1987; Feinman 1995; Johnson 1982; Kim and Grier 2006; McGuire 1983; Price and Brown 1985; Price and Feinman 2010; Shennan 2011; Tainter 2006), the clear impacts these fundamental societal transformations have had for social learning, and how knowledge itself is a controlled resource, has been less examined. The inheritance and control of knowledge is key to an aspect of the production and reproduction of social inequality that Bowles et al. (2010) term relational wealth, the number and status of individuals whom one is linked to.

Although the culture-historic trends of various Northwest Coast tool industries have been investigated since the 1950s (e.g. Burley 1980; Carlson and Magne 2008; Drucker 1943; Mitchell 1990), the behavioural and social contexts, namely learning, that produced variation in material culture have had limited treatment. Clear changes in social organization are noted to have occurred over the past 3,000 years in the Salish Sea. During the Locarno Beach period (3500-2400 BP) evidence suggests smaller, non-aggregated households and achieved forms of social status (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Clark 2010; Matson 2010). By 2400 years ago, the Marpole period, sedentism in the form of winter villages, large houses and households (e.g. Borden 1950; Clark 2010; Grier 2001; Lepofsky et al. 2009; Matson and Coupland 1995; Matson 2010; Mitchell 1990; Schaepe 2009; Sobel 2006), and social ranking are evident (Ames 2001; Beattie 1981; Burley and Knusel 1989; Cybulksi 1991), indicating forms of social organization akin with the ethnographic period. While archaeologists have traditionally argued that these patterns emerge from the intensification of marine resources (e.g. Croes and Hackenberger 1988; Matson and Coupland 1995), considerable continuity is seen the types of resources used in the Salish Sea through the Holocene (Bilton 2014; Butler and Campbell 2004; McKechnie 2014; Orchard and Clark 2006) and peoples of the Northwest Coast are increasingly viewed as food producers who actively managed subsistence resources (Berkes and Turner 2006; Hunn, et al. 2003; Moss 2011; Trosper 2009; Weiser and Lepofsky 2009). As such, the social transitions seen during Marpole remain only partly understood, and the relationship between these fundamental social transformations and changes in how knowledge is produced and reproduced is unexplored.

Cultural transmission provides a theoretical and empirical framework for examining the inheritance of relational wealth, through studying how social inequality influences who individuals choose to learn from (Henrich and Henrich 2007; Henrich and Gil-White 2001). However, the learner-centric approach of these models has ignored the reality that the teaching of knowledge may be restricted. Developing models that emphasize the restriction of knowledge is a more appropriate approach for examining Coast Salish communities, as status in the ethnohistoric period is founded on the restriction of material and ritual knowledge (e.g. Barnett 1955; Elmendorf 1971; Gunther 1927; Hill-Tout 1978; Suttles 1951). The emergence of hereditary inequality on the Northwest Coast, and with it restricted forms of teaching, as argued here, have clear material correlates in the reproduction of craft traditions. By examining shifts in learning, this study rises to the

3

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Previous studies examining social learning among the Coast Salish (Croes et al. 2005; Jordan and Mace 2008; Rorabaugh 2009, 2012) have relied upon methods from evolutionary biology to reconstruct culture-historic trends and detect whether forms of learning had high or low degrees of fidelity through time. These studies have indicated that different learning contexts are present with different technological traditions, depending upon their specific contexts. For instance, Croes et al.’s (2005) study of basketry styles from wet site contexts and Jordan and Mace’s (2008) use of ethnographic data revealed high fidelity cross-generational learning of highly guarded weaving styles through affinal kin. However, these studies examining craft tradition learning on the Northwest Coast have not attempted to examine this fundamental transition, as they have been limited to the late period (Croes et al. 2005) or ethnographic data (Jordan and Mace 2008).

Kelly 1988; Parry and Kelly 1987) tools such as cobble choppers (Palmer 2012) are heavily patterned by core shape and processes of retouch and tool curation and do not reflect shared mental representations. For these reasons, only hafted stone tools that require considerable investment in production and demonstrate consistent, shared, styles through time are considered in this study. Hafted bifaces and ground stone points were specifically chosen since both technologies are ubiquitous and are argued to have distinct time-dependent styles (e.g. Carlson and Magne 2008). These two technologies (chipped stone and ground stone) were also chosen because they represent distinct technologies with very different production sequences but similar functions (use as knives and projectiles). As such, they have the potential to track different learning strategies. Hypotheses for Restricted Formed Lithic Tool Learning in the Salish Sea

The key role social learning has in patterning the archaeological record is widely recognized, but until the last decade archaeologists have lacked the theoretical and methodological means to examine learning in depth (Crown 2001: 451). Models of gene-culture co-evolution (cultural transmission) (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Boyd and Richerson 1985) provide a means to address these fundamental issues which has yielded tractable ways to examine learning processes in the archaeological record. An implication of cultural transmission theory is that the morphological diversity of a technology can be patterned by learning processes. Specific forms of learning such as whether it is parent-to-child or peer-based will increase or constrain variation, which enables an empirical means of examining shifts in learning contexts through time although there are other factors that pattern variation in material culture.

This study examines morphological variation in two technologies with similar functions but differing methods of production (hafted chipped stone and ground stone tools) to determine if the shifts in social organization that occurred between the Locarno Beach and Marpole periods are reflected in aspects of material culture other than status items, which have traditionally been used to document the emergence of exclusive peer-elite interactions on the Northwest Coast (e.g. Grier 2003). Specifically, this study examines how variation in tool technologies is impacted by the ways in which high status individuals restrict teaching, following ethnographic discussions of how Coast Salish hereditary elites restricted knowledge (e.g. Suttles 1958). Significant changes in the social relationships of tool production are expected with the emergence of hereditary forms of inequality. Access to knowledge for the production of specific technologies tied to subsistence are predicted to become more restricted. This should result in increased stylistic uniformity at local (household and village) scales through time. The emergence of ascribed forms of status should encourage greater continuity through time as a result of knowledge becoming increasingly restricted, in other words guarded styles are handed down through lineages or corporate entities. Due to the expansive size of the elite social class in the ethnohistoric period (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Suttles 1958) elite families guarding styles from other peer-elites should result in this reduction of variation through time as a result of continuity and consistency in guarded family styles.

Formed lithic tools can provide strong evidence of social learning as they require a high degree of skill and knowledge to produce. Both hafted bifaces (used as projectiles and knives) and ground stone points (the term ground stone is used in place of “slate” since a wide range of materials including basalt, andesite, dacite, schist, and slate form ground stone tool assemblages (e.g. Stein 2003) involve carefully patterned production sequences involving deliberate, intentional, planning by the tool maker. The repeated, sequenced, behaviours of production are highly subject to variation as a learned pattern of cultural expression (Bamforth and Finlay 2008). Thus, hafted bifacial technologies are sensitive to the changes in learning context predicted to emerge with hereditary social inequality on the Northwest Coast.

The material correlates of these long-term behaviours should be apparent in the morphological variation in formed lithic technologies. The specific hypotheses evaluated are 1) that restricted forms of knowledge result in lowered fine-scale variation in both formed chipped and ground stone tools of all styles through time in the entire Salish Sea and 2) an increased unevenness in the styles represented in assemblages. If the reproduction of technical skills is influenced by a regional system of exclusive peer-elites, as illustrated by the production and exchange of prestige

As such, formed lithic tools are the most appropriate subject for examination. Although variation between tool producers may be detected in lithic debitage (Williams and Andrefsky 2010), these by-products of production do not directly reflect mental templates and thus obscures our ability to detect restricted forms of teaching and learning. Similarly, the attribute variability present in expedient (Andrefsky 1991; Bamforth 1986; Binford 1973, 1979; 4

Introduction

items (e.g. Grier 2003), then similar patterns of restricted access to technical knowledge, tied to the growing importance of prestige, may be seen throughout the region. Although restricted forms of knowledge are predicted, the approach used enables the detection of alternative forms of knowledge transfer, as addressed in later chapters.

through perception and copying errors. Next, modes and mechanisms of cultural transmission relevant to the study are reviewed. This is followed by a brief discussion of evolutionary approaches to style and function, namely Dunnell’s style-function dichotomy and the Price equation, and summarizes how artefact style and function are treated in this analysis. Then the archaeological measures of cultural transmission used (richness, Tf, coefficient of variation) are outlined along with how they are derived and employed to examine learning contexts, and agent based models demonstrating the dynamics between learning contexts and these measures. The concluding segment of this chapter is a summary of the issues of equifinality in examining these behaviours in the archaeological record, but ways in which we can still use cultural transmission theory to narrow down interpretations of learning processes when considering context.

Chapter Organization This study examines how knowledge was managed among pre-contact Coast Salish communities. Specifically, how technical craft skills for the production of chipped and ground stone technologies were passed on are explored. This is done using a cultural transmission framework. The key aim of this study is to examine whether access to technical knowledge becomes more restricted through time when forms of hereditary social inequality emerge, as suggested by ethnographic accounts on Coast Salish craft learning. With that goal in mind, the first three chapters are organized to provide the background context of this issue.

The overall hypothesis, that craft knowledge becomes more restricted through time in the Salish Sea, is discussed in Chapter 5. Alternative hypotheses tied to both cultural transmission and lithic technological organization are also discussed. The first part of the chapter focuses on how restricted knowledge may structure variation (stylistic and metric) seen in artefacts. The second part of the chapter focuses on alternative hypotheses drawn from cultural transmission models and how factors tied to lithic technological organization such as material quality, retouch, and functional constraints of tools may impact detecting restricted learning. This chapter outlines variation increasing and reducing processes tied to social learning, population dynamics, and lithic technological organization and how they pattern the ability detect shifts in the learning of craft skills.

Chapter 2 focuses on the emergence of hereditary social inequality in the Salish Sea and is broken down chronologically, covering the last 5,000 years of prehistory in the Salish Sea. This discussion is divided into three sections outlining recent discussions on the Charles (55003500 BP), Locarno Beach (3500-2400 BP), Marpole (2400-1000 BP), and Late Periods (1000 BP-Contact). The second half of the chapter is an ethnographic discussion of evidence for restricted knowledge and its connection to hereditary social inequality. Part of this discussion emphasizes the connections between technical training in a craft and restricted access to those skills. The central arguments in this chapter are: 1) control of knowledge as a resource is crucial to hereditary forms of social inequality emerging in the Salish Sea 2) the production of tools tied to a craft, and the craft itself, may be controlled forms of knowledge among the pre-contact Coast Salish and that restricted knowledge may apply to more than the production of “elite” items by embedded craft specialists.

Chapter 6 focuses on the methods to measure variation employed in the study, and the specific impacts of the hypotheses on those measures. The chapter begins with a discussion of typological issues as they relate to measuring stylistic variation. A key issue raised in this section is the justification for using a polythetic classification for style, which is a clear departure from many of the regional typologies. This section ends with the typology used for the study.

Chapter 3 examines the context for bifacial and ground slate technologies in the region, summarizing the history of these technological systems and their hypothesized functions. The chapter begins overview of the introduction of bifacial technologies in western North America. This is followed by a summary of major chronological trends seen in these technologies from the Archaic to Late Period in the Salish Sea. Next, the ways in which material quality, tool retouch, and function may impact the variation we see in these artefacts is addressed. The chapter concludes with a brief review of the debate surrounding the timing of the use of arrow technologies in the Pacific Northwest.

The typological discussion is followed by a review of the measures of stylistic variation used in this study (richness, Tf). This is followed by a discussion of how to employ the most prevalent measure of metric variation used to measure cultural transmission (coefficient of variation). This section concludes with a discussion on the impacts of knowledge restriction, retouch, and material quality on the measures used. The chapter concludes with a description of the sample of site components and artefacts examined.

Chapter 4 provides background information on cultural transmission theory and its application to the archaeological record. The chapter begins with a section outlining the utility of a Darwinian approach to culture in explaining processes such as innovation and learning. Part of this discussion involves covering the production of variation

Results are presented over three chapters. Chapter 7 focuses on issues of lithic technological organization such as material quality and tool retouch and how they pattern variation at assemblage (stylistic variation) and artefact (metric variation) scales. Chapter 8 is an examination 5

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

of temporal and spatial variation in dated assemblages, assessing the potential impacts of sample size effects and time-averaging. Chapter 9 examines assemblage and artefact variation from a cultural transmission. Overall, the chapter explores whether we see a reduction in variation through time and how robust that pattern is using different measures. Chapter 10 provides discussion of the results in the context of larger theoretical, methodological, and topical issues for the Northwest Coast and whether they support the idea that craft knowledge in chipped and ground stone tools became more restricted through time. Some alternative interpretations of the data that emerge from the Northwest Coast and lithics literature are also addressed. One alternative examined is whether there was a transition from chipped stone to ground stone tools through time, and if that may bias the results. The role that functional constraints, such as the introduction of new types such as arrows on the coast, had in patterning the results is also assessed. In Chapter 11, the conclusions of this study are briefly summarized, followed by a discussion on areas for future research. My discussion on areas for future research is divided into two sections, the first involves new directions for cultural transmission theory such as dealing with incorporeal aspects of social inequality and issues with equifinality. The second section discusses some new directions for examining restricted knowledge and lithic technological organization in the Salish Sea.

6

2 Evidence for the Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning in the Salish Sea The Salish Sea has been central for theorizing the emergence of hereditary social inequality among sedentary foragers (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Ames 1991; Arnold 1993; Burley 1980; Coupland 1985; Hayden 1994, 1995; Matson 1983). The explanations put forward by theorists range from resource depression and ownership to charismatic leadership. The majority of these explanations have drawn heavily on cultural ecology and have become increasingly challenged by archaeological data (e.g. Bilton 2014; Butler and Campbell 2004; McKechnie 2014; Moss 2011), although researchers have increasingly examined the role of historic processes in shaping these fundamental social transformations (Angelbeck 2009; Cannon 2002; Grier 2003; Martindale and Letham 2011).

social organization on the Northwest Coast (e.g. Fladmark 1975; Schalk 1977; Carlson 1983; Matson 1983; Matson 1989, 1992; Croes and Hackenberger 1988; Ames 1994; Cannon 1996). Some researchers have criticized that the over-emphasis on salmon in these intensification models, suggesting that they ignored the reality of the breadth of resources used in traditional Northwest Coast economies (Monks 1987). Another significant issue with these models is that intensification has been poorly operationalized and underexamined by researchers despite its importance as a concept in theory building for the region (Ames 2005:70). Increasingly, as opposed to a narrative of the growth, elaboration, and specialization of subsistence economies resulting in increasing cultural complexity through time, archaeological evidence points to more complex relationships between the increased utilization of different kinds of resources throughout the region and the profound impacts they had on the historical trajectories of different Northwest Coast groups (e.g. Bilton 2014; Bovy 2005; Butler and Campbell 2004; Campbell and Butler 2010; Daniels 2009; Duer and Turner 2005; Orchard 2007; McKechnie 2014; Moss 2011; Monks and Orchard 2011; papers in Moss and Cannon 2011). There does not appear to be a specific time when the ecological adaptations of the ethnohistoric period emerged in the region, as assemblages in the Salish Sea appear to be relatively diverse through the Holocene (Bilton 2014; McKechnie 2014; Orchard and Clark 2006). Due to the ecological continuity seen, some researchers have suggested that the cultural changes in the region do not correspond to changes in material conditions, and instead have placed greater emphasis on historical process (e.g. Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Angelbeck 2011; Cannon 2002; Grier 2003; Martindale and Letham 2011). Despite this continuity, there are some marked shifts through time as, for instance, it has been argued that the seasonality of early houses (4000-5000 BP) may be markedly different than later households (2000 BP and earlier) in the Salish Sea (Lepofsky et al. 2009; Grier and Kim 2012).

A common underlying theme of many of these models is the control of information, whether resulting from elites managing tasks (Ames 1991) or restricting access to resources (Coupland 1985). In this chapter, first the archaeological evidence for hereditary social inequality in the Salish Sea is reviewed, followed by a discussion of how knowledge itself was a controlled resource in the ethnohistoric period. At the end of the chapter, it is posited that the emergence of hereditary social inequality and control of knowledge of material and non-material resources (sensu Ames 1995, 2010; Bowles et al. 2010; Henrich and Gil-White 2001) are intertwined and can be assessed in the archaeological record. Archaeological Data for Social Inequality in the Salish Sea Northwest Coast archaeologists have long acknowledged the role that the large-scale procurement and storage of seasonally available resources, especially salmon, have had in the emergence the lifeways documented in the ethnographic record (Matson 1992; Ames 1994). Although debate as to when the forms of social organization seen in the ethnographic period emerged on the Northwest Coast and the degree of historic continuity in practices (Carlson 1991; Matson and Coupland 1994; Matson 2010; Moss 2011), by 2000 BP there is clear evidence for hereditary forms of social inequality (e.g. Beattie 1981; Burley and Knusel 1989; Carlson and Hobler 1993; Curtin 1991; Grier 2003). Prior to the 1970s, explanations for the emergence of large plank house villages and hereditary elites were varied, ranging from migration, to technological adaptation, or environmental shifts (Borden 1970:109; Burley 1980; Carlson 1970:122; Clark 2010). Through the 1980s and 1990s, these views were replaced with models focusing on the importance of intensive salmon harvesting as the economic change leading to the development of complex

Although there is considerable continuity in economic adaptations through time, fundamental social transformations do occur in the Salish Sea over the past 5,000 years. The most fundamental of these changes is the emergence of hereditary forms of social inequality, which the archaeological evidence for is reviewed. This discussion is divided into the four major time periods of the Gulf of Georgia culture-historic sequence (Figure 3). The use of the term “phase” is avoided as these periods on the Northwest Coast, despite Mitchell’s (1971) use of 7

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

appear to be relatively diverse (Bilton 2014: 259-260). The earliest components of Crescent Beach on the Fraser Delta are dominated equally by salmon and flatfish while assemblages in shíshálh territory in the Northern Gulf of Georgia have abundant dogfish and herring. The same fish taxa dominate later assemblages, suggesting considerable continuity in the marine resources used throughout the Holocene. Archaeological evidence for the utilization of plants is unfortunately sparse due to preservational issues, but it is likely that a wide range of plant resources utilized in the ethnohistoric period have considerable antiquity (Derr 2012; Lepofsky and Lyons 2013; Ormerod 2002). Settlement patterns during this period focused on small residential sites that may have been utilized for multiple seasons. Structures dated prior to 3500 BP are highly variable in size and form (Table 1). Early houses such as those at DgRn-23 Xá: ytem (Mason 1994) and DhRk-8 Maurer (LeClair 1976; Schaepe 2003) on the Upper Fraser (Figure 4) appear to be substantial rectangular plank house structures with living floors similar in size to the smaller multifamily houses of the Marpole period (Figure 5), although still much smaller than the larger structures dating to Marpole. Although there are similarities with later Coast Salish plankhouses, the variation in these early structures likely reflects different seasonal occupations, sizes, and architectural sizes (Ormerod 2002; Ormerod and Matson 2000). Grier (2003: 9) suggests that these houses represent single or extended families. Coupland et al. (2009) argue that family autonomy is reflected in these structures, and there is no clear evidence of status differentials. Smaller single-family winter pit house structures were also utilized, as exemplified by the structure at 45WH-34 Ferndale (Hutchings 2004; Gillis 2007). There are also controversial claims for the presence of houses at DgRr-2, the St. Mungo site (Ham et al 1983).

Figure 3 Salish Sea Regional Chronology.

culture-type, reflect recognized differences in toolkits or economic adaptations (Croes and Hackenberger 1988) as opposed to being equivalent with distinct archaeological cultures (e.g. Willey and Phillips 1958). Local and seasonal variability in tool kits can easily become conflated with cultural differences (Abbott 1972). A recent re-evaluation of Marpole by Clark (2010) attempted to redefine the Locarno Beach and Marpole phases more in accordance with Willey and Phillips’ (1958) formulation of the phase concept. Clark (2010) highlights inter-assemblage variability in the region and suggests that a Late Locarno Beach culture coexists with a Fraser River and Gulf Islands centred Marpole culture. Although recognizing that the Marpole period is not homogeneous, his dichotomy fails to fully capture the degree of social and economic variability in that time period, or the extensive nature of the social networks noted to have existed at that time (e.g. Grier 2003). As such, the more commonly accepted sequence for the region is used instead for this discussion.

