9000 years of salmon fishing on the Columbia River, North America

A large assemblage of salmon bones excavated 50 yr ago from an f10,000-yr-old archaeological site near The Dalles, Oregon, USA, has been the primary evidence that early native people along the Columbia River subsisted on salmon. Recent debate about the human role in creating the deposit prompted excavation of additional deposits and analysis of archaeologic, geologic, and hydrologic conditions at the site. Results indicate an anthropogenic source for most of the salmonid remains, which have associated radiocarbon dates indicating that the site was occupied as long ago as 9300 cal yr B.P. The abundance of salmon bone indicates that salmon was a major food item and suggests that migratory salmonids had well-established spawning populations in some parts of the Columbia Basin by 9300–8200 yr ago. D 2004 University of Washington. All rights reserved. Introduction 1960). At a site known as ‘‘Roadcut’’ (Fig. 1) (35-WS-8), 1 Bones of scavenging birds (e.g., gull, cormorant, raven, crow, eagle, vulture, condor), known to feast on spawned-out fish were also found in The Dalles deposit. Scholars (Cressman, 1960; Browman and Munsell, 1969; Schalk, 1983; Simons, 1983; Erlandson and Moss, 2001) have debated whether: (1) some or many of the fish remains represent food waste In the 19th century, the Columbia River was known as one of the greatest salmon-producing rivers in the world, with annual runs of 10–16 million fish (Northwest Power Planning Council, 2000). Today, populations of all six salmon species known for the basin are severely diminished or extinct. As scientists and resource managers debate the causes of these losses and develop measures to save these fishes from extinction (National Research Council, 1996; Levin and Schiewe, 2001), it is relevant to consider the longer history of salmon in the basin and the role they played in Native American economies. An area central to discussions of Indian fisheries in the Pacific Northwest is ‘‘The Dalles of the Columbia,’’ where salmon migrating upriver were slowed by a series of falls and chutes through which the river descended 25 m in less than 20 km. The seasonal abundance of salmon and advantageous fishing conditions made this area one of the premier ethnohistoric Indian fisheries in North America until inundated by the pool of The Dalles Dam in 1956 (Netboy, 1980). Within this reach, a section known as Fivemile Rapids became the focus of intensive archaeological excavation in the 1950s, directed by Luther Cressman of the University of Oregon, to salvage deposits likely to be affected by the dam (Cressman, 0033-5894/$ see front matter D 2004 University of Washington. All rights rese doi:10.1016/j.yqres.2004.03.002 * Corresponding author. Fax: (503) 725-3905. E-mail address: [email protected] (V.L. Butler). four radiocarbon ages between 9785 and 6090 C yr B.P. (Table 1) indicated that people had been in the area since the early Holocene, providing some of the earliest and first radiocarbon records for archaeological sites in the Pacific Northwest (Ames et al., 1998; Matson and Coupland, 1995). Additionally, the recovery of an estimated 250,000 salmon remains was used to argue that early peoples on the Columbia River subsisted on salmon (Cressman, 1960; Butler, 1961; Carlson, 1983), resulting in the oft-used expression, ‘‘10,000 years of salmon fishing on the Columbia.’’ Since this work, researchers have challenged the conclusion that fish bones at the Roadcut site were from human use, suggesting alternatively that they were fluvially deposited carcasses or left behind by scavenging mammals or birds (Browman and Munsell, 1969; Schalk, 1983; Butler, 1993). Given the significance of the site to regional prehistory and questions raised about fishbone origin, we returned to the site for further study. Here, we reevaluate the genesis of the rved. from scavenging birds, (2) the bird remains themselves represent natural death and deposition, and (3) the bird remains represent prey that human hunters captured. According to the last proposal, humans hunted the birds that were in the area preying upon the vast quantities of fish. Table 1 Radiocarbon dates from The Dalles Roadcut (35-WS-8) Lab No. Elevation (m asl) Context/stratum Sample description C yr B.P. yC (per mil) C adjusted age Cal yr B.P. 2j 65009 52.20 Feature 1 Multiple charcoal fragments of Pinus ponderosa, from a discrete concentration of charcoal 4640 F 130 24.3 4650 F 130 5,610–4,970 Y-343 51.47–52.00 Stratum V Unknown material 6090 F 80 — — 7,100–6,750 65007 51.13 Cultural pit fill, feature 2 Charcoal,