Plateau Peoples
The Plateau Peoples refer to the Indigenous groups inhabiting the Columbia-Fraser Plateau region, recognized for their deep historical ties to the area, which spans parts of present-day British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. This cultural area is notable for its reliance on salmon, particularly in the context of a lifestyle that evolved significantly over thousands of years. The Plateau Peoples include various linguistic groups, primarily speakers of Interior Salish, Sahaptin, Chinookan, and Kutenai languages, each with distinct cultures and traditions. Archaeological evidence suggests that the ancestors of these groups have lived in the region for over 9,000 years, initially engaging in hunting before increasingly relying on salmon as a staple food source around 6,000 to 5,000 BCE.
Permanent seasonal villages emerged by 2000 BCE, characterized by circular pit houses and a community structure likely reflecting social stratification. The Plateau's environment influenced their subsistence strategies, including fishing, hunting, and foraging for edible roots. Cultural continuity is evident despite environmental changes, such as temperature fluctuations that affected salmon availability. The Plateau Peoples showcase a rich tapestry of life that intertwines with the natural resources of the region, highlighting their adaptive strategies and enduring presence throughout millennia.
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Plateau Peoples
Related civilizations: Shuswap, Thompson, Lillooet, Northern and Southern Okanagan, Kalispel, Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Sanpoil-Nespelem, Lakes, Flathead, Pend d’Oreille, Kutenai, Yakima, Klickitat, Kittitas, Palouse, Nez Perce, Wasco, Wishram, Molala, Klamath-Modoc, Athapaskan.
Date: 8000 b.c.e.-700 c.e.
Locale: Columbia and Fraser River drainages of interior British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana
Plateau Peoples
The Columbia-Fraser Plateau is one of the ten culture areas of native North America and is sometimes grouped with the Northwest Coast as the “salmon area” because of the heavy reliance on that genus for food. Along the Fraser River in British Columbia lived peoples speaking Interior Salish languages—the Shuswap, Thompson, Lillooet, and northern Okanagan. Along the northern part of the Columbia River and its tributaries in today’s United States lived both Salish speakers—Southern Okanagan, Kalispel, Spokane, Coeur d’Alene, Sanpoil-Nespelem, Lakes, Flathead, and Pend d’Oreille—and the linguistically isolated Kutenai. On the middle and lower Columbia and its tributaries were Sahaptin and Chinookan speakers—Yakima, Klickitat, Kittitas, Palouse, Nez Perce, Wasco, Wishram, and Molala. The most southern group, the Klamath-Modoc, straddled the Oregon-California border and spoke a language related to Sahaptin. Sahaptin and Klamath-Modoc are related to the Penutian languages found in California. Several small, isolated bands of peoples speaking Athapaskan languages, whose main area of distribution is in the Yukon and Alaska, are also found in the plateau. Archaeological research has shown that except for the Athapaskans, the ancestors of these peoples have resided in the plateau area for thousands of years.
As in most of North America, the earliest inhabitants, dating to about 9300 b.c.e., were hunters recognizable by the particular types of stone spear points they used. Clovis hunters, who used fluted spear points, are the earliest known inhabitants. Both isolated finds of these distinctive artifacts and caches at the Simon site in Idaho and the East Wenatchee site in Washington have been found. Clovis bone foreshafts also occur. At 8000 b.c.e., hunters still occupied the plateau but were using a new style of stemmed, unfluted, spear point and a distinctive crescent-shaped stone knife. Remains from the Lind Coulee and Marines Rockshelter sites are significant. Barbed bone points and harpoons used in fishing and small bone hooks that are parts of spear-throwers are also found. Bison bones and remains of smaller mammals and fish, but no salmon, are found in sites occupied by these later hunters.
Between 6000 and 5000 b.c.e., subsistence changed dramatically, and salmon gradually became a major food staple, although hunting was still important. The annual salmon runs are as predictable a food resource as the crops grown by farmers in other parts of the world. Salmon is preservable by drying and smoking, and the surplus from the large runs could be stored for future use. By 2000 b.c.e., people were living in permanent seasonally occupied villages of circular pit houses and relying on stored salmon to see them through the winter and early spring. A decline in temperature about 2500 b.c.e. may have precipitated an increase in the supply of salmon, a cold-water loving species. Archaeological sites at Kettle Falls and Five Mile Rapids and the Cascade phase sites, all on the Columbia River system, are significant for this period.
Increasing use of salmon between 5000 and 2000 b.c.e. is indicated by carbon isotope analyses of human bones that give a lifelong ratio of terrestrial protein to marine protein in the diet. In these upriver regions, the marine protein reached as high as 50 percent and could have come only from anadromous (river-ascending) salmon. Evidence for the extensive use of camas, a lily root, has been found in earth ovens dating to 3500 b.c.e., and there is evidence of roasting other edible roots in younger periods. Little early evidence for luxury goods is present except in western Idaho, where beads, pipes, and finely flaked stone knives and spear points made from exotic materials are found associated with burials that date between 4000 and 2500 b.c.e.
Except for the Athapaskan speakers, cultural and ethnic continuity is evident from at least 4000 b.c.e. on, even though there were changes in the sizes of villages and houses and in weaponry in the late prehistoric period. The earliest pit houses are small and shallow, whereas later ones are larger and deeper. At the Keatley Creek site, an extensively excavated village site of more than one hundred houses on the Fraser River near Lillooet, the largest pit house measures 76 feet (20 meters) in diameter. Both large and small pit houses occur there, and this fact has been taken as an indication of the presence of a stratified society with the wealthy families in the large houses and the poor in the smaller ones. Considerable evidence for the hunting of bison is present between 500 b.c.e. and 500 c.e. on the Columbia Plateau and may be related to the introduction of the bow and arrow and its gradual replacement of the spear-thrower as the principal weapon for hunting. At various times, landslides on both the Columbia and Fraser Rivers have been taken as evidence of disruption of the supply of salmon, causing dislocation of resident populations. A slide at Texas Creek about 900 c.e. is thought to have blocked the Fraser River and forced abandonment of the large upriver villages.
Many pit house village sites have been test excavated throughout the plateau and indicate some variations in culture, but the basic plateau cultural patterns of winter pit-house villages in the major river valleys, a seasonal round of food collecting, and intensive storage of salmon, ungulates (hoofed animals), and roots are found throughout the area.
Bibliography
Carlson, Roy L., and Luke DallaBona, eds. Early Human Occupation in British Columbia. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1996.
Hayden, Brian, ed. The Ancient Past of Keatley Creek: Taphonomy. Burnaby, B.C.: Simon Fraser University Archaeology Press, 2000.
Johnston, H. J. M., ed. The Pacific Province. Vancouver, B.C.: Douglas & McIntyre, 1996.
Richards, Thomas H., and Michael K. Rousseau. Late Prehistoric Cultural Horizons on the Canadian Plateau. Burnaby, B.C.: Simon Fraser University Archaeology Press, 1987.
Walker, Deward E., ed. Plateau. Vol. 12 in Handbook of North American Indians. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998.