Although pre-contact demographic data is sparse, a population curve for the Southern Northwest Coast by Ames and Maschner (1999) based on radiocarbon date frequencies suggests that while aggregated households are present, population sizes are relatively low during the Charles period (Figure 5). There are significant issues with using radiocarbon date frequencies to estimate demography, as they reflect regional research and funding histories. Similarly, Boyd’s (1986) population estimate which is projected onto the curve is highly conservative and likely drastically underestimates population sizes. Despite these caveats, the general temporal trends seen in this estimate sheds some light on the paleodemography of the region. There is no clear evidence for hereditary social inequality during this period based on grave goods (Ames and Maschner 1999; Matson and Coupland 1994). However, this does not mean that this period was necessarily egalitarian, as egalitarianism requires protocols and practices that prevent the hoarding and control of surplus (Ames 2010; Arnold 1993; Blake and Clark 1999; Cashdan 1980; Trigger 2003; Woodburn 1982). In other words, egalitarianism must be actively maintained. Based on recent archaeological evidence from shíshálh

Charles Period (5500-3500 BP) There is a consensus among Northwest Coast archaeologists for long term in situ cultural development in the Salish Sea since, if not before, the beginning of the Charles period approximately 5,000 years ago (Burley 1980; Carlson and Hobler 1993; Clark 2000; Mitchell 1971; Matson 1976; Schaepe 2009; Moss 2011). There is also evidence during this period of significant trade and exchange among Coast Salish peoples, as indicated by lithic sourcing studies (Carlson 1994). The Charles period consisted of maritime and riverine foraging adaptations that utilized a broad spectrum of resources, but primarily exploited locally available resource patches (Chatters and Prentiss 2005; Coupland 1998: 44-46; Lepofsky et al. 2000; Prentiss and Chatters 2003). Early fish assemblages 8

Maurer

Ferndale

Crescent Beach

Esquimault Lagoon Birch Point

Woodstock Farm

DhRk8

45WH34

DgRr1

DcRu1151 45WH48

45WH55

9

Sequim

Pender Candal

Long Harbour

Biederbost

Point Grey

Whalen Farm

Cherry Point

Marpole

Garrison Bay

45CA426

DeRt1

DfRu44

45SN100

DhRt5

DfRs3

45WH1

DhRs1

45SJ25

Decatur Island

Scowlitz

Xá:ytem

DgRn23

DhRl16 45SJ165

Name

Site

San Juan Islands

Fraser Delta

Northwest Washington

Fraser Delta

Fraser Delta

Puget Sound

Gulf Islands

San Juan Islands Northern Olympic Peninsula Gulf Islands

Vancouver Island Northwest Washington Northwest Washington Upper Fraser

Northwest Washington Fraser Delta

Upper Fraser

Upper Fraser

Location

8

2600

1725

1845

1950 1875

1960

2320 1960

2440

2555

1*

1*

1

>1*

>1

1

4

1

2

1

1

2605

2585

1* 1

1*

2

1

3

# of Identified Structures

3000 2800

3170

4640

4940

5080

Median Cal Age BP

Table 1. Reported Archaeological Coast Salish Houses

n/a

n/a

20x6

n/a

n/a

7x?

7.5x?

6x5

5x4.5

5.5x4.25

17x11

>2.8x>2.4

n/a 10x7

4.5x3.5

6x6

7.5x5

11x10

Largest Structure Dimensions (m)

n/a

n/a

120

n/a

n/a

n/a

60

30

22.5

23.4

187

n/a

n/a 70

15.75

36

37.5

110

Largest Structure Area (m²)

Rectangular Plankhouse*

Rectangular Plankhouse*

Rectangular Plankhouse

Pithouse*

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Sub-Rectangular Pithouse

Sub-Rectangular Pithouse

Sub-Rectangular Pithouse

Sub-Rectangular Pithouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Sub-Rectangular Pithouse

Sub-Rectangular Pithouse* Round Pithouse

Round Pithouse*

Round Pithouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Description

Kenady 1973; Stein 2000

Carlson and Hobler 1993:43; Carlson 1986; Hanson 1990 Johnstone 1991, 2003; Kim and Grier 2012 Nordquist 1976, Nelson 1972 Borden 1947; Coupland 1991 Smith 1925: 315; Thom 1992: 22 Blodgett 1976; Dubeau 2013; Dugas 1996; Grabert 1988; Markham 1993; Rorabaugh 2009 Borden 1970

Morgan 1996, 1998, 1999

Walker 2003

Campbell et al. 2010; Lewis 2013 Lepofsky et al. 2000: 402

Mason 1994; Schaepe 2009 LeClair 1976; Lepofsky 2009: 602; Schaepe 2003 Gillis 2007; Hutchings 2004 Matson et al. 2008; Percy 1974; Trace 1981 Bowie and Kristensen 2011 Gaston 1975: 27

Reference

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

English Camp

Shingle Point

Dionisio Point Locality Sbabadid

Welqamex

Old Man House

DgRv2

DgRv6

45KI51

DiRi15

45KP2

Dionisio Point

DgRv3

45SJ24

Tualdad Altu

Beach Grove

DgRs1

False Narrows

DgRw4

45KI59

Name

Site

10

Puget Sound

Upper Fraser

Puget Sound

Gulf Islands

San Juan Islands Gulf Islands

Gulf Islands

Fraser Delta

Puget Sound

Gulf Islands

Location

1

825

100

200 1

11

1

1

890

200

1

5

1350

1400

1 11*

1570

2

# of Identified Structures

1520

1590

Median Cal Age BP

160x18

>10x5

27x9

40x10

13x8

15x10

40x10

13x10

17x7

n/a

Largest Structure Dimensions (m)

2880

n/a

243

400

104

150

400

130

119

n/a

Largest Structure Area (m²)

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse*

Rectangular Plankhouse

Rectangular Plankhouse

Description

Gibbs 1970; Snyder 1956; Suttles 1991

Graesch 2006: 48

Kornbacher 1989; Stein 1992; Taylor et al. 2011 Grier et al. 2009; Matson 2003 Derr et al. 2012; Grier and Stevens 2011 Chatters 1989

Ball 1979; Grier 2003: 186; Matson et al. 1980; Ham 1981 Mitchell 1971; Grier 2001

Burley 1988; Mitchell 1967 Chatters 1989

Reference

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

Figure 4. Referenced Salish Sea Archaeological Sites.

11

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Figure 5 Whisker plot of Floor Areas of Largest Reported Domestic Structures at Coast Salish Archaeological Sites (45KP2 Old Man House and Simon Fraser House Excluded).

However, the notion of clear changes in Locarno beach subsistence from the Charles period are being increasingly challenged (e.g. Bilton 2014; McKechnie 2014; Orchard and Clark 2006). Settlement patterns during Locarno Beach have traditionally been characterized as a dichotomy of residential base camps and seasonal limited activity sites (Ames and Maschner 1999: 142; Borden 1950; Mather 2009; Matson 1992: 367-428; Matson and Coupland 1994: 154-177; Mitchell 1990: 340-358; Steifel 1985: 6-8, 201; Wigen 1980).

territory (Clark et al. 2012), a substantial degree of nonkin labour (202+ person-months of work based on Thom’s (2005) estimate of six minutes of labour to produce a bead) was required to produce and amass the ground stone beads associated with the one of the adult male burials. Clark (personal communication 2014), suggests that the bead assemblage reflects extensive, as opposed to intensive production and that most bead producers were not specialists. Similarly dated burials with substantial amounts of beads are also seen at the Tsawwassen site (Curtin 1999) and Cowichan bay (Hanson 1991; Yip 1982). This suggests that although families may have been relatively economically autonomous, some form of incipient elite was present although social restrictions may have prevented the inter-generational transfer of wealth meaning that social status was likely achieved, rather than ascribed, during this period. Locarno Beach (3500-2400 BP)

House structures dating to Locarno Beach have been reported at DgRr-1 Crescent Beach (Matson 2010), DeRt1 Pender Canal (Carlson 1986; Hanson 1990), 45WH-48 Simonarson (Gaston 1975), 45WH-55 Woodstock Farm (Lewis 2013; Campbell et al. 2010), 45SJ-165 Decatur Island (Walker 2003), DcRu-1151 Esquimault Lagoon (Bowie and Kristensen 2011), and 45CA-426 Sequim (Morgan 1996, 1998, 1999).

Archaeological data on the Locarno Beach period is limited compared to the Marpole and Late periods. Archaeologists have suggested that settlement and subsistence patterns are different from the Charles period (Matson 1992: 384).

A non-residential Locarno summer structure has also been reported at 45WH-1 Cherry Point (Grabert 1988; Rorabaugh 2009). These houses appear to have been winter structures inhabited by single nuclear families (Matson 12

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

Figure 6 Southern Northwest Coast Demographic Estimate Based on Boyd (1986) projected on Ames and Maschner (1999) curve.

328; Matson 1992: 419; Matson and Coupland 1995: 303-304; Moss 1989). Among these other resources was herring, which despite the historical emphasis on studying salmon in the archaeological record, McKechnie (2014: 41-42) argues that herring may have been the most important fish used in the Salish Sea, and was key to ecological and socio-economic systems through the HoloceneMatson (2008) cites the increase in the number of archaeological sites in the Gulf of Georgia after the St. Mungo period, as reported by Mitchell (1990) as a line of evidence for the emergence of storage economies during Locarno Beach. He also argues for salmon storage based on their strong representation in the faunal assemblages at DgRr-1 Crescent Beach. A similar pattern is seen at other Locarno Beach period sites including 45KI-428 West Point (Larson and Lewarch 1995) and 45SJ-165 Decatur Island (Walker 2003). Finally, Matson suggests that the absence of salmonid cranial elements relative to caudal elements at Crescent Beach is an indication of storage. He argues that if processing was done on-site for immediate consumption cranial elements would be present.

2010). The majority of them are substantially smaller than the many of the house structures dating to the preceding Charles period and those of the following Marpole period (Figure 5). Locarno Beach houses also vary considerably in form (Table 1), ranging from ovoid to rectilinear structures. These house styles appear to continue until 2300 BP, as suggested by the post mould and living floor features at DfRu-44 Long Harbour (Johnstone 1991, 2003). Towards the end of the Locarno Beach period there is evidence for substantial plank house structures, namely at DhRl-16 Scowlitz (Lepofsky et al. 2000) on the Upper Fraser, which dates to 2600 cal BP. It is possible that while there were more people living on the coast during Locarno Beach than the Charles period (Figure 6), they were more dispersed on the landscape. Although there is considerable continuity in the diversity and abundance of marine resources harvested in the Salish Sea between the Charles and Locarno Beach periods (Bilton 2014; McKechnie 2014), Locarno Beach has been traditionally characterized as a period where subsistence shifts from a forager to a collector strategy, where the large-scale procurement, processing, and storage of salmon and other resources is present (Butler and Campbell 2004:

Clark (2010: 76) notes that some sites such as Kosapsom have high proportions of cranial elements and suggests that 13

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

salmon storage might not be a focal point for all economies during this period. Similarly, number of sites does not constitute a strong line of evidence or resource storage but does suggest larger populations during Locarno Beach times although they may be structured differently, namely less aggregated, than those of the preceding Charles period.

practices (Carlson 1987) and the use of labrets: lip ornaments for personal adornment (Keddie 1981). The presence of labrets, and dental abrasion on human remains indicative of wearing labrets for a long period of time has been suggested as a marker of high status (e.g. Ames 1995, Ames and Maschner 1999; Angelbeck and Grier 2012; LaSalle 2008, 2014; Matson and Coupland 1995; Moss 2011; Rorabaugh and Shantry 2016; Shantry 2014). Most recently, LaSalle (2014) argued that although simple interpretations correlating labrets with status may not be wrong, they do obscure many of the complexities inherent with forms of body ornamentation.

Terrestrial mammals, sea mammals, non-salmonid fish species, shellfish, and birds were also important aspects of the diet (Borden 1951; Bovy 2005; Steifel 1985; Wigen 1980). Butler and Campbell (2004) note that the importance of large terrestrial game have been underexamined in synthetic studies of Northwest Coast subsistence. Angelbeck and Cameron (2014) argue that from Locarno Beach to the Late period terrestrial mammal evenness decreases and the use of cervids and artiodactyls increase compared to small mammals. This may reflect increasing specialization for artiodactyls through time.

The earliest directly dated evidence of labret wear on human remains comes from an interment at the Locarno Beach component of DeRt-2 Pender Canal (Cybulski 1991). A similarly dated interment with evidence of labret wear is found at DgRs-2 Tsawwassen (Curtin 1991). The earliest labrets recovered in the region are from Component C at the St. Mungo site and Component 1 at West Point, both dating to the transition from the Charles to Locarno Beach periods (Matson 2010). Carlson and Hobler (1993: 45) also note the presence of ‘simple labrets’ at Pender Canal dating to 3500 BP with marine reservoir correction (Matson 2010). According to Ames (1995), labret use becomes more common in the Gulf of Georgia from 35002000 BP. Although few labrets have directly associated radiocarbon dates, an examination of the frequency of reported archaeological labrets from southwest British Columbia (LaSalle 2014) and northwest Washington state (Rorabaugh and Shantry 2016; Shantry 2014) with their associated site components (Figure 7) indicates that their use increases and later declines through that time.

At Hoko (Croes and Hackenberger 1988) a flatfish storage economy is present, which is suggested to be a precursor to a salmon storage economy but highlights the variability of subsistence strategies during Locarno. As mentioned earlier, herring forms a significant portion of faunal assemblages at numerous sites and was a dietary staple (Bilton 2014; Johnstone 1991; Matson 1992; McKechnie 2014; Mitchell 1979, 1988; Monks 1977; Steifel 1985; Walker 2003; Wigen 1980). The presence of quartz crystal microblades and slate knives (both hafted and unhafted) have also been used to argue for the presence of intensive processing and storage economies during Locarno Beach (e.g. Croes and Hackenberger 1988; Mitchell 1971). Although populations were likely higher during Locarno Beach, the apparent lack of large multi-family households during Locarno Beach suggests group fissioning. The reasons for this whether social, or ecological, are unclear. However, when combined with the temporal continuity in utilized marine resources (e.g. Bilton 2014; McKechnie 2014) it appears that the unilineal evolutionary models of resource intensification and social complexity of the past do not fit the more complex realities of the archaeological data of the region. However, the ways in which food production was actively managed (e.g. Berkes and Turner 2006; Hunn, et al. 2003; Moss 2011; Trosper 2002, 2009; Weiser and Lepofsky 2009) may have changed during Locarno Beach. The larger, but more spatially dispersed, populations of this period may have faced new constraints in terms of the increased formalization of task organization (e.g. Ames 1995) and territoriality (Coupland 1985). It is likely that these factors influenced how resources were managed, and later controlled by kin groups. The increased control of subsistence resources, likely tied to the control of the knowledge of how to manage these resources by kin groups, may mark the beginning of the key role of hereditary knowledge as a resource that later enabled the reproduction of hereditary social inequalities (Derr 2012).

Labrets also leave clear evidence of abrasion on human dentition if worn long enough (Murray 1981; Cybulski 1993). The full number of individuals who wore labrets may be underestimated because of dental loss, although Cybulski (1993) speculates that specific anterior tooth loss may, in fact, be due to labret-wear. Labrets and labret-wear are associated with both male and female sexed burials, which suggests that in the Salish Sea they may have not have been tied to gendered identities, as the case of the ethnohistoric northern coast where labrets were exclusively worn by free and high status women (Ames 1981; LaSalle 2008, 2014; McIlwraith 2012; Moss 1993; Rorabaugh and Shantry 2016; Shantry 2014). Matson (1989) argues that that absence of a labret in a burial when dental abrasion is present indicates ascribed status, with labrets being heirloom items handed down within families. Ames (1995) suggests that the presence of broken labrets in non-mortuary contexts may indicate their intentional breakage and discard to maintain the value of labrets as a status indicator. The frequency of intentional labret breakage appears to intensify through time which may indicate that it reflects greater social transformations at the end of the Locarno Beach period (Figure 7). Due to the fact labrets can be adopted at any point in life, and can be worn or removed as status varies, the ways that

There is evidence of differential social status during the Locarno Beach period as indicated by different burial 14

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

Figure 7 Comparison of Labret Frequency, Intentional Labret Breakage, and Interments with Cranial Modification (Adapted from Rorabaugh and Shantry 2016).

objects (Duff 1956), small ground stone objects that may be forms of personal adornment (LaSalle 2008) or may have had ceremonial uses, along with the widespread use of labrets could suggest that embedded craft specialization (e.g. Ames 1995), elites creating items for other elites, may have its origins during Locarno Beach. However, these forms of specialized artwork may instead represent lineage markers as Coupland (1986) has argued for similar data on the North coast. It is, however, clear that strong status differentiation does occur during Locarno Beach, and that it is possible that forms of hereditary social inequality were emerging although they were not as widespread or as rigid as during Marpole (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Clark 2010).

status was expressed during Locarno Beach are somewhat unclear as compared to the more unambiguous markers of hereditary social inequality seen during Marpole. Although labrets provide tenuous evidence for hereditary forms of social inequality, according to Carlson’s (1987) analysis of burials; grave goods are associated with sub‐ adults during this period, suggesting some form of ascribed status. Carlson (1991) also notes that at the Pender Canal site horn spoons engraved with zoomorphic patterns are found near the mandibles of individuals which he suggests indicates the ‘ritual feeding of the dead’ and is evidence for respect towards deceased high status individuals. However, the Pender Canal burials may represent those who achieved high status over their lifespans. Burley and Knüsel (1989) contradict Carlson, arguing that there is no strong evidence for ascribed status during Locarno Beach, although this may be due to variability in interment practices throughout the region. However, the emergence of an art industry during Locarno Beach in the form of incised siltstone concretions (Walker 2003; Mitchell 1971; Morgan 1999), the presence of Gulf Islands complex

Marpole (2400-1000 BP) Regional syntheses of faunal resource use (Bilton 2014; Orchard and Clark 2006) suggest dietary continuity from Locarno Beach to Marpole. Although stored salmon was a major contributor to the diet, Bilton (2014) suggests that salmon fishing did not become more specialized or 15

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

intensified through time in the Salish Sea, based on faunal assemblage continuity in the Fraser Delta throughout the Holocene. Flatfish and shellfish were seasonally supplemental parts of the diet, and herring was extensively harvested when spawnings were abundant (Matson et al. 1991; Matson 1992; Monks 1977, 1987). It appears that cervid and artiodactyl specialization continues to increase through Marpole (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014).

Point Grey may represent a spring occupation (Coupland 1991; Borden 1947). Large post moulds and portions of living floors have been excavated at DhRs-1 Marpole (Borden 1970) and 45SN-100 Biederbost (Nordquist 1976; Nelson 1972). Taylor et al. (2011: 3-7, 170) note that taphonomic processes and sampling strategies make it difficult to assess the structures at many of these sites. Despite this issue for many of these domestic structures, there is evidence for task and status differentiation within Marpole dated houses such as House 2 at Dionisio Point (Grier 2000, 2003, 2006) and Tualdad Altu (Chatters 1989).

By Marpole, resource locations were likely owned by groups of extended kin in the form of households or corporate villages (Coupland 1985, 1996). Lenert (2007) argues for corporate village ownership of the salmon fishery at the Katz site, dating to 1950-2700 cal BP located in the Upper Fraser Valley, which he suggests was driven in part by ecological changes. Lepofsky et al. (2005) argue for a drier climate during Marpole which they term the Fraser Valley Fire Period (FVFP). Lepofsky et al. (2005) suggest that the FVFP would have resulted in increased resource heterogeneity in space and time and development of inter-community institutions such as the potlatch for the redistribution of resources to prevent local shortfalls.

Household size varied greatly, with some having as few as 20 people while others contained over 100 (Ames and Maschner 1999; Coupland et al. 2009; Sobel et al. 2006; Lepofsky et al. 2009). Nuclear families aggregated into household corporate groups by the beginning of Marpole. However, Coast Salish households are argued to be highly autonomous both economically and politically (Ames 1995). Coast Salish villages may be better viewed as clusters of households than as distinct polities (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Elmendorf 1960; Richardson 1982; Miller and Boxberger 1994) and the concept of ‘tribe’ or ‘band’ is a western construction (Boxberger 1996). Instead, individuals were defined by their extensive kin relationships (one could have relatives in dozens of villages). Generally, a person identified primarily with the house in which they resided (Thom 2005). Nuclear families served as the basic economic unit of the household. When additional labour was required for intensive tasks, work crews could be recruited through kinship networks and household chiefs held a key role in task management (Ames 1995, 1996). This emphasis on personal and household autonomy and the tensions which emerge between that and chiefly power has important historical ramifications during Marpole and the Late period (Angelbeck 2009).

One of the more specific hypotheses Lepofsky et al. (2005) present is that wapiti abundance may have increased during periods with persistent summer drought as the increase frequency of fires destroyed forests and promoted the productivity of preferred foods. Increased terrestrial mammal abundance could explain their increasing representation in faunal assemblages. In contrast, Broughton et al. (2008) argue that wapiti abundance would have decreased during periods of low spring-summer precipitation since the duration and forage quality and a growing season would be lower. Broughton et al.’s (2008) findings are supported by a study of wapiti stable carbon isotopes from archaeological sites in Northwest Washington by Tierney (2012). Considering the continuity through time in the diversity of many resources utilized (Bilton 2014; Butler and Campbell 2004; Campbell and Butler 2010; Daniels 2009; McKechnie 2014; Orchard and Clark 2006) the impact of these climactic factors on resource use and redistribution is unclear despite the FVFP being central to some models of population aggregation in the Northwest Coast and Canadian Plateau.

According to Ames (1995) grave goods become more widespread and diverse throughout the Salish Sea during Marpole. Burley and Knusel (1989) argue that the interment of elaborate grave goods with children and adolescents indicate the emergence of ascribed status. Although there are gender biases in grave goods reported in other regions of the Northwest Coast (Fladmark et al. 1990) this type of restriction in the acquisition of status by gender is argued to be absent in the Gulf of Georgia (Beattie 1981; Ames 1995; Burchell 2006). Although there is not an overall gender bias in the accumulation of grave goods, gender roles do appear to be represented as males appear to often be associated with terrestrial mammal hunting and multiuse implements while females appear to be more frequently associated with ritual feeding of the dead, burning, and decorative objects (McIlwraith 2012). As gendered differences in burials appear to be stronger with higher status individuals, it may be the case that gender roles were only strictly followed in death by elites.

