The Northwest Coast

Over the past several decades, archeological research on the Northwest Coast of North America has focused on the evolution of the coast's well-known native societies. This research has two broad goals: building local and regional culture histories spanning the Holocene and answering processual questions about the evolution and persistence of cultural complexity among hunter-gatherers. Cultural complexity includes relatively dense populations, partial to full sedentism, corporate groups, some degree of occupational specialization, permanent social inequality, and control of property.(1-3) Recently archeologists have begun to investigate whether the coast was a possible route for the peopling of North America. Presently, the earliest known sites on the coast date to about 9,000 BC, although it is likely that the initial occupation was earlier. Some aspects of cultural complexity had developed on the coast by 2,500 BC, with permanent inequality present by 900 BC, if not earlier. Central to this development were large corporate households, intensive food production and storage, and technological innovations including water-tight wooden containers and large-capacity boats. Patterns of complexity on the coast continued to change through the arrival of Europeans in the mid-1700s.