The Marpole period is marked by further shifts in settlement patterns, where there is a clear divide between winter houses or villages and seasonal task sites. By 2000 BP winter settlements consist of large, rectangular, structures built from heavy timbers and vary from single large houses to multi-house villages (Mitchell 1990) Table 1. Platforms associated with structures have been documented at sites including DgRs-1 Beach Grove (Matson et al. 1980), 45SJ-25 Garrison Bay (Kenady 1973; Stein 2000), 45SJ24 English Camp (Kornbacher 1989; Stein 1992; Taylor et al. 2011), DgRw-4 False Narrows (Burley 1989), DfRs-1 Whalen Farm (Smith 1921), DgRv-3 Dionisio Point (Mitchell 1971; Grier 2000), 45KI-59 Tualdad Altu (Chatters 1989), and 45WH-1 Cherry Point (Blodgett 1976; Grabert 1988). Some structures such as the one at DhRt-5

The transition from wearing labrets to cranial deformation during Marpole suggests a substantial shift in social organization (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Matson and 16

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

Coupland 1994; Ames and Maschner 1999). Cranial modification serves as an unambiguous marker of status, and must be applied during infancy before it is possible for one to acquire high status through their accomplishments and once applied is permanent (Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Matson and Coupland 1995: 214-215). The transition to cranial deformation marks a shift from more flexible ways of identifying status to those that are more rigid, and may reflect a transition from social ranking to social stratification. Child burials however appear to either have low status, or no status as reflected by grave goods (McIlwraith 2012), suggesting a significant achieved component in how social status is reflected in grave goods.

Late Marpole (1600-1000 BP) is marked by an expansion of elite membership as indicated by the increase in individuals with cranial modification (Angelbeck and Grier 2012). Changes in burial practices from 1500-1000 BP have also been cited as evidence for continued changes in social organization (Thom 1995). Prior to 1500 BP simple midden burial, in which individuals were flexed into position and placed in shallow pits, was the primary form of interment (Burley and Knusel 1989). Subsurface interment diminishes between 1500-1000 BP (Cybulski 1993, 1994; Burley and Knusel 1989). It is replaced by above ground burial in cairns or mounds with remains housed in elaborate wooden boxes (Thom 1995). This manipulation of mortuary symbols is also argued to reflect the negotiation of status among elites, as forms of high status burials shifted as they became increasingly adopted by free individuals with lower social status.

Beattie (1981:57-58, 169) notes that evidence for cranial deformation dates to the Locarno Beach period, and possibly earlier. However, the first evidence of intentional, cosmetic, cranial deformation dates to Marpole. Beattie argues that evidence of lambdoidal flattening in the Locarno Beach period may be an unintended side effect of cradle boards. The emergence of fronto-lambdoidal flattening during the Marpole phase he argues clearly indicates the intentional use of cradle boards for cranial modification from infancy. From Marpole on, cranial deformation becomes a trait applied to free and high status persons regardless of gender, replacing labret use (Beattie 1981; Brown 2003; Burchell 2006; Burley and Knusel 1989; Cybulski 1993). Angelbeck and Grier (2012) note a rapid increase in the application of cranial modification through Marpole (Figure 7). When compared to the frequency of labrets it is apparent that there is a gradual, yet substantial replacement through time of labrets as a status marker. This gradual replacement of labrets is also reflected in labret wear as it does not significantly change during the transition to Marpole, although cranial modification does (McIlwraith 2012). Also of note, is that the intentional breakage of labrets substantially increases as cranial modification becomes more frequent. It is possible that as cranial deformation replaced labrets, it devalued them and labret wearers may be intentionally breaking labrets to maintain their value as Ames (1995) suggests.

An increase in the number of defensive sites and skeletal trauma, Angelbeck and Grier (2012), argue is tied to the intensification of warfare as resistance to the centralization of power by elites. Warfare served as a levelling mechanism that negated efforts to centralize and consolidate power within the expansive elite class (Angelbeck 2009). However, warfare and slavery were also means of solving labour demands for elites (Ames 2001, 2008; Donald 1997) and to acquire additional surplus (MacDonald 1984), highlighting that there were many reasons for warfare (Maschner 1997). Clear tensions between commoners, aspiring elites (nouveau riche), and entrenched elites at the scale of individuals and kin groups limited political centralization. Late Marpole is also argued to be when the bow and arrow gained widespread use in the region (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014). Bow and arrow technologies are suggested to enable individual hunter’s greater social flexibility as individuals could produce their own subsistence while the majority of subsistence practices in the region required considerable labour organization. The ability of this technology to provide additional economic independence contributed to household autonomy (e.g., Grier 2006) and may have helped constrain the power of elites, limiting chiefly power to households as opposed to villages as a whole (e.g., Miller and Boxberger 1994). Similarly, as an ambush weapon the bow and arrow may have radically changed the nature of warfare in the region, underscoring societal tensions in how hereditary social inequality was expressed.

These shifts in the expression of elite identity could indicate, as Schaepe (2012) argues, the establishment and dominance of property owning local residence groups. Such groups may be comprised of single households or multihouse villages. It is likely that up to 2000 BP represents a period of the formation and entrenchment of hereditary elites (Angelbeck and Grier 2012) and the interactions between peer-elites can be seen in the trade of exchange of prestige items such as nephrite, dentalia, copper, obsidian, and ground stone bowls (Angelbeck 2009; Burley 1980; Clark 2010; Grier 2003, 2006; Matson and Coupland 1995; Matson 2010; Morin 2012). There is also considerable stylistic diversity in basketry (Bernick 1955; Jordan and Mace 2008) and unilaterally barbed harpoon technologies (Rorabaugh 2009, 2010, 2012) suggesting guarded family styles. The production and consumption of many of these items used in daily life, and the prerogatives for their use, may have also been restricted by hereditary lines.

Late Period (1000 BP-Contact) Substantial subsistence and settlement changes occur during the transition to the Late period, namely the diversity of sites expanded as people utilized more microenvironments (Thompson 1978; Trost et al. 2011) and smaller fish species tend to dominate faunal assemblages (Bilton 2014). During the Medieval Warm Period (1000-700 cal BP) rising sea surface temperature and decreased marine upwelling resulted in lower marine resource productivity, 17

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

which may have been a contributing factor to extensifying resources (Daniels 2009). Tierney (2012) argues that the medieval warm period may have also depressed terrestrial mammal resources, resulting in hunters having to increase their ranges. The expansion of used microenvironments is also reflected in increased toolkit diversity, in terms of more types of technologies being present (Ames, C. 2009, 2010; Clark 2010).

and it is possible that there were stronger restrictions on acceptable artistic conventions. By 500 BP, defensive sites in the Salish Sea appear to decrease in frequency (Angelbeck 2009) as do instances of violent skeletal trauma (Burley and Knusel 1989). This suggests that warfare was less utilized as a political tool to resist centralization. It is possible that this reflects elite centralization “working” and overcoming such resistance efforts. Schaepe (2009) argues that the period from 500 BP to contact, the Sı: ya:m period, represents a time of increasing inequality and centralization. A second period of elevated conflict marks the end of Sı: ya:m and Schaepe (2009) suggests that there is less evidence for centralization.

The growth of the elite class during Marpole continued, and by the late period an expansive hereditary elite was present, which Angelbeck (2009: 295) terms an “elite demographic transition.” This transition is reflected in cranial modification becoming widespread in the Gulf of Georgia. In a study by Hill (1992: 36) 50% of all interments examined dating to the Late period had evidence of cranial deformation. Cranial deformation was not exclusive to elaborate burials, nor a specific type of interment. Jenness in his account of the historic period Saanich, describes cranial deformation being applied to the children of elites, freemen, and slaves (Jenness 1934:59).

The expansive elite of the Late and ethnohistoric period consisted of individuals who “knew their history” and possessed private knowledge and training (Suttles 1958). Commoners, a minority, lacked such private knowledge and “history.” Slaves were an even smaller segment of the population, and were often war captives (Donald 1997). Slaves were viewed as social nullities without gender, which enabled them to be used for gender-specific tasks (Ames 2001, 2008). Although slaves could perform the economic tasks of either gender, the strength of sexual divisions of labour on the Northwest Coast are subject to controversy (Donald 1997; Moss 1993).

The ubiquity of cranial modification has led some archaeologists to suggest that by this period it was purely an aesthetic choice (Barnett 1955), or a marker of Coast Salish identity (Cybulski 1994; Thom 1995). Angelbeck and Grier (2012) suggest that although the prevalence of cranial modification reflects the presence of an expansive elite, as it becomes more frequent the degree of social differentiation expressed through cranial modification decreases. Instead, house sizes express social differences among this more expansive elite as suggested by Schaepe’s (2009) study of the distribution of house sizes on the Upper Fraser and Grier’s (2003) ongoing research at the Dionisio Point site. On the Upper Fraser, pit houses and plank houses are used contemporaneously in winter villages. Variability in plank house sizes during the Late Period is also reflected in houses excavated in the Gulf Islands and Puget Sound Table 1. An extreme example of this variability can be seen in the historic period at 45KP2 Old Man House in Puget Sound (Gibbs 1970; Snyder 1956;

Suttles (1958) characterized the expansive elite class and small number of commoners and slaves as an invertedpear (Figure 8) form of social organization. This “invertedpear” form of social organization is in stark contrast to the more pyramidal structure seen in many other societies which results from a small number of exclusionary elites. The social structure of the late and ethnographic period reflects a long history of social interaction and negotiation where social inequality was continuously constructed and challenged (Angelbeck and Grier 2012). Although hereditary knowledge forms the foundation of elite power in the Salish Sea during the ethnographic period, defining members of the noble class from commoners (Elmendorf 1971; Suttles 1958, 1960), the control of the production and reproduction of knowledge has had limited treatment in the archaeological literature. The control and ownership of elite prerogatives had a critical role in the maintenance of hereditary social inequality. The emphasis on the control of knowledge is reflected in many aspects of society, beyond even the production of goods by elites for consumption by other elites. The next section outlines ethnographic data on how knowledge was restricted in Coast Salish societies and how that impacts the learning of craft skills.

Suttles 1990), and the structure documented by Simon Fraser in 1808 at the mouth of the Fraser River (Lamb 1960) which were all series of multifamily houses laid end to end as a row-houses. Although row houses do not tell us as much about variability in house size if viewed as an overall unit, variation within the compartments of these structures can, and suggests variability similar to what is seen in village house structures. Major shifts are also seen in artistic styles. The anthropomorphic and zoomorphic figures commonly seen on the stone bowls exchanged through the region during Marpole transition to more geometric styles (Duff 1975). Basketry styles also become less embellished, which Bernick (1989) suggests indicates a decline in craft specialization. Social differentiation appears to be less expressed through these forms than during Marpole,

Ethnographic Discussions of Knowledge Restriction and Embedded Craft Specialization Anthropologists have increasingly recognized how the transmission of knowledge and how it is controlled is a key aspect of the production and reproduction of hereditary social inequality (Bowles et al. 2010; Henrich and GilWhite 2001). One fruitful approach to examine the interplay 18

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

Figure 8. Coast Salish Socio-political Structure (Adapted from Suttles 1958: 12).

of knowledge and hereditary social inequality is Bowles et al.’s (2010) definition of inheritable wealth which includes three forms of wealth: relational, embodied, and material. Relational wealth is the inheritance of one’s status within social networks. Embodied wealth consists of physical factors such as strength and coordination. The acquisition of skills and knowledge is viewed as a component of embodied wealth. Material wealth is comprised of physical items such as stored items and household goods. These distinctions become blurred on the Salish Sea, as the skills and knowledge (embodied wealth) one acquires and may use are restricted in terms of one’s kin network (relational wealth). Specifically, title holding elites have special rights, prerogatives, and knowledge that are reflected in material culture (material wealth) through the items they inherit the rights and skills to produce.

elite goods is part of the material and immaterial power of these individuals and the rights and obligations to produce such items are inherited. Discussion of embedded craft specialization has emphasized such prestige items. However, based on the ethnographic record, the learning of most craft skills is tied to the acquisition of private, restricted, knowledge which is integral for upwards social mobility. The production and reproduction of most of the material culture used in the daily lives of title holding elites, which formed the majority of the population, follows the same basis of private knowledge as the more widely recognized prestige goods. Social mobility in the ethnographic Coast Salish world is intricately tied to the acquisition of restricted, private, knowledge. The path to high status begins with “good birth” which is followed by the “training” of character, also termed “advice” or “private knowledge” (Suttles 1951:393397). Those who acquire such training are able to spend more time questing for spirit power, in which individuals acquire relationships with beings that enable to accrual of skills and wealth. Personal attributes such as luck, skill, and character were tied to the individual’s relationship with guardian spirits.

Knowledge restriction to title holding elites in the production of prestige items such as artwork, houses, and boats on the Northwest Coast has been widely posited, although we rarely see such items preserved in the archaeological record. Ames (1995: 158) frames this in terms of embedded craft specialists who are full or part time specialists whose vocation is part of the household economy. These are elite, title holding, individuals who contributed to the production of economically important items such as houses, boats, cedar boxes for storage, and masks for trade with peer-elites. Producing particular

The acquisition of wealth can also be supported by kin relations and loans (Elmendorf 1993:335-336). Acquired wealth is publicly formalized through the “witnessing” of 19

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Figure 9. Reproduction of Social Class among the Twana Coast Salish (Adapted from Elmendorf 1960: 336).

one’s status and prestige. Once recognized, marriage with a similarly high status partner enables the reproduction of “good birth” in the next generation. Lower class individuals, lacking access to the knowledge and history of title holding elites would not engage in this system. Elmendorf (1960:336) diagrams these complex relationships among the Twana of Puget Sound (Figure 9).

cod. Among the Twana, there were three types of hunting specialization dependent on powers gained by particular guardian spirits: land, sea mammal, and waterfowl hunting (Elmendorf 1971: 84-86). There was little to no overlap between these specializations, although one could engage in other activities such as fishing. Hunting spirit powers were restricted to males, although gender restrictions did not necessarily apply to other activities such as fishing and women could ceremonially apply inherited hunting guardian spirit powers (Elmendorf 1971: 397). Spirit help was associated with personal skill and more prestigious tasks required additional spiritual aid. The most successful hunters demonstrated a strong guardian spirit relationship which enabled engagement in high society. Spiritual aid was desirable, but not necessary, in occupations that were generally productive such as salmon fishing. Barnett (1955:78) mentions that individuals could pay for training secrets with wealth items, and thus could acquire knowledge not normally accessible through affinal ties. The knowledge and training of subsistence crafts was clearly restricted and tied to the goals and means to accrue personal prestige that could then be transmitted to the next generation.

Upward social mobility from the commoner class which lacked “history” and “good birth” was inordinately difficult (Suttles 1951: 393). However, Angelbeck (2009) notes that warriors could bypass “good birth” by directly acquiring wealth and redistributing it into prestige through potlatch. He suggests that warfare enabled the emergence of a nouveau riche. The acquisition of wealth and prestige through individuals acquiring warrior spiritual powers was viewed as dangerous and unpredictable. Such powers were viewed as good for protecting communities through fighting, strength, and bravery but such individuals were also viewed as dangerous and lived apart from the village (Suttles 1949: 90). In addition to warriors being viewed as dangerous, these was also an aversion to warfare among some Coast Salish groups (Collins 1974) and occasionally witnesses would not arrive and gifts would not be accepted from those attempting to gain status through warfare. These tensions are also reflected in stories mocking nouveau riche (Snyder 1964; Bierwert 1996).

Knowledge Restriction and Coast Salish Lithic Tool Traditions Ethnographic data on traditional Coast Salish stone tool industries is sparse as the impact of the introduction of firearms and the fur trade, decimation of populations by epidemic diseases introduced by Europeans (Boyd 1990, 1999), and programs of forced cultural assimilation by the American and Canadian governments led to the loss of a considerable amount of traditional knowledge. Despite these issues, accounts from 20th century salvage ethnographies shed some light on traditional Coast Salish lithic practices and suggest considerable diversity in the types of stone tools that were traditionally produced and a high degree of specialization (Elmendorf 1971: 88-90).

In addition to reproducing social classes, the acquisition of private knowledge had a key role in daily interactions among the title holding elite. Individuals were assigned informal social rank within their village based on the acquisition and use of guardian spirits and their powers (Elmendorf 1971: 335-336). According to Barnett’s informants (1955:78), these powers were rarely discussed directly or revealed. However, Elmendorf (1971: 336) asserts that among the Twana, persons lacking guardian spirit powers were viewed as socially irrelevant. Although the specific nature of such powers was not discussed, they were still a factor considered in the assessment of an individual’s skill. Guardian spirits and their powers could theoretically be acquired by anyone and were matters of personal achievement.

Hafted points of stone, bone, shell, antler, and ironwood were utilized for arrows, darts, harpoon-arrows, harpoons, and spears (Elmendorf 1971: ibid). Metal was widely utilized as a material for projectile technologies by the mid-19th century, and in his journals Vancouver (1798: 240, 243) notes the use of copper and iron throughout Puget Sound by 1792. Although iron had replaced stone by 1850, bone and ironwood were utilized until the 1880s

According to Barnett (1955:77-79), aid from guardian spirits was viewed as critical in hunting seal, halibut, and 20

The Emergence of Hereditary Social Inequality and Restricted Learning

when the majority of projectile technologies were replaced by introduced firearms (Elmendorf 1971: ibid).

2014). Although the knowledge to produce bow and arrow technologies are restricted in terms of specialization, they are likely less restricted than atlatls or harpoon technologies since such hunting was an individualized pursuit and not as tied to hunting activities organized by elites.

Among the Twana, stone point producers were specialists and often older men (Elmendorf 1971: ibid). Hard hammer percussion and pressure flaking were used to reduce tools from obsidian, chert, and fine grained volcanics. The types of projectile technologies used were highly varied depending on prey. Waterfowl specialists used multiheaded projectiles fashioned out of bone or ironwood. Larger terrestrial mammals were often hunted using small barbed bone points or chipped stone. The projectiles used in warfare were similar in form and production to those used to hunt large mammals. An informant of Duff’s (1952: 59) stated that chipped stone points were used exclusively for war. Haberlin and Gunther (1930: 26) note that in Puget Sound distinct point styles were used for hunting or warfare. A reason for these distinct styles may be tied to the tensions between acquiring status through traditional social means (hunting) or through warfare. Bone, ironwood, and ground stone were used as the arming element for composite harpoon heads used to hunt sea mammals (Berringer 1982:37-38; Elmendorf 1971: 102-103). Large hafted points made of chipped stone, bone, or antler were also utilized for spears in fishing or to finish off wounded marine mammals (Berringer 1982: ibid; Oswalt 1976:94).

Restricted knowledge is also seen in techniques to enhance the potency of projectile technologies. Such techniques included heat modification to increase the potency of a projectile (Elmendorf 1960: 471). Elmendorf (1960: ibid) noted that knowledge of arrow poisons were highly guarded secrets. Certain stone materials were viewed as poisonous such as black obsidian by the Twana (Elmendorf 1960: 90) and quartz among the Nisqually (Smith 1940: 296). Access to these lithic sources may have also been restricted through ownership by kin groups or ritual restrictions (e.g. Reimer 2011). Natural poisons were also utilized, as the Snoqualmie applied rattlesnake venom (Tollefson 1996: 155) and Duff (1952: 59) notes that war points were sometimes poisoned by being dipped in human brain. Based on restrictions in the training for hunting skills, it appears that before the introduction of iron, copper, and European firearms lithic production was highly specialized. The chipped and ground stone tools for terrestrial mammal, marine mammal, and waterfowl hunting were likely functionally and stylistically distinct from each other and separate from tools used for warfare. The hereditary knowledge for producing these tools was likely inherited or purchased from older kin who were highly experienced in lithic reduction.

Although with the advent of bow and arrow technologies by 1600 BP, terrestrial mammal hunting was often an individual pursuit (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014). Hunters would occasionally take younger relatives with them for instruction (Smith 1940: 269). Angelbeck and Cameron (2014) argue that prior to the introduction of bow and arrow technologies, atlatl and dart hunting may have had associated hierarchical protocols for hunting similar in nature to harpooning due to the need for task organization.

The ethnographic record demonstrates that control of specialized knowledge applies beyond the production of prestige items exchanged by elites. Special knowledge and prerogatives are seen in the production and use of functional subsistence items such as hafted chipped and ground stone tools. The control of knowledge we see in the ethnohistoric record likely dates back to the emergence of an expansive elite over Marpole and the emergence of task specialization at the household level. The specialized and hereditary, restricted, knowledge of stone tool production may be traced to Marpole and can be detected in the archaeological record. Similarly, the introduction of bow and arrow technologies and their individual focus (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014) may represent a later shift towards more individualized learning.

Marine mammal hunting practices illustrate the key differences between individualized and cooperative Coast Salish hunting practices. As prey such as sea lions could be dangerous, individuals would need to possess the requisite spirit powers and ritual preparations. Similarly, there were also ritual protocols for dividing prey among hunters, scouts, and paddlers (Suttles 1952: 237-238). In contrast, bow and arrow technologies would enable hunters to work without hunting teams, and would enable non-elite hunters to produce their own subsistence or pursue individual wealth (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014).

Inferences from ethnographic data must be treated critically, especially on the Northwest Coast where we heavily rely upon that record for theory-building (Grier 2007; Grier and Shaver 2008). In that vein, the next chapters outline archaeological data on hafted chipped and ground stone tools in the Salish Sea (Chapter 3) and advances in cultural transmission theory (Chapter 4) which enable an investigation of whether knowledge of lithic production was restricted along the lines suggested by the ethnographic accounts.

Bow and arrow hunting also lacked restrictions on where individuals could hunt. Individuals could pursue terrestrial mammals in most locations, within reason (Suttles 1990). Since bow and arrow hunting could be undertaken by individuals without requiring permission to use specific resource locations held by their kin, it enabled hunters to circumvent more traditional methods of pursuing wealth. This circumvention of traditional means to wealth appears to be the case for arrow technologies whether utilized for warfare (Angelbeck 2009; Angelbeck and Grier 2012) or terrestrial mammal hunting (Angelbeck and Cameron 21

3 Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Technologies on the Northwest Coast The previous chapter argued that the control of knowledge, including craft knowledge, was central to the production and reproduction of hereditary social inequality in the precontact Coast Salish world. In this study, the control of craft knowledge in two forms of lithic technology in the Salish Sea is examined, hafted bifaces (hafted chipped stone tools) and hafted ground stone tools. This chapter serves as a review of the chronological trends in hafted chipped and ground stone technologies in the Salish Sea and factors of lithic technological organization that pattern their variation.

bone and ground stone and bone technologies replace chipped stone (Ames, C. 2009; Ames, C. et al. 2010). Although there have been considerable typological efforts to make order out of the variation seen in the region for chipped stone tools (Collier et al. 1942; Strong et al. 1930; Smith 1950; Campbell 1981; Carlson 1954, 1983, 2008; Croes et al. 2008; King 1950; Matson 1976), there is not an agreed upon standard for stone tool classification. By comparison, ground stone “projectile points,” which are herein referred to as hafted ground stone tools, have received considerably less typological analysis. Work by Mitchell (1971) and Graesch’s (2007) study of slate knife production are some of the few in depth examinations of ground stone technologies in the region.

First, a brief review of the introduction of bifacial technologies to the west coast of North America is provided, followed by a summary of the major chronological trends in bifacial technologies and ground stone points in the Salish Sea. The potential role of toolstone quality and tool retouch in patterning the morphological variation we see in the record is then addressed, followed by a review of recent debates on the function of hafted stone tools in western North America (Ames et al. 2010; Hildebrandt and King 2012). Accounting for the impact of these issues on tool morphology is essential to assessing the impacts of knowledge restriction on stylistic variation. Theoretical issues regarding interpreting artefact style and function from an evolutionary perspective are addressed in the next chapter.

Typologies in the Salish Sea have emphasized detecting chronologically diagnostic attributes through time, to use tool morphology as a temporal marker. However, classification primarily not considered the role of retouch and reuse in shaping the morphological variation of hafted stone tools, and how that may influence the validity of “chronologically diagnostic” attributes (Andrefsky 2009). Another significant issue with lithic analysis in the Salish Sea according to Kornbacher (1992) is a lack of consistent criteria for classes and replicability through not having concise attribute definitions. Despite these issues, there are recognizable temporal trends in the lithics of the region.

Hafted Stone Tool Technologies on the Northwest Coast

Chronology of Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Tools in the Salish Sea

Bifaces are chipped stone artifacts where flake removals on both sides form a single edge that circumscribes the entire object (Andrefsky 2005: 177-182; Callahan 1979; Whittaker 1994). Hafted bifaces, are bifaces that have a portion, the hafting element, which is attached to a handle of some form. The hafting element is often inserted into a notch or socket, and is then wrapped or covered to form a tight bond that protects it from daily wear. On the Northwest Coast, ground stone tools are also often hafted and used as projectiles or cutting implements (e.g. Ames and Maschner 1999; Matson and Coupland 1994; Mitchell 1971). Hafted stone tools were chosen as the subject for this study as the haft elements exhibit stylistic diversity that, as argued here, is not strongly patterned by tool retouch and reuse.

Introduction of Bifacial Technologies on the Northwest Coast of North America (13,000-5000 BP) Although there is still debate regarding the timing of the peopling of the Americas from Siberia (e.g. Yesner et al. 2004) and how people utilized coastal (Dixon 1999, 2001, 2002; Erlandson 2002; Erlandson et al. 2008; Fladmark 1978, 1979; Meltzer 2009) and interior routes, between 12,000-10,000 BP the southern Northwest Coast had become ice-free (Huesser 1973; Peterson et al. 1983). According to some researchers, the Manis Mastodon site (45CA2189) on the Olympic peninsula south of Sequim, Washington is the earliest example of human activity on the Northwest Coast. This site lacks evidence of stone tool technologies but does have the remains of an extinct Pleistocene megafauna, Mammut americanum, with evidence of human predation. X-Ray and CT analyses suggest that a bone point is embedded in one of the Mastodon’s ribs (Ames and Maschner 1999: 66; Gustafson et al. 1979; Meltzer 2009). However, some archaeologists have questioned whether this embedded object is a projectile (Carlson 1990; Fladmark

Hafted chipped and ground stone tools, often termed projectile points (which overlooks) their non-projectile uses, have not been as prominently studied on the Northwest Coast as in other regions of North America (Carlson 2008: 3). This is in part due to the nature of the archaeological record on the coast, and suggestions that after 1500 BP 23

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

1982: 106; Grayson and Meltzer 2002). Two 14C dates (12,000±310 BP and 11,850±60 BP) from an associated peat bog suggest that this is one of the oldest sites on the Northwest Coast. However, recently McLaren (2016) note a footprint in intertidal terminal Pleistocene deposits on Calvert Island (EjTa-4) at least 13,000 years old. Although the Manis mastodon and Calvert Island sites provide debated evidence for the earliest evidence of human occupation, there is consensus among Northwest Coast archaeologists that two distinct lithic traditions were in use during the Younger Dryas (11,000-10,000 BP) (Beck and Jones 2010; Carlson and Magne 2008, Figure 10). Both are large hafted bifaces likely utilized as knives, spears, and darts (Hutchings 1999). The first of these two traditions, the earliest known hafted bifacial technologies on the coast, date to nearly 14,000 BP and consist of nonfluted lanceolate points. In Alaska, these non-fluted bifaces form the Paleoindian tradition in the region. The Nenana and Denali complexes comprise part of this tradition (Bever 2001; Dumond 2001; Hamilton and Goebel 1999; Powers and Hoffecker 1989; Yesner 1996, 2001; West 1996). Nenana assemblages have flake and microblade technologies, while the Denali complex has microblades and a burin technique (West 1967). These complexes date to 11,300 BP in central Alaska (Pearson 1999) but their chronological relationship with each other is unclear (Buchanan and Collard 2007). In northern Alaska, the Mesa and Sluiceway complexes also have non-fluted bifacial technologies (Kuntz 1982; Kuntz and Reanier 1995; Kuntz et al. 2003; Rasic 2000, 2008). Mesa projectile points have been recovered from site components dating from 11,660-9,800 BP and are medium to large lanceolate points with flat or convex bases. Sluiceway points are similar morphologically but are consistently larger, but found at different sites with similar age ranges. These may represent tools constructed by the same culture group but utilized for different types of prey. Fluted bifacial technologies in northern Alaska such those recovered from the Putu (Bever 2006) and Serpentine Hot Springs (Goebel et al. 2013) sites suggest that fluted bifacial technologies spread north into Alaska from western Canada from 12,400-9,900 BP.

Figure 10. Major Morphological Trends in Salish Sea Hafted Lithics.

Hicks 2004) and are defined as the Cascade complex. West of the cascade mountains lithic assemblages older than 4000 BP have been termed Olcott (Kidd 1964; Wessen 1993). However, the majority of Olcott sites lack datable materials and many have disturbed contexts. An additional point of confusion with Olcott assemblages is conflating tool retouch with typology. Brown and Chatters (2017) note that retouched Olcott tools have been mistakenly classified as stemmed in the literature. The morphology of the bifaces associated with these early sites vary considerably, as broad and narrow forms are found that have tapered shoulders and pointed or slightly rounded bases. These early non-fluted bifaces have been recovered from On Your Knees Cave (Dixon 2008), Kilgii Gwaay on Ellen Island in southern Haida Gwaii (Fedje 2003), Namu (Carlson 1996; Rahemtulla 2006), and the earliest component of Ground Hog Bay (Ackerman 1968). Pitulko et al. (2004) argue that the precursors to these technologies were in southeast Siberia as indicated by archaeological finds at Dyuktai Cave, the Yana Rhinoceros Horn site, and the Ushki site on the Kamchatkan Peninsula. These sites have non-fluted lanceolate bifaces and lithic assemblages similar to the earliest sites on the Northwest Coast (Carlson and Magne 2008: 354) Figure 11. The archaeological record for the spread of this tool tradition through along the coast is complicated by coastal inundation (e.g. Erlandson 2002).

On the Northwest Coast and Columbia Plateau, early non-fluted bifaces are termed Cascade points (Butler 1961). These bifaces are found in context with debitage and unifacial scraping tools and form a technological complex loosely referred to as the Old Cordilleran (Butler 1961) or Pebble Tool traditions (Carlson 1996; Croes and Hackenberger 1988). These tools are primarily formed out of crystalline volcanic rocks (CVRs) such as basalt, dacite, and andesite (Bakewell 1993, 2005; Kwarsick 2010; Reimer 2012; Taylor 2012). CVRs are the primary type of toolstone used for chipped lithics on the Northwest Coast through the Holocene.

The second major Archaic tool tradition on the Northwest Coast is Clovis, which consists of fluted bifaces. Although Clovis technologies appear closely related to the Denali complex in Alaska (Buchanan and Collard 2007). The Denali complex appears to be contemporaneous with Clovis, suggesting a common technological ancestor (Hamilton and Goebel 1999). Clovis appears to have spread

On the Columbia Plateau these early assemblages have had substantial treatment (e.g. Butler 1961; Daugherty 1956; 24

Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Technologies on the Northwest Coast

Figure 11 Referenced Archaic Period Northwest Coast and Siberian Sites and Extent of Clovis. Dotted Line- Spread of NonFluted Large Lanceolate Bifaces; Solid Line- Spread of Fluted Large Lanceolate Bifaces (Clovis).

25

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

into the Northwest Coast from the south and east (Beck and Jones 2010; Carlson and Magne 2008: 355; Buchanan and Collard 2007, 2010; Buchanan and Hamilton 2009; Carlson 1996; Fidel and Morrow 2012; Waters and Stafford 2007). According to published sources, the northwest extent of Clovis appears to be Puget Sound on the coast, and the United States-Canadian border on the Columbia Plateau. Clovis sites are less frequent in the Northwest Coast than other parts of North America (Croes et al. 2008). Although Strong et al. (1930) reported fluted points at the Dalles site on the Columbia river, the earliest known in-situ Clovis point in the pacific northwest is from the Ritchey-Roberts cache near East Wenatchee, Washington (Gramly 1996; Mehringer and Foit 1991). This site postdates the Glacier Peak ash fall, giving it an age between 11,050-10,800 BP consistent with Clovis in other regions (Waters and Stafford 2007).

From 8000-5000 BP, archaeological data on hafted stone technologies is limited (Carlson 2008: 357). Extensive toolstone trade networks were present throughout the coast at this time (Carlson 1994) as obsidian sourced to Alaska and Oregon are present in Salish Sea assemblages. On Haida Gwaii bone points with microblades appear to replace hafted chipped stone tools (Fedje et al. 2008; McLaren and Smith 2008), bone tools with microblades appear to compliment chipped stone at Namu (Carlson 2008: ibid). Hafted bifaces recovered from the earliest component of Glenrose Cannery (Matson 1976) on the Lower Fraser and the Milliken site (Borden 1983; Carlson 1983) in the Fraser Canyon are smaller than earlier fluted and non-fluted bifaces. These bifaces are primarily foliate in form with rounded bases, although some stemmed varieties are present. Chronological Trends in Hafted Stone Tool Form in the Salish Sea (5000 BP-Contact)

Eight Clovis sites west of the Cascade mountains have been reported, and they are primarily isolated finds lacking datable materials. Clovis points west of the Cascades appear to be primarily made from fine grained volcanics (Kwarsick 2010). Clovis appears to originate from rapidly expanding populations moving through the ice-free corridor into the Americas (Beck and Jones 2010; Buchanan and Collard 2007, 2010; Buchanan and Hamilton 2009; Fidel and Morrow 2012) and is likely an in-situ development of existing North American bifacial technologies. Despite a tendency of archaeologists to assume that these traditions reflect population movement, there is no reason to believe that the introduction of Clovis represents population replacement in the Salish Sea.

After 5000 BP, the morphological diversity of hafted stone tool technologies increases (Figure 10). Assemblages dating to the Charles period mark the appearance of ground stone, bone, and shell tools (Pratt 1992; Ames, C. 2009; Ames, C. et al. 2010). The materials used for these ground stone tools includes slate, schist, and fine grained volcanics (Mitchell 1971). Hafted ground stone tools dating to this period are morphologically similar to chipped stone tools, they are large lanceolate points with tapered shoulders and pointed or slightly rounded bases. These ground stone tools were likely used as spears, knives, and lances (Carlson 1954).

After spreading to the Northwest Coast, Clovis technologies appear to develop in-situ into the Peace River points seen on the southern Canadian prairie, Fraser plateau, and later Alaska (Carlson and Magne 2008: 355). In the Great Basin, Clovis is argued to develop into the Intermontane Stemmed Point tradition which includes the Windust phase (Carlson 1996).

By 4000 BP stemmed variants of hafted chipped and ground stone tools are prevalent (Carlson 1954, 1983; King 1950; Mitchell 1971) throughout the Salish Sea. At the Helen Point site (Carlson 1983) and Pender Canal (Carlson 2008) stemmed points comprise over 60% of the formed bifaces in the Charles period assemblages Mitchell (1971) used the presence of medium sized chipped stone points with contracting stems as one of the markers of the Locarno Beach phase. Large ground slate knives, both hafted and unhafted were also utilized. Hafted slate points were also likely used as the arming elements for one piece socketed harpoons. One thing to note is although size terms are often used to differentiate lithic styles on the Northwest Coast, the size categories used by analysts are often unclear, and easily obscured by inter-assemblage variability.

Following the arrival of Clovis on the coast is the introduction of the Chindadn tradition from Alaska. The bifacial technologies of Chindadn tradition are comprised of small thin teardrop shaped bifaces produced out of flakes with retouch on their margins (Cook 1996: 325). These tools are found as part of the Nenana Complex but originate in Siberia as indicated by the Berelekh site (Mochanov and Fedoseeva 1996). This technology was introduced to other portions of Alaska (Dixon 1993) and the Yukon (Easton and MacKay 2008) by 9500 BP. The Chindadn tradition is later seen on the Central Coast in assemblages on Haida Gwaii (Fedje 2003), the Bella Coola valley, and Namu (Carlson 2008). Carlson (2008) suggests that this technology was introduced by caribou hunters from the Yukon when the coastal plain was covered by tundra. By 9000 BP microblade technologies enter the northern northwest coast from Alaska, which may have been introduced by ancestral Athapaskan speakers (Kuzmin et al. 2007; Magne and Fedje 2007; Matson and Magne 2007).

Hafted stone tool morphological diversity increases at 2500 BP. Stemmed and unstemmed chipped stone points, including asymmetrical triangular and barbed forms are argued to be diagnostic of the Marpole phase (Mitchell 1971; Burley 1980; Matson et al. 1980). Many of these chipped stone tools were likely used as darts or harpoon arrows. Large hafted ground slate points with faceted and lenticular profiles are also present, likely used for lances, spears, and the arming elements for socketed harpoons. It appears that Marpole dated assemblages have the greatest stylistic diversity in hafted tools throughout the Salish Sea 26

Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Technologies on the Northwest Coast

(e.g. Campbell 1981; Carlson 1954, 1983, 2008; Croes et al. 2008; King 1950; Matson 1976; Smith 1950).

from chipped to ground stone technologies through time in hafted tools.

Towards the end of Marpole, chipped stone assemblage sizes are argued to decrease as ground stone and bone technologies are more utilized and there is an increase in the use of bow and arrow technologies (Ames, C. 2009, 2010; Angelbeck and Cameron 2014). Throughout the Salish Sea there appears to be a transition towards small, triangular chipped and ground stone points with convex or concave bases (Campbell 1981; Carlson 1954, 1983, 2008; Close 2006, 2011; Croes et al. 2008; Burley 1980; McLaren and Steffen 2008; Mitchell 1971; King 1950). Stemmed triangular points are still present in these assemblages although there is a proliferation of unstemmed types. The transition to small hafted tools is suggested to mark a transition from dart to arrow technology through 2500-1000 BP, which Carlson (2008: 157) suggests was introduced from the Columbia Plateau. Angelbeck and Cameron (2014) suggest that bow and arrow technologies become increasingly utilized by 1600 BP which is reflected in increasing cervid and artiodactyl specialization.

Toolstone Quality The quality of accessible toolstone impacts raw material breakage patterns, influencing potential reduction sequences (Amick and Mauldin 1997; Andrefsky 1994; Brantingham et al. 2000; Kuhn 1996). Toolstone studies on the Northwest Coast have often been limited to individual sites (e.g. Close 2006; Kornbacher 1989; Smith 1996; Sobel 2006; Taylor 2012). Interpretations of toolstone use on the Northwest Coast that are regional in focus have emphasized exchange and interaction rather than procurement strategies (e.g. Bakewell 2005; Carlson 1994; Close 2006; Dahm 1994; Kwarsick 2010; Morin 2012; cf. Rorabaugh and McNabb 2014). The materials primarily utilized for chipped stone technologies in the Salish Sea have been referred to as basalts (Bakewell 1996, 2005; Kornbacher 1989, 1992; Kwarsick 2010; Morgan 1999; Wessen 1993), crystalline volcanic rock (CVR) (Close 2006), and fine-grained volcanic rock (Taylor 2012). Studies examining the regional exchange of toolstone have emphasized geochemical sourcing of obsidian (Carlson 1994; Sobel 2006) and crystalline volcanic rocks (Bakewell 2005; Kwarsick 2010; Taylor and Skinner 2010). Obsidian used as toolstone in the Salish Sea predominantly comes from Mt. Garibaldi, and two sources on the central coast (Kingcome Glacier [Central Coast A] and Central Coast B) (Carlson 1994; Skinner 2009, 2010) although obsidians from Oregon from down the line exchange also contribute to assemblages (Carlson 1996).

The introduction of bow and arrow technologies on the coast is argued to correspond with an increase in the intensity of warfare (Angelbeck 2009; Angelbeck and Grier 2012), as bows serve as better ambush weapons than atlatls. As discussed in the previous chapter, bow and arrow hunting is an individualized pursuit that may have contributed to increased economic autonomy (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014). Evidence for the introduction of bow and arrow technologies is examined in more depth later this chapter.

Despite the regional emphasis on obsidian sourcing CVR, which includes basalt, andesite, dacite, and rhyolite, comprises the majority of toolstone seen in many pre-contact Coast Salish archaeological assemblages (Rorabaugh and McNabb 2014). Several studies exploring CVR sources and distribution have appeared (e.g., Bakewell 2005; Kwarsick 2010; Taylor 2012; Taylor and Skinner 2010). Some of the highest quality CVR used in the Salish Sea has been identified as dacite from the Watt’s Point source in the Coast Range of British Columbia (Fig. 1). Petrographic and geochemical sourcing of Watt’s Point dacite has led to far reaching conclusions regarding toolstone procurement, with Bakewell (2005), Stein (2000), and Close (2006) proposing that dacite cobbles were procured directly from Watt’s Point in British Columbia and transported by canoe throughout the region. Recent analyses suggest that although Watt’s Point materials were widely distributed in the Salish Sea, this is likely the result of glacial movement and not human transport (Kwarsick 2010; Taylor 2012). CVRs may have been primarily collected from local contexts, as argued in a recent study by Taylor (2012) on San Juan Island. Several researchers have also noted CVR suitable for toolstone is present in local secondary beach deposits near archaeological sites (Conca 2000; Herbel et al. 2001; Kenady et al. 1973; King 1950; Kornbacher 1992; Schalk 1988; Wessen 1993). If dacite is readily available from local secondary deposits, high quality CVRs may not

By the late period (1000 BP-Contact) morphological diversity is argued to drastically decrease throughout the region (Campbell 1981; Carlson 1983, 2008; Close 2006, 2011; Croes et al. 2008; King 1950; Kornbacher 1989, 1992; Mitchell 1971), with only small unstemmed triangular chipped and ground stone points being present. Close (2006) in her analysis of English Camp takes a gendered interpretation of these tools, and suggests that some were constructed for ideological purposes. She also notes a high frequency of manufacturing failure which she attributes to difficulties in working CVRs. In Puget Sound, asymmetrical bifacial forms are also reported including small scalene points and ones with incurvate blades (Campbell 1981; Croes et al. 2008). These forms may be the result of extensive retouch, or from issues with working with poor quality toolstone (e.g. Amick and Mauldin 1997; Andrefsky 1994). Chipped stone tools are also argued to continue to drastically decrease in frequency through the late period, becoming increasingly replaced by ground stone (Ames, C. 2009, 2010). As discussed in Chapter 2, chipped stone tools disappear entirely by the ethnographic period. In Chapter 7, the stylistic trends that have been discussed are critically examined along with whether there is a transition 27

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

serve as a strong indicator of regional exchange, as argued by Close (2006).

treatment that Coast Salish hafted chipped tone tools have had in particular, there has not been a concerted effort to describe the overall reduction sequence in the region, which differs from bifaces and ground stone tools in other regions. The reduction scheme presented in this section is a working hypothesis for the reduction sequences of precontact Coast Salish chipped and ground hafted stone tools informed by previous studies (Close 2006; Flenniken 1981; Graesch 2004). Experimental studies are, however, needed to test this proposed sequence. At any stage of reduction an artefact may be discarded and enter the archaeological record, as noted by “discard” being a possible process at all stages in this reduction sequence. The quite different reduction sequences for these tools suggests that each reflects a unique intellectual lineage, and as such may provide independent lines of evidence for assessing factors influencing social learning.

Based on data from the Watmough Bay site, Taylor (2012) argues that lithic resource use appears to be unrestricted, with families sharing access between groups or that ownership was held at a spatial scale larger than the village. Although local cobbles were likely utilized, most toolstone may have been freely accessible at resource locations that individuals were permitted to access. Rorabaugh et al. (2015) argue that toolstone use at the Dionisio Point locality followed a similar pattern. Toolstone sources for ground stone technologies have been less examined. Morin (2012) examined nephrite sources used for ground stone woodworking tools (adzes). Sources for soapstone and slate have been proposed in the literature (Dahm 1994; Galm 1994; Graesch 2007). According to Dahm (1994) soapstone occurs in situ in areas where rivers have eroded through overlying deposits and have exposed metamorphic rock. Riverbank cobbles from alluvial deposits from fluvial or glacial erosion were likely a key source in prehistoric times, the Coquihalla river drainage being a proposed source. Graesch (2007) argues that the Ladner Series formation in British Columbia was the primary source for slate. These toolstone sources have not been subject to geochemical sourcing, although soapstone artefacts from the Pender Canal site in the Gulf Islands have undergone XRF analyses assignment to sources has primarily been based on macroscopic inspection (Dahm 1994).

Hafted Chipped Stone Reduction Sequence This sequence begins with raw material, which as discussed previously is typically from secondary beach cobble deposits. Cobbles are initially tested, and then reduced through hard hammer percussion or, more rarely, bipolar reduction (Figure 12). As noted by Close (2006) and Kornbacher (1989, 1992) most Coast Salish hafted bifaces appear to be reduced from an initial large flake. Evidence of this original flake, in the form of its original platform, can often be distinguished on the proximal (haft) or distal (blade) end of the tool. Evidence for large platforms, suggesting reduction from an original large flake can be seen even in Charles period assemblages. As such, this is likely the type of initial reduction used for the majority of chipped stone tools in the Salish Sea over the past 5,000 years.

The poor quality toolstone that dominates Coast Salish archaeological assemblages has implications for reduction and tool rework. Coarse grained materials, the presence of large mineral inclusions, and the lamellar cleavage planes of metamorphic toolstone can all make reduction more unpredictable. This may be a reason for the prevalence of grinding as a reduction strategy in the Salish Sea. Poor toolstone quality can increase variability seen in assemblages, and discard rates as manufacturing failures are common and enter the archaeological record. Close (2006) suggests that many of the hafted bifaces at English Camp were failed manufacturing efforts due to difficult to work toolstone. Poor quality toolstone can also result in increased amounts of retouch which will impact tool morphology and increase assemblage variation. These issues of material quality are why both chipped and ground stone hafted technologies are examined, as although grinding is considerably more time intensive it is likely that it is not as heavily impacted by poor quality materials as chipped reduction due to the nature of the reductive process.

These flakes, whether initially reduced from bipolar or hard hammer percussion, generally have a length approximately the size of their initial cobble’s maximum dimension, would then undergo bifacial reduction (Close 2006). Close (2006) argues that only hard hammer reduction was used for Coast Salish lithics. However, other researchers (Carlson 2008; Croes et al. 2008; Kornbacher 1989, 1992; Mitchell 1971) note evidence for soft hammer and pressure flaking. Likely at this stage hard hammer (typically a quartzite hammer stone) and soft hammer (use of a bone or antler hammer) were used to remove marginal flakes. Pressure flaking was likely used for finer-scale removals required for aspects of haft morphology such as notching or basal concavities. Finally, a finished tool would undergo a continual process of use, breakage, and rejuvenation until final discard. The impacts of retouch on morphology are addressed in the next section.

Reduction Sequence for Coast Salish Hafted Lithics Hafted Ground Stone Reduction Sequence Reduction sequences have been proposed for the chipped stone assemblage at English Camp (Close 2006), vein quartz artefacts (Flenniken 1981), and ground slate knives (Graesch 2004). Despite the considerable typological

The reduction sequence for hafted ground stone tools has some notable similarities and differences from that of chipped stone depending on the toolstone used (Figure 12). 28

Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Technologies on the Northwest Coast

Figure 12 Proposed Reduction Sequence for Coast Salish Hafted Chipped Stone (Left) and Hafted Ground Stone (Right) Tools.

CVR cobbles would initially be reduced through hammer reduction to form a flake that could be used as a blank. The decision process to reduce through grinding as opposed to continuing with chipping may be based on factors such as large phenocryst inclusions in the toolstone used. As none of the ground CVR hafted bifaces had evidence of their original flake scars, unlike their chipped equivalents, this is pure speculation. However, initial hard hammer reduction to produce a single flake would likely be more expedient than pecking a preform for these tools.

exhibit more variability than ground stone by the nature of their reductive processes. Impacts of Retouch on Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Tool Morphology Over the past 40 years, lithic analysts have embraced what has been termed the “reduction thesis” (e.g. Dibble 1995; Flenniken and Raymond 1986; Flenniken and Wilke 1989; Hoffman 1985; Odell 2001; Shott 2005). It means that variation in tool size and shape is heavily patterned by reduction. Taken to its logical conclusion, the reduction hypothesis means that artefacts reflect the amount and type of reduction as opposed to type of tool or activity (Shott 2005: 123). If we are interested in examining variation in learned styles, a distinction must be made between types of reduction, as reduction may occur to produce a tool to fit a certain conception or may be to prolong its potential use. Retouch tied to maximizing the potential use of an artefact can be viewed in terms of curation.

If instead the toolstone used is MR (schist or slate), the lamellar cleavage planes of the toolstone will make conchoidal fracture difficult to control. Instead, pecking with a hammer stone, typically quartzite, would be the preferred reduction strategy. Pecked schist and slate artifacts with little evidence of grinding have been recovered from sites throughout the Salish Sea, and have been interpreted as blanks and preforms (e.g. Mitchell 1971: 99-102). Natural cleavage planes in metamorphic toolstone would likely make this a relatively difficult stage of reduction. After initial chipping to the overall desired form, a sandstone abrader would be used to refine overall blade and haft morphology (e.g. Graesch 2004; Stewart 1996). Finally, dogfish skin may have been utilized for polishing non-utilitarian ground stone artifacts. Dogfish skin is rough, but flexible, enabling it to be used like sandpaper (Stewart 1996). Overall, these later stages of reduction through grinding are less prone to errors that would result in having to discard an artifact as its use was compromised. This may explain the apparent rarity of unfinished preform hafted ground stone tools.

In the lithics literature curation has been used to refer to multiple concepts. Binford defined curation as a concept tied to tool efficiency, in that it measured the utility derived from a tool in terms of the energy expended in manufacture (1973: 250). Aspects of curation included production of tools in advance of use, designing tools for multiple functions, transporting tools to several locations, tool maintenance, and tool recycling. Binford (1977) argued for a relationship between curation and settlement patterns, suggesting that groups using forms of organization more efficient for extracting resources such as logistical foraging mobility would be groups also using tools in a manner that would also attempt to derive more utility for a lower manufacturing cost. Torrance (1983) argued for curation to be viewed in terms of preparing tools in advance of use due to scheduling conflicts and time-stress. Bamforth (1986).

Understanding these reduction sequences is crucial towards explaining potential differences in the fine scale variation between chipped and ground stone tools. Although both are reductive technologies, chipped stone tools will likely 29

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Early analysts treated the curation concept as a means of classifying lithics into curated or expedient types of tools (Andrefsky 1991; Bamforth 1986; Kelly 1988; Parry and Kelly 1987) in order to examine the relationships between these types of tools and Binford’s model of foraging mobility. However, researchers increasingly began to acknowledge how factors such as raw material availability, morphology, and tool function impact technological efficiency (Andrefsky 1994; Bamforth 1991; Bradbury and Franklin 2000; Kuhn 1991 MacDonald 2008; Wallace and Shea 2006).

curated triangular bifaces can transform into lanceolate bifaces through irregular retouch which can complicate documenting this stylistic transition. While it is easy to illustrate, major classification changes an artefact may go through due to blade retouch, haft elements are still subject to breakage and retouch during the life history of a tool. Studies by Flenniken and Raymond (1986) suggest that haft morphology can significantly change as a tool is reworked after breakage episodes. Despite this, haft elements are more stable through a tool’s life history than blade elements even if a tool is not broken as indicated by an exploratory study of metric variation in Salish Sea projectile technologies by Rorabaugh (2015).

Andrefsky (2009) argues that viewing curation as a tool type tied to technological organization is unworkable and instead curation should be viewed as a process associated with tool use. Curation is defined as a continuum of use relative to the maximum potential use of an artefact (Andrefsky 2009: 123; Shott 1996; Shott and Sillitoe 2004, 2005). Andrefsky argues that this should not be confounded with use life (e.g. Andrefsky 2006, 2008; Shott and Stilltoe 2005), which indicates the length of service of a tool. To illustrate, a tool with a high degree of retouch such as a point may have a low curation value as it has considerable potential use left although it has had a long use life due to its production processes. A flake tool may however become highly curated after one use, being a highly-curated tool with a short use-life.

Considering curation as a factor shaping point morphology does, however, provide potential for interpreting several artefact types in the Salish Sea. In particular, scalene triangular and curvilinear points. Both of these types may, in fact, reflect highly curated isosceles triangular points with a potential use-life transformation in not only form but function. Similarly blade edge may not be an attribute to consider for examining non-curative behaviours. Although according to Andrefsky (2006: 745) hafted bifaces have been generally viewed as functioning as the arming elements of projectile technologies or thrusted spears or lances, they may be equally effective as cutting or sawing tools (Ahler 1971; Andrefsky 1997; Greiser 1977; Nance 1971). Variation seen in late period points from Puget Sound (Croes et al. 2008), namely asymmetrical shoulders, may be attributable to curation resulting from non-projectile or thrusting uses of bifaces. Some of this asymmetry may also be emblemic and an intentional marker during the Marpole period.

Why is curation such an important concept for assessing typologies attempting to address cultural historic sequences or learned styles? Both the production sequences of tool manufacture and the maintenance of tool edges through reuse result in clear life history changes that may alter the functional use and form of an artefact (Andrefsky 2005; Bisson 2000; Hiscock and Clarkson 2008; McPherron 2003; Soriano et al. 2007; Tomaskova 2005; Weedman 2006). Andrefsky (2009: 69) notes the importance of considering the multiple contexts and reasons for retouch by tool producers and users, and that retouch does not result from a single uniform process.

The potential morphological transformations resulting from use-life and curation have been largely overlooked in the hafted biface classifications in the Salish Sea. It is apparent, however, that despite the role that curation may have in shaping these technologies there are clear chronological trends in gross blade morphology which must be considered in a classification. As such, the typology presented in Chapter 6 includes blade morphology although it emphasizes haft morphology.

When considering only tool morphology, these life history changes may obfuscate variation tied to socially learned conventions (style). These issues can be accounted for with hafted bifacial tools through primarily examining variation in hafting elements. According to Andrefsky (2006: 745) haft elements may be distinguished from blade elements due to blade resharpening or accidental breakage while the hafting element itself is not resharpened on points that are hafted. Blade elements begin to become curated once hafted.

Interpreting Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Tool Function Although the role that point function has played in shaping the morphological variation of Salish Sea points has been long hypothesized (King 1950; Carlson 1954; Carlson and Magne 2008), sparse ethnographic detail on stone tool function is available in the literature. Chipped stone and ground slate points were used for a wide range of purposes including arrows, the arming elements of composite harpoons, darts, and lances (Carlson 2008: 157).

A more conservative typology that considers blade curation as a factor shaping morphological variation should emphasize haft morphology over blade morphology. Typologies from the Strait of Georgia and Puget Sound regions have, however, emphasized blade morphology as having culture-historic significance, the transition from foliate to triangular points in particular. Blade morphology may be strongly shaped by curation. This is particularly an issue during the Marpole period, where heavily

While on the coast hafted chipped and ground stone technologies likely had numerous functions, discussions 30

Hafted Chipped and Ground Stone Technologies on the Northwest Coast

have primarily centered on the timing of the introduction of bow and arrow technologies on the Coast and Columbia Plateau. The introduction of bow and arrow technologies influenced projectile morphology as arrows have different performance characteristics than darts or spears (Corliss 1972; Fenega 1953; Hughes 1998; Thomas 1978; Vanpool 2003, 2006). The introduction of the bow and arrow also had major implications for social organization in the region (e.g. Angelbeck and Cameron 2014; Bettinger 2013).

later adoption of bow and arrow technology in the Yukon than in other regions (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014). It is generally agreed that bow and arrow technologies existed in the Plateau prior to the Northwest Coast by a few centuries dating from 2400-1800 BP (e.g. Angelbeck and Cameron 2014; Blitz 1988; Nassaney and Pyle 1999; Richards and Rousseau 1987; Rorabaugh and Fulkerson 2015; cf. Ames et al. 2010). Morrisey (2009), applying Shott’s (1987) metric method to Plateau data sets, argues for the presence of arrow technologies by 3500 BP.

According to Maschner and Mason (2013) bow and arrow technologies in the Americas originated from west and central Alaska by 4500 BP, diffusing into the Great Basin and Plateau. However, Maschner and Mason’s (2013) evidence is weak, as they base it on small bone points with microblade slots which may not actually reflect bow and arrow technologies. Similarly, they also acknowledge that simple bow and arrow technology would lack the power to bring down the large ungulates of the middle Holocene.

A re-evaluation of the application of dart-arrow indices (e.g. Thomas 1978) on the Columbia Plateau for stemmed points by Hildebrandt and King (2012) suggests that arrows were absent from the Columbia Plateau until 2500 BP, consistent with past interpretations (e.g. Chatters 2004). Hildebrandt and King (2012) also examine Cascade points and note that they appear to have been utilized as spears and darts. Their approach utilizes only archaeological materials and more replicable haft landmarks than the approach used by Ames et al. (2010), addressing many of the issues with that study. However, their approach is only applicable to stemmed points, which limits its utility. Hildebrandt and King’s (2012) findings are consistent with the interpretation that the transition towards small triangular points in the Salish Sea after 2500 BP reflects the introduction of arrow technologies (e.g. Angelbeck 2009), and that the technology become prevalent in the region by 1600 BP (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014).

Bow and arrow technologies are argued to appear as early as 2500-3000 BP in the Great Basin (Yoh 1998). Dart and arrow technologies appear to have been contemporaneously used in that region for some time after (Blitz 1988; Bradbury 1997; Fawcett 1998; Nassaney and Pyle 1999; Vanpool 2003). The introduction of arrow technologies may also result in decreased stylistic diversity through time as dart technologies become replaced (Lyman et al. 2009).

There are, however, significant issues with applying Hildebrandt and King’s (2012) index to other regions. Walde (2014) argues that their index performs poorly for hafted lithics from the Canadian Plains, and that bow and arrow technologies coexisted with darts for an extended period of time. Erlandson et al. (2014) caution interpretations of indices based on interior regions on coastal or aquatic settings as Hildebrandt and King’s (2012) index classifies 11,700-year-old projectile points as arrows. However, Erlandson et al. (2014) argue from faunal data that these small points were the arming elements for harpoons.

In an article by Ames et al. (2010), arrow technologies are suggested to have been introduced during the early Holocene with some Cascade points being arrows. However, they suggest that arrow technologies only become prevalent by 1500 BP. A complicating factor in assessing the introduction of arrows are issues surrounding the replicability of landmark measurements on unstemmed tools, which comprises a significant amount of the sample of hafted bifaces on the coast and plateau. Another significant issue is that their study is based on comparisons with ethnographic collections that include arrows that are non-functional and instead produced for Euroamerican collectors (Hildebrandt and King 2012). The use of such artifacts for a functional baseline may have erroneously resulted in Cascade points being classified as arrows.

Misclassification of small darts such as those in the assemblages examined by Erlandson et al. (2014) may also be attributable to fletching. Hughes (1998: 351-353) notes that projectile and shaft mass can be reduced in darts that are fletched. As a result, fletched darts may bias the results of dart-arrow indices as they are based on the stone point and not the entire projectile system. When considering the role of fletching, the gradual decrease in point size noted by Ames et al. (2010) on the Plateau could represent gradual improvements in atlatl delivery systems (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014).

In the Yukon, examples of bow and arrow technologies have been recovered preserved in ice deposits (Hare et al. 2004, 2012). These cases include wooden shafts and fletching, and the inferences based on these materials do not rely upon ethnographic collections. Based on over 200 radiocarbon dates, it appears that atlatls were used from 8400-1250 BP, after which arrow technologies dominate. Hare et al. (2012) characterize this as an abrupt technological transition at 1200 BP. As these tools were used for caribou hunting, the greater force afforded by atlatls may have been more useful for hunting and led to

One possibility that arises from these disparate studies is that the knowledge of bow and arrow technology may have considerable antiquity in North America. However, the social and ecological contexts in which it was advantageous for the bow and arrow to become a prevalently used part of 31

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

tool kits may have occurred very late in the Holocene. Issues such as individualized hunting (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014), and warfare (Angelbeck 2009; Chatters 2004) may all have contributed to switching to a technology that may have been known, but not utilized. It has been suggested that improvements to bow technology such as sinew backed (Bettinger et al. 2006) or recurved bows (Bingham et al. 2013) may have contributed to the later prevalence of the bow and arrow (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014).

although material quality and retouch are important factors to consider as variation increasing processes, the restriction of craft knowledge should be a dominant variation reducing process among the pre-contact Coast Salish from the Marpole period forward.

In Chapter 7 Hildebrandt and King’s (2012) index is applied to stemmed chipped stone points to assess the timing of the introduction of arrow technologies on the coast, bearing in mind the critiques forwarded by Erlandson et al. (2014). Hafted ground stone points were likely used primarily as the arming element of composite harpoons, which essentially have the same performance characteristics as the arming elements of spears as they are both thrusted implements, and knives (Mitchell 1971), but may have also been used as for darts, arrows, and harpoon-arrows. Non-projectile uses, such as hafted stone tools being used as expedient knives, may also complicate interpretations and result in unique use-life trajectories. Carlson (1954: 15) argued that creating a dividing line with asymmetrical points, which he suggested may have served as hafted cutting implements, is problematic except for the most extreme cases. However, extreme curation from use as a hafted knife may be responsible for asymmetrical point forms such as scalene triangular points seen in Puget Sound (Campbell 1981; Croes et al 2008). Hafted stone tools in the Salish Sea appear to have considerable variation in their potential functions. The functional roles a tool has may also not necessarily be exclusive. For instance, a dart with a line-attachment on its fore shaft can become a harpoon arrow, and any hafted tool can be used as a knife. Although there is a high degree of formal variation attributable to function, it appears that in the Salish Sea many artifact styles cross-cut reduction strategies (chipped or ground) and potential function. To summarize, hafted chipped and ground stone tool classifications in the Salish Sea have focused on detecting chronologically diagnostic attributes for the purposes of constructing point sequences. There is considerable morphological variation in these technologies over the Holocene. Examining the specific ways in which this observed variation is patterned by learned styles, function, and tool life history is the focus of the next two chapters. Chapter 4 focuses on cultural transmission theory and its application in the archaeological record, specifically how it can be applied to examine restrictions in craft learning in material culture. The potential impacts of lithic material quality, tool function, and retouch on detecting restricted forms of social learning are addressed in Chapter 5. Despite all of these factors, the potential functional interchangeability of these tools may have produced broad similarities in the learning and teaching strategies for chipped and ground stone tools in the Salish Sea. Similarly, 32

4 Cultural Transmission and the Material Record

The argument presented here for restricted knowledge in Coast Salish craft traditions follows from ethnographic discussions of how social inequality was produced and reproduced in the region. Lithic technologies provide an aspect of material culture with considerable morphological variation and excellent preservation despite the presence of confounding factors such as material quality, function, retouch, and reuse. A cultural transmission framework is employed to generate empirical predictions of the patterns restricted forms of craft knowledge produce in the archaeological record compared to alternative forms of knowledge transfer.

In models of gene-culture coevolution, also referred to as dual inheritance or cultural transmission theory (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Boyd and Richerson 1985; Richerson and Boyd 2005), cultural activities can affect selective pressures and can drive genetic evolution in populations. Cultural transmission approaches also attempt to operationalize the processes of social learning drawing from population genetics models. From a cultural transmission perspective, social learning is the non-genetic transfer of patterns of skill, thought, and emotion between individuals in a population and is the most essential feature of culture (Boyd and Richerson 1985:33-35). However, humans acquire behaviours through cultural as well as genetic transmission mechanisms (Boyd and Richerson 1985:3-4). Humans are born with the capacity for culture but cultural information is transmitted through non-genetic modes that can differentially produce and reproduce variation. This variation then faces selective pressures and cultural traits are differentially reproduced (Boyd and Richerson 1985; Henrich 2004; Mesoudi et al. 2004; Richerson and Boyd 2005).

In this chapter, cultural transmission theory and major modes (vertical, horizontal, oblique, one-to-many) and mechanisms (guided variation, drift, copy error, transmission bias) of cultural inheritance are outlined. This is followed by a discussion of style and function from an evolutionary perspective, which is crucial for selecting theoretically informed attributes to account for how tool function and reuse may impact morphological variation. Commonly employed archaeological measures of cultural transmission (Tf, Te, CV) and issues of equifinality in detecting different modes and mechanisms of transmission from archaeological data are reviewed. The chapter concludes with a brief review of past cultural transmission studies in the Salish Sea.

However, these models have not avoided criticism, as Smith (2000: 32) has argued that models of gene-culture coevolution are theoretically rich while empirically impoverished. Within a given population, individuals will share learned knowledge with others within the same generation or cross-generationally (Boyd and Richerson 1985). The transmission of knowledge can occur through several pathways including learning from parents (vertical), peers (horizontal), unrelated older individuals (oblique), key individuals (biased), or the majority (frequencydependent and conformist).

Cultural Transmission Theory Understanding the factors that influence the reproduction of technological traditions is a fundamental issue in archaeology. However, until recently, archaeologists have lacked the theoretical and methodological tools to examine learning contexts (Crown 2001: 451). A renewed interest in applying evolutionary frameworks to the production and reproduction of culture has provided key insights into the processes that guide and regulate how culture is transmitted (e.g. Bentley et al. 2004; Bettinger and Eerkens 1999; Boyd and Richerson 1985; Brantingham and Perrault 2010; Eerkens and Lipo 2007; Hamilton and Buchanan 2009; Henrich and Henrich 2007; Henrich and Gil-White 2001; Kohler et al. 2004; Lipo 2001; Lipo and Madsen 2001; Neiman 1995; O’Brien and Lyman 2000; Richerson and Boyd 2005; Shennan 2000, 2011; Shennan and Wilkinson 2001; Steele et al. 2010). Examining social learning requires archaeologists to encompass all of the processes that can occur during social learning and inheritance. This involves examining the diversity of copying rules and the processes by which the information being copied is transformed.

Each form of learning has implications for the fidelity of the transmitted knowledge (e.g. Hewlett et al. 2002), which can be empirically tested ethnographically or archaeologically. Individual learning and experimentation after the initial adoption of cultural information from another individual (guided variation), whether facing environmental constraints and pressures (directed guided variation) or not (undirected guided variation), are also critical non-social aspects of dual inheritance models that directly relate to modelling the interaction between the mutual selective pressures ofculture and environment. To illustrate, the experimentation following the introduction of a new technology such the bow and arrow, subject to strong functional constraints, would fall under directed guided variation. In contrast, experimentation withdecorations on pottery if strong social conventions are absent would fall under undirected guided variation.

33

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Cultural transmission theory has often been applied archaeologically to examine culture-historic (e.g. Collard and Shennan 2000; Eerkens et al. 2006; Lyman and O’Brien 2003; O’Brien et al. 2001) trends that in the past have been attributed behaviourally to represent ‘vertical’ cultural transmission. However, when studying the behavioral patterns of transmission in prehistoric contexts one faces issues of equifinality. Selection from strong functional constraints, directed guided variation, biased forms of transmission, and vertical transmission from parent to offspring all would result in the same pattern archaeologically: reduced variation (Eerkens and Lipo 2005).

is a more complex process than genetic transmission (Figure 13). However, as an emergent phenomenon of self-replicating information systems, both cultural and genetic inheritance share the evolutionary mechanisms of random or stochastic processes (genetic drift), errors (mutations), mixing and exchange after separation (gene flow) and natural selection. But cultural transmission also occurs through additional unique pathways (Boyd and Richerson 1985). In the following section, mechanisms of transmission that intentionally (guided variation) and unintentionally (drift, copy error) produce variation, modes of cultural transmission, and transmission bias are reviewed.

Similarly, multiple processes may result in increased variation, such as individual experimentation, peerlearning (horizontal transmission), or reintroduction of old styles (such as reworking a found artifact or intentionally reusing past styles). On the Northwest Coast, examples of reintroduced old styles can be seen in the composite toggling harpoons of the Locarno Beach and Late periods (Clark 2010) and in the temporal variation of the line attachment styles of non-toggling harpoons (Rorabaugh 2010).

Unintentional Production of Variation – Drift A key factor that patterns cultural variation is population structure. Increasingly in the literature attention has been drawn to the effect of population structure on learning (e.g. Henrich 2004; Kandler et al. 2012; Lipo and Madsen 2001; Lipo et al. 1997; Neiman 1995; Perrault and Brantingham 2011; Premo and Kuhn 2010; Premo and Scholnick 2011; Powell et al. 2010; Shennan 2000; Steele et al. 2010). Population size has been shown to affect rates of innovation and cultural traits can be lost due to drift. The impact of drift in the learning of small populations is illustrated in the reduced variation seen in aboriginal Tasmanian technologies after a demographic crisis (Henrich 2004). Most recently, the role of spatial distance between populations has also been examined (Premo and Scholnick 2011). A high degree of interaction between groups can decrease between group differences while increasing within group differences.

Theoretically informed attribute selection, accounting for the communicative and functional potential of attributes (e.g. Lyman and O’Brien 2003), and thus acknowledging potential functional constraints, is one means of archaeologically addressing these issues of equifinality. In the next section modes and mechanisms of cultural transmission are summarized, but issues of equifinality in detecting the forms of cultural inheritance that patterned the archaeological record are returned to later in the chapter.

Unintentional Production of Variation – Copy Error

Modes and Mechanisms of Cultural Transmission

Transmission error, individuals misremembering or misinterpreting information, is a major source of cultural variation (Boyd and Richerson 1985). Small scale copy errors, such as those from perceptional limits, may have drastic impacts on cultural variation (Bettinger and Eerkens 1997; Eerkens and Bettinger 2001; Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Hamilton and Buchanan 2009; Kempe et al. 2012). Copy error will also be greater in artifacts produced

Many factors influence the frequency of the transmission of cultural information within a population. These forces include selective pressures, drift, as well as the modes (vertical, horizontal, oblique, one-to-many) and mechanisms (guided variation, copy error, transmission bias) of cultural transmission. Cultural transmission

Figure 13. Cultural Transmission Mechanisms.

34

Cultural Transmission and the Material Record

through reductive processes than those that are additive (Deetz 1967; Schillinger et al. 2014). The rate of ‘cultural mutation’ from copy error can be much higher than the rate of gene mutation. Additionally, the processes by which genes and culture are transmitted are very different, with intentional variation as a factor, and generations are far more variable in length for culture. However, the results of all of the above processes are subject to natural selection measured through differential reproduction of genes and cultural variants.

acquired cross-generationally between individuals that are not genetically related. One-to-many transmission occurs when a single individual transmits cultural information to a large group (Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Guglielmino et al. 1995). Vertical transmission is usually a conservative mode of transfer, with high levels of consistency in the transmitted trait. Horizontal, oblique, and one-to-many forms of transmission are more likely to result in recombination and innovation leading to higher rates of cultural change (Guglielmino et al. 1995). With one-to-many transmission innovation rates are higher as a result of copy error since such a context is structured to pass on information while not necessarily ensuring its fidelity (MacDonald 1998: 230; Shennan 2002).

Intentional Production of Variation – Guided Variation The production of variation through intentional change is guided variation, which occurs when individuals assess their environment and select specific cultural variants for specific purposes (Boyd and Richerson 1985:94-95). Humans can rapidly adjust behavior to local conditions and this guided variation leads to directional, generally adaptive, change in behaviors which can be socially transmitted to future generations. Guided variation comes in two forms, undirected and directed. Undirected guided variation is random experimentation (Eerkens et al. 2006). Over time this results in a high degree of variation. Directed guided variation occurs in situations where certain behaviors are optimal in an environment. In this situation, through experimentation individuals eventually arrive at the same conclusion, adopting the same behaviors, in other words convergent evolution.

Transmission Bias There are some processes of cultural transmission where some cultural variants will be favored over others. These processes have been collectively termed transmission biases. Transmission biases are distinct from natural selection, as selection acts on cultural variants post-transmission (Boyd and Richerson 1985). Henrich and Henrich (2007:10) note it is useful to distinguish between differing forms of biased transmission by categorizing them as either content or context biases. Henrich and Henrich (2007:10-11) use the term content bias to refer to when individuals differentially adopt cultural variants due to their judgments about the properties of the cultural variants that make them more appealing. The use of previously learned beliefs, values, and mental models to assess cultural variants and whether to adopt them from how well they fit into an individual’s world view is called cultural direct bias. Direct biases favoring particular cultural variants may also reflect genetically based preferences, preferences determined by existing cultural traits, or a combination of both. For instance, all humans have an evolved preference for fat and sugar argued to be the result from shortages of both in our evolutionary past, but there are cultural preferences in how these substances are turned into preferred dishes.

Modes of Cultural Transmission Genetic transmission may be either vertical (parent to offspring) or horizontal (the transfer of genes between individuals) (Boyd and Richerson 1985). Cultural transmission can occur vertically, horizontally and obliquely (Feldman and Cavalli-Sforza 1976). Vertical transmission cross-generationally within the same lineage is a powerful mode of cultural information transfer because of its reinforcement by genetic transmission (Aunger 2000; Cavalli-Sforza and Feldman 1981; Boyd and Richerson 1985:49-52). Over the past few decades some ethnographic studies among small scale societies suggested that up to 70-80% of craft skill learning is from vertical transmission (e.g. Hewlett and Cavalli-Sforza 1986; Ohmagari and Burkes 1997; Shennan and Steele 1999). However, methodological re-evaluations suggested that vertical transmission was not the most prevalent mode of cultural transmission among many small-scale societies or among industrial societies (e.g. Aunger 2000; Chen et al 1982; Harris 1998; Lancy 1996; Plomin et al. 2000). Although vertical transmission is important, other modes of transmission such as horizontal, oblique, and one-tomany transmission are also key aspects of learning in human societies.

When individuals tend to acquire cultural variants due to their association with attractive but unrelated cultural traits it is called indirect or context bias (Henrich and Henrich 2007:11). Prestige bias is a form of indirect bias and describes the adoption of a behavior because it is practiced by other individuals viewed as more successful or higher status. Individuals producing tools are presumably directly instructed and also imitate others. Presumably the learner would prefer to learn from an individual who is skilled (Henrich and Henrich 2007:11). A wide range of cues relating to competence, success, and prestige are used for assessing which individuals are the most skilled (Henrich and Henrich 2007:12-13). These include direct assessments of skill, and indirect cues of personal prestige. Indirect cues to personal prestige are culturally-bound, but to use modern examples may include measures such as house size, family size, volume of foodstuffs stored, or cost of a car. Henrich and Henrich

Horizontal transmission is the dissemination of cultural information between members of the same generation (Cavalli-Sforza 1981; Boyd and Richerson 1985:53-55). Oblique transmission occurs when cultural information is 35

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

(2007) argue that in certain contexts, indirect cues of status and prestige may be more accurate than direct observation especially in circumstances where the performance of an activity may be highly variable in nature. Highly skilled and successful individuals would be in high demand and individuals would have to compete for access to the most skilled individuals (Henrich and Gil-White 2001; Henrich and Henrich 2007; Plourde 2009). This would create a selective pressure for learners to give deference benefits to individuals viewed as more skillful in order to receive preferential access to learning.

in order to not appear deviant (Henrich and Henrich 2007:24). Under normative conformity, individuals tend to maintain their underlying opinions and beliefs but adapt behaviors viewed as superficial to match the norm. Informational conformist bias replaces prestige bias in situations where information regarding success or prestige is incomplete; normative conformist bias occurs when there are strong sanctions against choosing atypical cultural variants. The challenge is finding evidence for the above behavioral contexts in the archaeological record since we cannot record contextual data on learning directly from our informants. Instead, we must infer the modes and mechanisms of learning indirectly from their impact on the variation in the record.

The choice of prestige as a term for this form of transmission bias is deliberate to indicate its non-coercive nature (Henrich and Gil-White 2001). The deference benefits given to individuals viewed as prestigious according to Gurven (2001) could range from coalition support, general assistance, public praise, child care, or gifts. Learners can take advantage of these patterns of deference to reduce the cost of information gathering (Henrich and Henrich 2007:13-14). However, inherited prestige that is passed on to individuals who are not as skilled can lead to the adoption of non-adaptive or costly practices. Henrich and Henrich (2007) address the issue of ‘costly’ behaviors arising from unskilled individuals as models but they do not address the potential of faking prestige indicators and this might influence prestige bias. Overall, in societies where differential social status is a key element of social interactions, prestige bias may have a key role in the structuring cultural diversity.

Effective Population Size and Cultural Transmission A concept from population genetics, the effective size of a population (Wright 1931, 1938; Crow and Kimura, 1970) has been fruitful in past archaeological discussions (Bentley et al., 2004; Lipo and Madsen, 2001; Neiman, 1995). Effective population size (Ne) is defined as, “...the size of an idealized population that would have the same amount of inbreeding or of random gene frequency drift as the population under consideration.” (Kimura and Crow 1963: 279-280). Idealized populations are assumed to have constant population sizes, non-overlapping generations, and panmictic mating which are assumptions that are often violated in empirical populations. As a result of modes of cultural transmission, effective population sizes may be much smaller than the actual, census, population (Neiman, 1990: 206-207). In some scenarios, an empirical population of a given size may demonstrate greater diversity and lower rates of loss of diversity than a theoretically ideal population of a similar size. In these cases, the effective population size would be greater than that of the empirical population size. Local scale unbiased transmission (Premo 2015; Premo and Scholnick 2011), and forms of frequency dependent biased transmission that favor rare variants can result in this. In some learning contexts, effective population size is roughly analogous with the potential number of teachers in a population (Neiman 1995; Shennan and Wilkinson 2001; Rorabaugh 2014).

Another form of biased transmission, conformist bias, is a way to avoid the costs of individual learning by copying from the majority (Henrich and Boyd 1998). Henrich and Henrich (2007:22-24) describe two forms of conformist bias which operate in differing contexts. The two forms are distinguished by motivation, a factor that may not be apparent from archaeological evidence. The first form of conformist bias is informational conformity. Imagine a situation where the majority of people in a village used stemmed points to hunt but one individual instead used an unstemmed point. If the users of both styles had average prey returns, which technology should be adopted by an onlooker? In this situation, the individual using stemmed points is no more or less successful than those using the unstemmed ones, and for the sake of argument this individual is also no more or less prestigious nor is viewed as a deviant for the odd choice in hunting technologies. A solution to this situation is copying the behavior of the majority because there are no clear cues which can be used to decide which cultural variants to adopt (Henrich and Henrich 2007:22). This may not the case on the Northwest Coast where there appear to be clear material indicators of achieved or ascribed forms of social status over the past 5,000 years in the forms of differentiated grave goods and forms of personal adornment such as labrets and cranial modification.

A significant methodological issue with employing cultural transmission in the archaeological record is examining the relationship between variation in the record and how that was patterned by transmission mechanisms and population structure. Multiple modes and mechanisms of cultural transmission may be occurring to different degrees at the same time and the archaeological record is formed out of these cumulative interactions. Despite variation in the archaeological record being a palimpsest of different behavioral and non-behavioral processes, cultural transmission models can help elucidate processes that may generate the variation we observe in the record of interest while highlighting empirical issues such as equifinality. What variation in the record we consider to be theoretically

The second form of conformist bias is termed normative conformity, and this involves adopting cultural traits 36

Cultural Transmission and the Material Record

important to investigate is another key problem, which is why the next section outlines how style and function have been treated in evolutionary archaeology.

Adding Skill as a Factor: Artefact Attribute Functional and Communicative Potential An alternative perspective on the implications of Price’s equation more in line with how archaeologists tend to consider style (e.g. Wiessner 1983; Wobst 1977) and function is to view variation in artifact attributes being shaped by communicative and functional importance (Lyman and O’Brien 2003). Attributes tend to fall along a continuum from functional traits with little communicative use to functionally neutral traits which are primarily used communicatively (Figure 14). In this sense, “functional” traits are those with environmental payoffs while “stylistic” traits are those with social payoffs. By treating style in this manner, the role directed guided variation can have in intentionally changing styles within a social environment is acknowledged. Payoff independent attributes are those falling between the two on this continuum. This approach also incorporates another commonly used archaeological concept surrounding the intentionality of styles, namely the difference between unintentional, isochrestic, styles and intentional emblemic styles (Sackett 1977). Under Price’s equation isochrestic styles would be payoff independent while emblemic styles are payoff dependent.

Artefact Style and Function from an Evolutionary Perspective Style and Function as a Dichotomy Although style has a broader meaning in archaeology as a whole, and a considerable amount of discussion in the literature deals with the active role of style in society (e.g. Hegmon 1992), style and function have been used in evolutionary studies to distinguish between variation that is or is not under selection. In his seminal paper, Dunnell (1978: 199) defines style and function as a dichotomy; “Style denotes those forms that do not have detectable selective values. Function is manifest as those forms that directly affect the Darwinian fitness of the populations in which they occur... The dichotomy is mutually exclusive and exhaustive.” Dunnell’s definition of style implies that while functional aspects of artifacts face selection, stylistic aspects would be driven by the stochastic processes of drift or the flow of cultural information (Lipo and Madsen 2001). This means that functional aspects of artifacts are subject to selective pressures and directed guided variation, although other modes and mechanisms of sociocultural transmission may result in the transmission of functional attributes.

Stylistic and functional traits should be taken a step further and viewed in terms of functional and communicative potential. This is because the knowledge to properly utilize a technology may differ from that needed to produce an item, although in the case of most small-scale societies apprenticeship in use may correspond with apprenticeship of production. Similarly, the efficacy of the communicative

Style and Function as a Continuum Style can also be viewed as selectively neutral variation, as Neiman (1990) interprets Dunnell’s definition of style as being formal variation in artifacts that have equal cost or performance. In the case of hafted lithics, the formal variation seen in equally performing aspects of the artifact (the haft) is stylistic variation. Following the idea of style falling under functionally-equivalent attributes is the use of Price’s equation to examine artifact style and function (e.g. Brantingham 2007; Brantingham and Perrault 2010; Rice 2004). Price’s equation is applicable to any information system with differential transmission through time (Frank 1997; Price 1970). Price’s equation can be used to estimate the strength of the functional and stylistic contributions to the evolution of an attribute (Brantingham 2007). According to Brantingham (2007), artifact attributes have payoff correlated and payoff independent aspects. Payoff refers to the utility of a socially learned behavior in context, and not necessarily reduced to reproductive success. In Price’s equation, the rate of change in the mean value of an attribute is the sum of payoff correlated (subject to selection) and payoff independent processes (subject to drift). These payoffs can be due to environmental function (effectiveness as a tool) or social function (communicating an idea). As such, style and function are not mutually exclusive but are exhaustive descriptions of sources of change.

Figure 14. Continuum of Artefact Attribute Functional and Communicative Potential. Artifact attributes tend to vary along the dotted axis (e.g. Lyman and O’Brien 2003). Attributes become more payoff-dependent the closer they have higher functional and/or communicative potential.

37

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

aspects of an artifact depend on the cultural knowledge of those perceiving it.

modification or labrets requires cultural knowledge to decode. Terming “style” as “communicative potential” better reflects this reality.

The difference between functional or communicative potential and simply viewing style and function as a continuum is the inclusion of skill as a variable. Drawing from practice theory, skill can be defined by the differing types of knowledge and abilities required in the production and use of technologies and are discussed in terms of practical knowledge and knowledgeable practice (Bamforth and Finlay 2008). Bamforth and Finlay refer to these elements of skill as connaissance and savoir-faire. These terms were adapted from the work of Pelegrin (1990), where connaissance involves cognitive understanding, strategic decision making, and abstracting future steps. Pelegrin (1990) defines savoir-faire as practical knowledge, motor skills, and embodied practice.

Turning towards hafted stone tools, the attributes emphasized in this study (haft attributes) are similar to mortuary symbols in their potential to communicate individual or family identity (e.g. Wiessner 1983). Similarly, the morphological variation of haft attributes is functionally equivalent as they all serve to haft the tool, meeting Dunnell’s (1978) definition of style. This does assume that all haft variants are equally suited for functional tasks. This issue is addressed here by examining whether haft styles vary by point functional category (arrow, dart, spear). However, since point hafts are often covered the communicative use of these attributes primarily comes during point production, recovery, and retouch. As there are time-dependent trends in blade morphology (Chapter 3), even those portions of hafted stone tools have some degree of communicative potential despite their variation being heavily patterned by their functional potential and tool curation. Bearing the aforementioned theoretical issues surrounding artifact style and function in mind, how do we then measure variation in the record?

Bamforth and Finlay (2008) argue that skill lies within the ‘intersection’ of knowledge and practice (Figure 15). Elements of both connaissance and savoir-faire, such as learning the proper strategic choices and acquiring practical knowledge in a task, may be both conferred through cultural transmission, although unlike tool production these traditions may be effectively invisible in the archaeological record. Functional and communicative potential underlines the possibility that while a properly produced artifact has potential, it also requires the skills of an agent to utilize it to its full potential.

Employed Archaeological Measures of Cultural Transmission Measuring Discrete Styles

When taking this view, each aspect of an artifact may have varying degrees of functional and communicative potential with variation patterned by both a social and environmental landscape. While an environmental landscape where selective pressures work on functional variation is relatively simple to envision, changes in the local environment resulting in the adaptation of existing or innovation of new technologies in a communicative landscape is more abstract. Such a landscape is relevant for situations wherein symbols are strategically manipulated and change through time. This can be illustrated by the modification of Coast Salish mortuary symbols by elites in the Late Period (Thom 1995), resulting in drastic changes in social practice through time. Mortuary styles served the same role, and could be considered functionally neutral, but their communicative aspects had drastically changed. Similarly, interpreting the communicative aspects of mortuary symbols or markers of status such as cranial

Many studies examining cultural transmission have compared the amount of stylistic variation observed in archaeological data to the expected degree of variation from unbiased or neutral models of learning (e.g. Kohler et al. 2004; Mesoudi and Lycett 2009; Neiman 1990, 1995; Shennan and Wilkinson 2001; Steele et al. 2010). Having more or less richness and evenness in selectively neutral cultural traits than expected from unbiased transmission is interpreted with contextual data to narrow down the modes or mechanisms of cultural transmission that patterned those assemblages. In these cases, the cultural traits examined are theoretically informed artifact styles that are mutually exclusive which may reflect emic styles. Neiman (1995), in his seminal study of how stylistic variation in Woodland ceramics is patterned by drift, uses an equation from Ewens (1972) who demonstrated that under Wright-Fisher model conditions the expected number of different variants in a sample, richness, is a function of sample size and theta. Theta is derived from the effective population size and innovation rate of a population (Equation 1): θ=2Neμ Let μ=Innovation Rate Let Ne=Effective Population Size

Figure 15 Individual Skill as the ‘Intersection’ of Knowledge and Practice (Bamforth and Finlay 2008:3).

Equation 1 Theta Statistic

38

Cultural Transmission and the Material Record

the frequencies of variants in past populations due to factors such as the rate of artifact discard (Shennan and Wilkinson 2001).

According to Neiman, the innovation component of theta is a combination of in-situ innovations and those arising from inter-group interactions. Since we know the sample size and observed number of variants for archaeological assemblages, we can estimate theta based on the assumption of Wright-Fisher model conditions; this estimate is termed Te (Equation 2):

However, in a series of simulations Neiman (1990: 182193) outlines the conditions when diachronic changes in the styles represented in an archaeological assemblage reflect the underlying modes of culturally prescribed styles. This is the case even when assemblages are the product of multiple learning episodes and discard events. Neiman argues that the stylistic changes in assemblages can result from changes in population size or innovation rates.

Let K=observed number of variants Let n=sample size Let θ=theta statistic Let i=ith variant

This raises another significant issue, that of time averaging of assemblages which occurs when geological, paleontological, or cultural remains that are deposited at different times are preserved together and appear to be relatively contemporaneous to a researcher (Kidwell and Behrensmeyer 1993; Kowalewski 1996; Premo 2014). Time averaging (cumulative palimpsests) resulting in assemblages not reflecting the behaviors of past peoples is a potentially significant issue in archaeology that has been recognized by numerous researchers (Bailey 1981, 2007; Binford 1981; Foley 1981). With few exceptions (e.g., Bailey 2007; Bentley et al. 2004; Holdaway and Wandsnider 2008) archaeologists have not addressed the impact of time averaging on assemblages.

Equation 2 Te Statistic

The number of variants in an assemblage will be large if theta is high or if there is a large sample size (Neiman 1995: 16), but is not the case if forms of cultural transmission such as prestige or conformist bias are present. However, Premo (2014: 112) notes that Tf and Te were designed for instantaneous samples collected from populations at equilibrium between drift and copying error, as opposed to time-averaged assemblages which are the case for archaeological data. But as noted by Box and Draper (1987: 74), “...all models are wrong; the practical question is how wrong do they have to be to not be useful. “Although archaeological data, let alone the biological data these models were originally designed for, violate many of these assumptions, scholars have found utility in their use as a heuristic to make sense of learning processes that may have patterned the record of interest.

Recently, Premo (2014) examined the impact of long duration assemblages on several approaches employed in the cultural transmission literature. Time averaging effects were found to increase richness in long duration assemblages. Measures that examine assemblage diversity (Tf and Te) may be inflated from time-averaging. Out of these two measures, Te is consistently more inflated from time averaging as it depends on the number of novel variants in a sample instead of relative frequencies. Due to this issue, the difference between Tf and Te is compared to assess whether there is a large difference between these estimates in examined assemblages. However, Tf is the main estimate of theta employed in this study and compared with estimates of theta generated from archaeologically informed average household size estimates (for Ne) and the number of novel styles in a time period divided by sample size (for mu). Issues of time averaging are also controlled to a degree through examining variation by archaeological site temporal component (Chapter 5).

If we have the actual frequencies of each variant in a sample, another estimate of theta is possible, Tf. Tf is a summed estimate of the dispersion of given trait frequencies, and like Te is an estimate of Theta (Equation 3, Neiman 1995):

Let k=total number of variants in the population (richness) Let Pi=proportion of k made up of the ith variant Equation 3 Tf Statistic

Measuring Metric Variation

High Tf tend to reflect large effective population sizes, anti-conformist transmission (e.g. Shennan and Wilkinson 2001), high innovation rates, or high inter-group interaction. Low Tf values result from small effective populations, conformist transmission (e.g. Kohler et al. 2004), biased transmission, low innovation rates, or low inter-group interaction. “High” and “low” values are based on the departure of Tf from Theta (Equation 1).

An alternative approach to examining the production of variation in the archaeological record is to examine metric variation resulting from fine scale copy error. Error in the size estimation of remembered objects (mental templates) increases through time from initial observation (Kerst and Howard 1978, 1984; Moyer et al. 1978). Experimental approaches suggest that an error range of -3% to +3% reflects situations where one or few individuals responsible for the production of specific artifacts recalled designs from memory (Bettinger and Eerkens 1997; Eerkens

We cannot assume that the frequency of styles in archaeological assemblages necessarily correspond with 39

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

hypothetical asymmetrical projectile that performed poorly would be culturally selected against and become less represented through time.

and Bettinger 2001; Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Eerkens 2000; Hamilton and Buchanan 2009; Kempe et al. 2012). Individuals attempting to produce an artifact of a particular size without an independent scale or ruler (direct comparison) are unable to perceive differences less than 1.7% (Eerkens, 2000). This amount of copy error is from the Weber fraction for visual measurement of line length and consideration of error resulting from the recollection of mental templates.

Examining metric variation provides an independent measure of transmission processes, independent of estimates of the innovation rate for styles in a population which can be inherently difficult to assess. However, copy error in lithic tools will be higher than other technologies such as ceramics as lithics are produced by reductive processes (Deetz 1967; Schillinger et al. 2014). Despite this issue, the Salish Sea lacks ceramic technologies and basketry is highly subject to preservation issues; reductive technologies, such as hafted lithic tools, provide the largest well preserved sample in which to examine cultural transmission in the region.

Transmission studies exploring metric variation include examining deviations from neutrality in Great Basin projectile technologies (e.g. Bettinger and Eerkens 1997; Eerkens and Lipo 2005), Hamilton and Buchanan’s (2009) analysis of drift in Clovis points, and Steele et al.’s (2010) examination of Hittite ceramics. In these studies, the coefficient of variation (CV) of one or more metric attributes was used to examine the amount of variation present in assemblages through time. CV is an expression of the standard deviation as a percentage of the mean of the parent distribution (Equation 4, Sokal and Rohlf 1995: 5860; Thomas, 1986: 82-85):

Transmission and Equifinality in the Archaeological Record It should be apparent from the common archaeological measures of cultural transmission that we can detect variation increasing and reducing processes. However, many theorized mechanisms of cultural transmission, along with population structure, innovation rate, and taphonomic processes can all increase or reduce the variation that we see. These issues are less difficult in ethnographic or experimental studies of cultural transmission (e.g., Aunger 2000; Chen et al. 1982; Harris 1998; Hewlett and CavalliSforza 1986; Hewlett et al. 2002; Henrich and Henrich 2007; O’Brien and Mesoudi 2008; Ohmagari and Burkes 1997; Plomin et al. 2000; Shennan and Steele 1999) where the modes and mechanisms of transmission can be more easily parsed out. As such, context is of key importance in interpreting archaeological cultural transmission studies. Even then, we can only detect patterns resulting from cumulative trends of how culture is transmitted.

CV= σ/x Let σ=standard deviation Let x=mean Equation 4 Coefficient of Variation

CV is a standardized measure that accounts for magnitude effects from larger artifacts and enables comparison of different sample sizes. Also of note is that cumulative copy error from the Weber fraction results in a slight positive skew in mean attribute size and slight negative skew in median attribute size, an emergent bias in visual copying (Hamilton and Buchanan 2009; Kempe et al. 2012; Rorabaugh 2014).

For instance, the reduced stylistic variation noted in Kohler et al.’s (2004) study could be the result of lowered innovation rates, population size, or forms of biased transmission such as prestige bias. However, the context of that time period in the Southwest suggests that conformist transmission is the most parsimonious interpretation for the reduction in stylistic variation observed. This does not mean necessarily that all individuals learned through conformist transmission, but that it may have been a prevalent form of learning. In contrast, Shennan and Wilkinson (2001) argue for a pro-novelty bias as Linearbandkeramik (LBK) peoples attempted to establish distinct local identities through ceramics after the region had become populated (e.g. Collard and Shennan 2000). Other forms of learning may also have been occurring, but the general processes of identity construction are what dominate the archaeological record.

The variation in selectively neutral metric attributes should behave in a manner similar to discrete traits. Using an agent based model expanding on Eerkens and Lipo (2005), Rorabaugh (2014) examined the cumulative effects of fine scale copying error in material culture among finite populations. This model demonstrates that restricted knowledge or demographic collapse will result in a reduction of metric variation, indicated by a lowered coefficient of variation. In contrast, learning from a random individual (unbiased transmission) or restricted family styles (vertical transmission) results in a greater CV. Metric attributes strongly tied to artifact function should also exhibit lowered metric variation due to selection, but weak functional pressures may not strongly deviate from the expected variation from unbiased learning (e.g. Steele et al. 2010). This is selection not at the level of individual humans, as a projectile being slightly asymmetrical may not have significant impacts on the ultimate reproductive success of a person. Instead these functional pressures operate at the scale of cultural direct bias, where this

At least a rough understanding of the population structure of a group is highly beneficial in interpreting cultural transmission processes. A low degree of variation or stability in a technology that could be attributed to 40

Cultural Transmission and the Material Record

transmission bias (e.g. Hamilton and Buchanan 2009) may be more parsimoniously explained by small population sizes (Rorabaugh 2014). Similarly, higher than expected variation can be the result of small groups that do not frequently interact with each other (e.g. Premo and Scholnick 2011). Changes in innovation rate can similarly impact assemblage variation, although studies of how the tempo of cultural innovation changes are limited. Despite these challenges, cultural transmission models enable us to critically examine variation producing and reducing processes in the archaeological record. Understanding these processes requires some degree of behavioral interpretation (e.g. Bettinger et al. 1996) and careful consideration of concepts such as “style.”

but the full repertoire of methodologies available to transmission studies. A pilot study examining metric variation in chipped and ground stone tools in the Salish Sea (Rorabaugh 2015) suggested that many variation producing and reducing processes were impacting formed lithic assemblages. Ground stone tools exhibited less variation than chipped stone as a result of the nature of ground stone reduction. The limited time scale of the sample prevented a thorough assessment of whether there were clear chronological trends in metric variation that could be attributed to changes in learning strategies. The next chapter focuses on hypotheses for what modes and mechanisms of cultural transmission impacted the learning of Coast Salish hafted stone tools, namely, whether prestige bias is a factor resulting in restricted learning of craft skills in the Salish Sea. Also covered are alternative hypotheses of how issues of lithic technological organization such as material quality, retouch, and functional constraints, may impact detecting restricted learning in the Salish Sea.

Previous Cultural Transmission Studies in the Salish Sea Studies examining cultural transmission in the Salish Sea have relied upon phylogenetic methods to reconstruct culture historic trends and detect whether the transmission had high or low fidelity through time (Croes et al. 2005; Jordan and Mace 2008; Jordan and O’Neill 2010; Rorabaugh 2009, 2012). These studies indicate that different forms of sociocultural transmission are present with different technological traditions, depending upon their specific contexts. For instance, Croes et al.’s (2005) study of wet site basketry revealed high fidelity crossgenerational learning of highly guarded weaving styles through affinal kin. Jordan and Mace (2008) performed a larger scale examination of the ethnographic literature to explore the relationships between language and gendered tool traditions. Jordan and Mace argue that the transmission of the manufacturing methods of Coast Salish textiles demonstrated a stochastic pattern with manufacturing methods being transmitted across linguistic barriers as a result of patrilocal movement. In a synthetic study examining the inheritance of ethnographic period plank house architectural styles Jordan and O’Neill (2010) argue that Wakashan and Coast Salish speaking peoples demonstrated a branching structure of conservative inheritance in plankhouse designs which they attribute to patrilineal kinship systems. This can be viewed as a simplistic interpretation that overlooks the nuances of Coast Salish residential and inheritance patterns as discussed in Chapter 2, but that other learning processes such as prestige bias may better account for the observed patterns. Rorabaugh (2009, 2012) examined the transmission of barb styles in barbed bone and antler projectile technologies. The morphological variation of most point attributes was strongly patterned by ethnographically informed functional classes, and the geographic restrictions in styles may reflect guarded affinal knowledge. These studies reveal clear differences in the forms of transmission resulting from a myriad of factors, and emphasize the necessity of exploring not only multiple tool industries 41

5 Chapter 5. Hypotheses and Expectations

The central hypothesis evaluated is that restricted forms of knowledge result in lowered metric variation in both formed chipped and ground stone tools of all styles through time in the entire Salish Sea over the past 5,000 years and an increased unevenness in the styles represented in assemblages. If the reproduction of technical skills is influenced by a regional system of exclusive peer-elites, as illustrated by the production and exchange of prestige items (e.g. Grier 2003), then similar patterns of restricted access to technical knowledge, tied to the growing importance of prestige, may be seen throughout the region.

As hereditary forms of social inequality emerge significant changes in the social relationships in tool production are hypothesized. Access to knowledge for the production of specific technologies tied to subsistence are predicted to become more restricted resulting in increased stylistic uniformity at local (household and village) scales through time. Ascribed forms of social status should encourage greater continuity through time as a result of restricted knowledge. This should be reflected as low artifact style richness (number of artifact styles represented) and evenness (J-Scores) and low estimates of Tf and Te within assemblages after controlling for sample size.

The ethnographic record suggests that control of specialized knowledge applies beyond the production of prestige items exchanged by elites (Chapter 2). Special knowledge and prerogatives are seen in the production and use of functional subsistence items such as hafted chipped and ground stone tools (Elmendorf 1971: 8890; Haberlin and Gunther 1930: 26; Smith 1940: 329). The control of knowledge we see in the ethnohistoric period may date to the emergence of an expansive elite during Marpole (e.g. Angelbeck 2009; Grier 2003). A shift towards more restricted access to knowledge (e.g. Henrich and Gil-White 2001; Henrich and Henrich 2007) during the Marpole period may result in increased stylistic uniformity at the household and regional levels in a wide range of technological traditions over time, not only status items. However, periods of increased social tensions and negotiation during Marpole (Angelbeck 2009; Angelbeck and Grier 2012) may result in punctuated periods where stylistic and metric variation increase within a broader temporal trend of reduced variation.

Relative terms such as “low” and “high” are used as the hypothesized trends in stylistic and metric variation are relative and diachronic. There is not a Rubicon to cross for a certain richness or evenness value to reflect a different form of knowledge transfer. Even in the case of the theoretically derived measures employed (Tf, Te) actual archaeological assemblages significantly depart from the underlying assumptions of the models as archaeological assemblages are time-transgressive (Premo 2014) let alone other assumptions of idealized populations that are violated such as non-overlapping generations, constant population size, and panmixia. Despite the fact that actual data depart significantly from the assumptions of such models, they are useful as baseline frames of reference that help serve to highlight broader, qualitative, patterns that may emerge under different learning dynamics. In the case of how metric variation is patterned by different forms of cultural transmission, broad qualitative patterns from the implications of modeling approaches (Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Rorabaugh 2014) can be drawn, but once again do not suggest that specific observed values are indicative of a specific form of learning. Instead, diachronic patterns across multiple measures (Richness, Evenness, Tf, Te and CV) may reflect shifts in learning context. As several of these measures (Richness, Evenness, Tf, and Te) are effected non-linearly by sample size (Kintigh 1984, 1989), sample size is controlled for in this analysis.

In order to assess this, morphological variation in two technologies with similar functions but differing methods of production (hafted chipped stone and ground stone tools) are examined to determine if the shifts in social organization that occurred between the Locarno Beach and Marpole periods are reflected in aspects of material culture other than status items, which have traditionally been used to document the emergence of exclusive peer-elite interactions on the Northwest Coast (e.g. Angelbeck and Grier 2012; Grier 2003). Specifically, this study intends to determine how variation in tool technologies may have been impacted by the ways in which Coast Salish craft learning was tied to restricted hereditary prerogatives. My emphasis on teaching, instead of learning, is a departure from many cultural transmission discussions of how social inequality affects learning. Such a departure is necessary, however, in light of ethnographic discussions of how Coast Salish hereditary elites restricted knowledge (e.g. Elmendorf 1960, 1971; Suttles 1951, 1958, 1960).

Restricted forms of knowledge transfer may also result in lowered metric variation in both formed chipped and ground stone tools of all styles through time in the entire Salish Sea and an increase in the expression of regional styles through time, lowering inter-assemblage variability. These patterns are predicted to be reflected in both chipped and ground reductive strategies. If the reproduction of technical skills is influenced by a regional system of exclusive peer-elites, as illustrated by the production and exchange of prestige items such 43

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

hafted biface curation are considered, which are outlined in Chapter 6.

as Marpole period ground stone bowls (e.g. Grier 2003), then similar patterns of restricted access to technical knowledge, tied to the growing importance of prestige, may be seen throughout the region.

Due to the continuity in the majority of marine and terrestrial resources used over the past 5,000 years in the Salish Sea (Bilton 2014; McKechnie 2014) subsistence changes are not expected to have major impacts on tool morphology. An exception to this is the introduction of bow and arrow technologies which appears to coincide with increased cervid and artiodactyl specialization over the past 2000 years (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014).

In contrast, achieved forms of status associated, in the Coast Salish case, where knowledge is less restricted (such as unbiased learning) may exhibit more rapid shifts in styles through time resulting in higher assemblage richness and evenness, higher estimates of Tf and Te, and higher inter-assemblage variation. These types of conditions may also result in higher metric variation within artifact styles (Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Rorabaugh 2014).

The timing of the introduction of arrow technologies may also impact stylistic diversity. If arrows replace darts, there should be a considerable decrease in the stylistic variation of chipped stone tools (e.g. Lyman et al. 2009). If the learning of bow and arrow technologies are highly individualized, reflecting the greater economic autonomy they may provide (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014), this may be reflected in greater metric variation despite a reduction in overall styles. Changes in stylistic and metric variation from the introduction of bow and arrow technologies are not expected to be reflected in ground stone technologies as large ground stone points are utilized for spears, knives, and harpoons even in the late period.

In light of discussions on the negotiation of social status during the Marpole and Late periods (Angelbeck 2009; Angelbeck and Grier 2012), it is fallacious to assume that shifts in craft learning are unidirectional. The emphasis on individual autonomy and some hafted lithic tools being material correlates of warfare (Angelbeck 2009) and economic autonomy (Angelbeck and Cameron 2014) could mean that knowledge restrictions may be loosened and an anti-conformist bias might be present during specific time periods such as Late Marpole. This would be reflected in very high artifact richness and evenness, very high estimates of Tf and Te (e.g. Shennan and Wilkinson 2001), and high metric variation during that period.

Beyond issues of lithic technological organization and the introduction of new technologies, another factor to consider is the impact of expanding social networks on assemblage variation. Several models of the development of social complexity on the Northwest Coast have emphasized social networks (e.g. Coupland 1988), these models can be framed in terms of prestige or affine based social networks and such models fit within the main hypotheses of this study.

Additional Variables and Alternative Hypotheses There are several confounding issues such as that reductive technologies such as hafted lithic tools will have more variability than additive technologies (Deetz 1967; Schillinger et al. 2014). Similarly, factors of lithic technological organization such as material quality pattern stone tool assemblages and the morphological variation of the tools that comprise them (Bakewell 2005; Carlson 1994; Kwarsick 2010; Reimer 2011; Rorabaugh and McNabb 2014; Skinner 2009; Taylor and Skinner 2010; Taylor 2012). Access to high or low quality toolstone may decrease or increase the variability seen within assemblages. As discussed in Chapter 3, the variation seen in toolstone quality throughout the Salish Sea (ranging from coarse grained basalts to high quality obsidian) is another reason why ground stone tools are also examined as variation in grinding production sequences is less impacted by material quality. Although poor quality toolstone may increase variation in chipped stone styles and confound detecting restricted forms of learning, this should not be as great of a factor in ground stone technologies and they can serve as a control sample.

Recent agent-based models examining the impacts of seasonal mobility on cultural variation (Safi and Dolan 2012; Rorabaugh 2014) informed by Northwest Coast ethnographic data suggests that seasonal rounds may increase the amount of artifact styles in assemblages, particularly the number of unique variants present at single assemblages or “one-off” variants. Despite this possible impact from seasonal rounds, restricted learning has a much higher impact on patterning cultural diversity (Rorabaugh 2014). Following Neiman (1995), a high degree of intergroup interaction or high stylistic innovation rates (a high mu value) may also increase the number of stylistic variants present increasing assemblage richness, evenness, Tf, and Te. Several alternative hypotheses for patterns which may be detected are also presented (Table 2). Forms of learning based on either guarded family styles (vertical transmission) or copying from any peer (unbiased transmission) may demonstrate a high degree of metric variation in haft attributes (Eerkens and Bettinger 2001; Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Rorabaugh 2014). Unbiased learning may also yield localized stylistic variation resulting in moderate stylistic richness, evenness, Tf, and Te at the assemblage scale and

Tool curation can also increase morphological variation. High curation should be reflected in increased metric variation in the blade element of hafted tools. Although curation can impact haft morphology (e.g. Flenniken and Raymond 1986), it is more likely to pattern blade morphology (Rorabaugh 2015). However, due to the impact tool retouch can have on morphology measures of 44

Hypotheses and Expectations

Table 2. Summary of Hypotheses and Expectations Hypothesis

Stylistic Richness Stylistic Evenness Haft Metric Variation Trends by Reduction Type

Prestige Bias

Low

Low

Low

Similar trends for chipped and ground stone

Unbiased Learning

High

High

High

Trends not shared by reduction type

Vertical Transmission High

High

High

Trends not shared by reduction type

Local Conformity

High

Low

Low

Trends not shared by reduction type

Regional Conformity

Low

Low

Low

Similar trends for chipped and ground stone

Anti-Conformity

Very High

High

High

Trends not shared by reduction type

Low toolstone material quality and tool curation will increase metric variation. Strong functional constraints will decrease metric variation.

moderate inter-assemblage variability. There may also be a moderate degree of variability in diversity measures between reduction strategies (chipped and ground) if learning is highly individualized. The term “moderate” is used since although variation can be low as a result of unbiased transmission since multiple individuals can copy information from the same source, the amount of observed variation will be higher than restricted forms of teaching or conformity, while lower than anti-conformist or vertical transmission. Although vertical transmission has a higher degree of fidelity than unbiased transmission, the assemblage scale is a palimpsest of the cumulative behaviors of multiple family traditions, which may overall patterns similar to unbiased learning. Even extensive affine-based so social networks as documented in the ethnohistoric period (e.g. Suttles 1958) could yield this pattern. If conformity in tool making is more important than the restriction of knowledge by elites (e.g. Kohler et al. 2004), then a reduction in fine scale metric variation should be apparent since conformity reduces the number of teachers in a manner similar to prestige biased learning or outright restrictions of knowledge by teachers. Conformity may also reduce the assemblage stylistic variation in addition to inter-assemblage variation. As such, conformity would be equifinal with restricted teaching and prestige biased learning. However, strong conformist bias is unlikely, considering tensions within peer-elite social networks and the antiquity of social practices emphasizing individual and political autonomy (Angelbeck 2009; Angelbeck and Grier 2012). Despite the expectation for the importance of prestige and knowledge restriction in the learning of traditional Coast Salish craft skills, this approach allows for the identification of different types of social reproduction. It is critical to compare the observed variation of the archaeological record against frames of reference that describe different learning strategies.

45

6 Methodology and Sample

This chapter is a discussion of the approaches used in order to detect whether restricted forms of knowledge result in lowered metric variation in both formed chipped and ground stone tools of all styles through time in the entire Salish Sea over the past 5,000 years and increased unevenness in the styles represented in assemblages. A key aspect of this study is to examine metric and stylistic variation manner that accounts for variation introduced by retouch over the life history of an artifact.

aspect of a classification is its replicability by other researchers. Lack of replicability is a significant issue with many typologies in the Salish Sea (Kornbacher 1992). The typology used for this study is a polythetic classification that emphasizes haft attributes. Polythetic classifications are unweighted and unordered, all examined attributes are considered equally. Constructing polythetic classifications that maximize the number of dimensions of observed variation aid in characterizing the variability of material culture, whether it is the result of intentional variation from learned mental templates or unintentional variation from copy error.

Metric variation in haft attributes for specific hafted tool classes is examined by site component using the coefficient of variation (CV). Stylistic diversity is assessed by artifact style richness, evenness (J-Scores), and two estimates of Neiman’s (1995) theta statistic, Tf and Te. As discussed in Chapter 4, these are the most prevalent measures of metric and stylistic variation in the cultural transmission literature. However, the use of two measures of variation (metric and stylistic) marks this study as unique, as previous studies have emphasized metric variation or stylistic variation but not how they relate to each other. In this chapter, the typology for hafted lithics used and metric attribute landmarks is discussed fist. This is followed by a review of the measures of metric and stylistic variation employed in this study. The chapter concludes with a description of the sample and examined site components.

The classification used is based on the typologies developed for the Duwamish No. 1 (Campbell 1981) and Qwu? gwes (Croes et al. 2008) sites. These two typologies served as a framework because they are polythetic classifications developed for sites with assemblages that demonstrate considerable morphological diversity. As chipped and ground stone, hafted tools in the Salish Sea share many of the same morphological characteristics, this typology is applied to both. In order to account for the impact of curation on hafted tool morphology (Chapter 3), haft attributes are emphasized in this classification. Descriptions of the types for each examined attribute are provided in Table 3. Attribute types are illustrated in Figure 16. Each attribute category is mutually exclusive and exhaustive of the variation seen in the sample. These definitions and illustrations should enable this classification to be replicated by other researchers, enabling it to be applied to other datasets, addressing Kornbacher’s (1992) critique of lithic classifications on the Northwest Coast. Variation in these attributes is examined by region (Fraser Delta, Southern Gulf Islands, San Juan Islands, Northwest Washington, and Puget Sound) and by 500-year period. The results of these exploratory analyses are presented in Appendix A as they are not directly tied to the central questions of this study.

Coast Salish Hafted Lithic Tool Typology Substantial literature surrounds the practice and theoretical justification of classification in archaeology (Adams and Adams 1991; Bettinger and Eerkens 1999; Cormack 1971; Cowgill 1982; Ford 1954; O’Brien et al. 2001; Spaulding 1953), and lithic technologies in particular (Andrefsky 1986; Benfer and Benfer 1981; Christenson and Read 1977; Clarke 1978; Drennan 1996; Dunnell 1971; Gunn and Prewitt 1975; Read 1974; Spaulding 1953; Whalon and Brown 1982). According to Andrefsky (2005: 62), artifact types or classes are a group of similar specimens within a population. A population may be comprised of one or more types, and the systematic arrangement of these types within a population is called a typology.

Body shape, shoulder, and stem attributes are used for the typology as they capture the chronological variability seen in the Salish Sea (Chapter 3). Table 4 outlines the polythetic classification for Salish Sea hafted tools used. Each attribute type used has been observed in at least one assemblage. There is a total of 160 possible styles in this classification. More attributes than used in the typology were examined in order to fully characterize the variation in these tools, and any chronological or regional trends. Stylistic trends by reduction type, period, and region are examined in Chapter 8.

Cormack (1971) argues that specimen should be classified into types based on criteria resulting in giving each type the most internal cohesion and external isolation. Andrefsky (2005: 63) notes that classifications vary depending on the research question asked, some may emphasize morphological variation while others examine material type or inferred function. Regardless of the aim of a typology, Andrefsky argues that the most important 47

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Methodology and Sample

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

Figure 16 Attributes for Bifaces and Ground Slate Points. Table 4. Hafted Stone Tool Typology Body Shape

Shoulder

A

Curvilinear

A

Barbed

Base A

Stemless Flat

B

Isoceles

B

Horizontal/None

B

Stemless Pointed

C

Lanceolate

C

Rounded

C

Stemless Rounded Concave

D

Scalene

D

Tapered

D

Stemless Rounded Convex

E

Weak

E

Stemmed Flat Expanding

F

Stemmed Flat Squared

G

Stemmed Round Contracting

H

Stemmed Side Notched

BBA- Isoceles, Horizontal, Stemless Flat -”Late Period” Triangle. CAE- Lanceolate, Barbed, Stemmed Flat Expanding -”Marpole” Point. CDG- Lanceolate, Tapered, Stemmed Round Contracting -”Locarno” Point.

Metric Attribute Landmarks

presence of grinding and differential chipping in the case of heavily curated tools. Not all artifact classes have all metric attributes. For instance, only tapered and barbed points have notch length, depth, and circumference. While only artifacts with stemless concave bases have base depth and base circumference. The results of exploratory data analyses of metric attributes are presented in Appendix A.

Digital imaging and Canvas 11 software was used to provide a highly accurate and replicable means of analyzing point metric attributes (e.g. Andrefsky and Williams 2010). The use of digital images avoids many of the pitfalls with the lack of replicability in the use of metric attributes noted by Lyman and Vanpool (2009). Photographs were taken of all examined artifacts. Each artifact has a plan view image taken of its ventral and dorsal faces. Photographs of all examined artifacts are organized by site and artifact number on DVDs on file at Washington State University. Multiple landmarks on the blade and haft elements (Figure 17) were measured to 0.01mm in order to compare metric variation within and between classes. Many of these landmarks require identifying the division between tool blade and haft elements, which can be determined by the

Measures of Stylistic Variation Changes in Stylistic Diversity by Site Component Tf, Te, and Theta Neiman’s (1995) Te (Equation 2) and Tf (Equation 3) are used to examine changes in the diversity of artifact classes by reduction strategy (chipped or ground) and site 50

Methodology and Sample

Figure 17 Metric Attribute Landmarks for Bifaces (Adapted from Andrefsky and Williams 2010).

and Wilkinson’s (2001: 579) seminal study was based on two Linearbandkeramik sites in the Merzbachtal valley extensively excavated as part of salvage archaeological efforts before their destruction by mining operations. The sampling strategy employed arguably captured the full stylistic variability at these localities. In contrast, the specific research histories of the sites examined are highly variable, including some large but extensively excavated sites as a result of salvage archaeology while other sites with extensive boundaries have small excavated volumes. Despite these differences in the sampling strategies of different sites, it is likely a representative sample of the overall variability of hafted lithic tools in the Salish Sea.

components through time. Tf is the most commonly used diversity measure for discrete cultural traits in the cultural transmission literature (e.g. Kohler et al 2004; Madsen 2012; Mesoudi and Lycett 2009; Neiman 1990). However, Tf is subject to sample size effects and is particularly influenced by small sample sizes (Kohler et al. 2004: 109; Neiman 1995: 17). Calculating Te for assemblages can also be problematic as theta is asymptotic if sample size equals richness. Such assemblages are omitted from analyses involving Te. The assemblage diversity approach assumes that the cultural variants of interest are selectively neutral. Functionally equivalent attributes, such as haft styles, meet these criteria. However, cultural selection can still affect functionally neutral traits that may have different symbolic value.

Two bracketing estimates of effective population size are also provided, based on lower and upper village population estimates for a time period. Although village population size does not reflect an assemblage, it is an estimate of the number of potential teachers who could produce an assemblage. These rough estimates should be viewed as a heuristic as an attempt to provide a grounded comparison for Tf and Te with an expected amount of variation under neutrality.

Although Tf and Te are empirical estimates calculated from assemblages, Theta must be calculated in order to determine whether variation increasing or reducing processes occurred which cause the empirical estimates of theta to deviate from the theoretical estimate. Calculating theta (Equation 4.1) requires a determination of two factors, innovation rate and effective population size. For this study, innovation rate (mu) is derived from the number of new styles for a given time period divided by the span of that period (Shennan and Wilkinson 2001).Shennan

Previous studies (Kohler et al. 2004; Shennan and Wilkinson 2001) have used Tf-Te to detect deviations from neutrality. Unfortunately, this approach is erroneous for detecting deviations from neutrality, but may detect issues 51

Investigating Restricted Knowledge in Lithic Craft Traditions

pairwise Mann-Whitney U tests were employed to assess which specific time periods had statistically significant changes. As repeated pairwise tests can result in type I statistical error, the alpha level of these tests was decreased accordingly. Richness, evenness, Tf, Te, and Tf-Te were also plotted against component duration to examine time averaging effects which may inflate richness and decrease intra-assemblage variation (e.g. Madsen 2012; Premo 2014).

tied to time averaging and sample size effects (Premo 2014: 170). Following Premo (2014), this study compares Tf with theoretically informed estimates of Theta to assess deviations from neutrality. As Tf is less sensitive to issues that arise when assemblage sample size is equivalent to richness, Tf is the empirical estimate of theta used in this study for comparison with the theoretically derived estimates of theta for a time period. Differences between Tf and Theta provide an indicator of whether variation reducing (TfTheta) processes occurred (Neiman 1995 Premo and Scholnick 2014). If the deviation between Tf and Theta is due to sample size effects, as Neiman (1995) suggests is possible for many data sets, the differences between the two empirical estimates of theta (Tf and Te) should correlate with sample size.

Monte Carlo Simulations of Sample Size Effects on Richness and Evenness Measures such as richness and evenness in archaeological contexts are highly sensitive to sample size variation (Grayson 1981; Jones et al. 1983). In many situations, these measures may appear to examine little else but variation in sample size. Archaeologists have attempted to address this issue in a number of ways, including the application of Monte Carlo approaches (Kintigh 1984, 1989; McCartney and Glass 1990). The relationship between sample size, richness, and evenness (J-Score) is examined using Monte Carlo methods in the DIVERS module of Kintigh’s Tools for Quantitative Archaeology (TFQA). Expected richness and evenness for a given sample size are derived from bootstrapping a model data distribution. The model data distribution is based on summing the artifact class frequencies of all assemblages. Evenness in TFQA is measured using H/HMax or J-Score.

Factors other than sample size may alter the relationship of Tf and Theta. Premo and Scholnick (2011:170) note that spatial scales for learning (low interaction rates) may result in Tf being lower than Te. This is likely not an issue in the Salish Sea due to the extensive nature of regional kin networks as discussed in Chapter 2. As mentioned earlier, if certain haft styles are not functionally equivalent, and tied to the specific constraints of function as a dart, arrow, or harpoon this may also lower Tf compared to Theta. Cultural selection can also be a factor if different haft styles vary in what they signify.

J-Score is a version of the information statistic developed by Shannon and Weaver (1949) as adapted by Zar (1974) and Pielou (1977). This measure cannot be applied to assemblages where one or more classes are absent since an undefined term, log (0), is the result. Kintigh (1989: 29) argues to substitute ‘0’ for any undefined term, as adjusting the number of categories (k) to those present leads to undesirable results.

Richness and Evenness (J-Scores) Component richness, the number of unique classes represented, is also examined. J-score (Equation 5) was employed to examine component stylistic evenness (Kintigh 1984, 1989). This is a measure standardized between “0” and “1” where assemblages that are highly uneven have values approaching zero, while ones where all variants are evenly represented have values of “1.”

In order to control for sample size effects, site component richness and evenness (J-Score) were linearly regressed against the results of the Monte Carlo simulations. As richness and evenness increase sigmoidally, but monotonically, and flatten out at maximum values, data were Log transformed to linearize the relationships between the dependent (richness or evenness) and independent (sample size) variables. The residuals of the linear regression standardized to Z-scores were then plotted by reduction type, region, and 500 YBP period. Site components with richness or J-Score values falling above or below 2-sigma (95% confidence interval) were considered as having values higher or lower than expected from sample size effects alone.

Let k=total number of variants in the population (richness) Let Pi=proportion of k made up of the ith variant Equation 5 J-Score (Kintigh 1984, 1989)

All points sufficiently complete to be assigned to a class are included in these analyses. Trends in assemblage richness, evenness, and Tf-Te were examined by reduction method (chipped or ground), region (Fraser Delta, Southern Gulf Islands, San Juan Islands, Northwestern Washington, Puget Sound), and 500 year BP periods. Although Tf-Te may not be informative of cultural transmission processes, it may reflect sample size effects and is examined (Neiman 1995; Premo 2014). Differences in Richness. Evenness, and TfTe by period were tested for statistical significance using Kruskal-Wallis tests. If chronological trends were present,

Measuring Metric Variation within Discrete Styles and Reduction Method by Site Component Coefficient of variation (CV) is used to measure the variation of metric attributes within specific haft styles and reduction strategies (chipped or ground) by site component. 52

Methodology and Sample

The coefficient of variation is determined through dividing the standard deviation of interval-ratio data by its mean (Equation 4.5). Coefficient of variation has been employed in numerous studies (e.g., Bettinger and Eerkens 1997; Eerkens and Bettinger 2001; Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Eerkens 2000; Hamilton and Buchanan 2009; Kempe et al. 2012) as a means to measure variation reducing and increasing processes such as artifact functional constraints or forms of social learning.

functionally equivalent attributes (hafting elements). Similarly, the emphasis on knowledge restriction over other social processes such as conformity is informed from Coast Salish ethnography (Elmendorf 1971: 88-90; Haberlin and Gunther 1930: 26; Smith 1940: 329). In contrast, high variation in both haft metric variation (high CV) and haft styles (richness, evenness, and Tf>Theta) may reflect less restricted forms of transferring knowledge. Other variation increasing processes include individualized experimentation, peer based learning (horizontal transmission), or cross-generational learning from affinal kin (oblique transmission) (Eerkens and Bettinger 2001; Eerkens and Bettinger 2008; Eerkens and Lipo 2005; Kohler et al. 2004; Mesoudi and Lycett 2009;

Using an agent based model expanding on Eerkens and Lipo (2005), Rorabaugh (2014) examined the cumulative effects of visual copying error in material culture among finite populations. Rorabaugh’s model demonstrated that restricted knowledge or demographic collapse will result in a reduction of metric variation, indicated by a lowered coefficient of variation. Learning from a random individual (unbiased transmission) or restricted family styles (vertical transmission) clearly exhibit more variation than an apprenticeship context where knowledge is restricted by a prestigious elite who inherits their status from their parents (small effective population size and prestige biased transmission).

Neiman 1995; Shennan and Wilkinson 2001; Steele et al. 2010). If learning is heavily structured by seasonal rounds, this too should yield higher richness due to the presence of unique variants at single assemblages, termed “oneoff” variants (Rorabaugh 2015; Safi and Dolan 2012), as will time-averaging effects (Madsen 2012; Premo 2014). Spatial patterning in artifact stylistic and metric variation is also assessed at regional and sub-regional scales. These analyses examine the number of outliers in each region.

Incomplete points are included in these analyses, but measurements are only considered if an element of the tool (blade or haft) is complete. For example, a tool with a missing stem on its haft would only have measurements from its complete blade element included in the analysis. Styles and reduction types with an N>5 will be considered to capture the variation in rare styles in addition to more common types. The CVs of the metric attributes on specific portions of a tool (blade or haft) are combined to enable a comparison of the metric variation in the blade and haft segments of specific chipped and ground stone tool styles.

Restricted knowledge should have ordinal changes in the variability seen within sites delectable with the methods employed (richness, evenness, Tf, Te, and CV). As of yet, it cannot be argued that there is a specific detectable threshold for restricted and unrestricted types of learning other than relative change through time. However, as discussed earlier, Kruskal-Wallis tests and pairwise Mann-Whitney U tests will be used to compare the mean ranks of these measures by 500-year period, region, and reduction method to determine if the observed patterns are statistically significant.

Trends in the metric variation of blade and haft segments (mean blade attribute CV and mean haft attribute CV) by style and reduction method are examined by 500 year BP periods and region using whisker plots. Differences in mean blade and haft attribute CV by 500-year period, reduction type, and region were tested for significance using KruskalWallis tests. If significant differences were detected in a Kruskal-Wallis test, pair-wise Mann-Whitney U tests were employed to assess which time periods significantly varied. Blade and haft metric variation by reduction type, class.

Additional Variables Examined As material quality, tool curation, and potential tool function may increase or decrease variation in metric attributes (Chapter 3), they are examined in order to control for these effects. Toolstone Quality Toolstone quality is measured using Wilson’s (2007) measure of toolstone quality. This approach includes a logarithmic scale of material quality index. Although highly subjective, several factors were used to assess material quality following Brantingham et al. (2000): 1) percent crystallinity, 2) average crystal size, 3) range in crystal size, and 4) abundance of impurities. Considering the abundance of chipped and ground metamorphic toolstone (schist, slate) on the Northwest Coast a fifth factor, degree of schistosity, the amount that lamellar minerals (such as mica, chlorite, talc, hornblende, and graphite) that affect cleavage planes was added for assessing material quality. Any toolstone with macroscopically visible lamellar

Hypothesized Patterns from Restricted Knowledge in Measures of Stylistic and Metric Variation To restate the expectations from Chapter 5 in terms of these measures, low variation in haft styles (richness, evenness, and Tf