Carving of steatite and other stones seems to have diminished in the last 1,500 years of south coast prehistory, but two new cultural traits were introduced at this time, probably via trade contacts with southern and eastern parts of North America. Steatite tobacco pipes, sometimes decorated with animal or human figures, first appear in south-coast sites of the last 1,500 years, along with spindle whorls and blanket pins heralding a native weaving industry. A spindle whorl is a disc of wood, bone or, rarely, steatite, sometimes decorated, used as a weight to keep a hand turned spindle rotating. Native people made their yarn by spinning indigenous fibres such as hair from dogs and mountain goats. While weaving spread to the north coast prior to European contact, tobacco apparently was not smoked outside of the south coast until the late eighteenth century; instead, in the north, it was chewed, mixed with burned and crushed clam shells. Interestingly, tobacco was grown by early historical north-coast Indians in small gardens, which suggests that the basic principles of horticulture had reached coastal British Columbia before European contact. However, it is unlikely that gardening or even wild plant foods contributed much to aboriginal coastal diets, and domesticated crops such as corn, beans and squash were totally unknown in the province.
Developmental Stage cultures were sustained by a rich array of marine, riverine and terrestrial food resources. With the stabilization of sea levels after about 5,000 years ago and the establishment of optimum populations of salmon and other fish, people could become increasingly specialized in their subsistence pursuits, investing greater time and energy in a single type of resource. By at least 4,500 years ago, Developmental shell-midden sites possess evidence for complex fishing and sea-mammal hunting gear generally comparable to that of the historic period. This includes various kinds of barbed antler and bone harpoons and fishing spears, bone fish hooks, pecked-stone net sinkers, ground-slate and shell knives and projectile points. Through time this basic inventory expanded and diversified. For instance, toggling harpoon heads, which pivot at right angles to the pull of the retrieving line within the prey animal, and thus are better than barbed harpoons for hunting large fish and sea mammals, first appeared about 3,500 years ago. By 1,000 years ago toggling harpoon heads ranged in size from large composite whaling harpoons armed with shell cutting blades to small salmon-fishing tips. Similar diversification and specialization occurred during the Developmental Stage in other aspects of subsistence technology, suggesting a need to continually increase fishing and hunting efficiency, perhaps in response to growing human populations.
Flaked-stone implements such as pebble tools, with traditional roots far back in time, persisted along much of the coast into the Developmental Stage, hand in hand with many new technologies. On the north and central coasts microblades ceased to be used 5,500-4,500 years ago, at the same time as they first appeared on the south coast. Along the south coast earlier leaf-shaped spearheads diversified into a variety of stemmed and notched forms in the last 5,500 years, with small arrowheads appearing for the first time in the archaeological record about 1,200 years ago. However, early in the Developmental Stage, new ways of manufacturing stone tools began to gain popularity, eventually all but replacing flaked stone in the last few centuries of prehistory.
The first of the new technologies involved pecking a granite or diorite cobble with a hammer stone, slowly wearing away the surface grain by grain, and then finishing the rough shape by grinding with abrasive materials. This method permitted modification of rock types not easily worked by faking or grinding alone and allowed hollow and perforated forms to be made in stone. Thus, the invention of "pecking-and-grinding" was critical to the appearance of heavy stone sinkers, clubs, adzes, bowls and sculptures in the archaeological record. The second new technique was the polishing or grinding of slate and other relatively sort platey stones to manufacture long, straight-edged lance heads, knives and other implements. The first ground-slate spearheads showed up on the British Columbia coast about 5,000 years ago, and in another 3,500 years skilled craftsmen were creating slender lance heads over 40 cm long. Like some big, well-made flaked stone spearheads of the period, these long delicate points may have had values as status or wealth symbols beyond their utility as weapons.
Shells neutralize normally acidic coastal soils, so preservation of bones and other organic materials is much better in shell middens than in earlier non shell sites. This results not only in a much more complete record of bone, antler and shell artifacts in the last 5,500 years, but also in the preservation of human bones in Developmental Stage sites. The majority of prehistoric coastal burials date about 4,500-1,500 years in age. Most are simple interments of individuals lying in flexed postures, sometimes with several large rocks which may have originally weighted the lid of a grave box. Occasionally burials include artifacts such as ornaments or weapons, suggesting that they are the graves of higher status people. Multiple burials of two or more individuals also occur, possibly representing a catastrophe which befell a group, such as the drowning of a canoe party. Some south-coast burials have been found under rock cairns, themselves buried under accumulated shell deposits, while earthen burial mounds with small stone-lined burial enclosures are also known. The frequency of midden burials diminishes in the last 1,500-1,000 years, probably reflecting a shift towards historical methods of disposing of the dead -- in trees, mortuary poles, grave houses, and caves.
Some prehistoric human skeletons from the Northwest Coast exhibit injuries likely obtained in combat, and there is other evidence for increasing warfare throughout the Developmental Stage. This includes the appearance of stone and whalebone clubs, some finely decorated, by at least 3,500-2,500 years ago, and fortified sites in the last 1,500 years of prehistory. The latter includes trench-embankment fortifications on the south coast, with excavated ditches and earthen banks protecting a headland from landward attack, and palisaded hilltops and rocky islands along the central and northern coasts. A famous historical example of a palisaded north-coast village is the Kitwanga hill-fort on the lower Skeena River. Coastal warfare seems to have reached a peak of intensity early in the post-contact period, as a result of competition for control of trade systems between rival tribes and chiefs. Prehistoric warfare may also have had similar motives: to control trade, to enhance chiefly status, and to capture slaves and other valuables.
When the first European ships appeared off British Columbia's shores in the late seventeenth century, their sailors encountered rich cultures resulting from over 10,000 years of local human adaptation. Although occasional Asiatic ships or wrecks possibly touched the Northwest Coast before the first recorded arrival of Spanish and British sailors, there is nothing to indicate that any such contacts contributed significantly to the formation of the prehistoric cultures of British Columbia. On the contrary, Northwest Coast lifeways evolved in situ, through the moulding of widespread native North American cultural themes by the unique adaptive requirements and opportunities of the north Pacific environment.
Late Period of the Interior
(4,500 years ago to European contact)
Like their coastal neighbours, interior peoples evolved increasingly complex and diversified cultures in the last four millennia of prehistory. Of course, they could not build huge shell middens, although small deposits of freshwater mussel shells are sometimes found in Plateau sites; instead the dominant cultural trait tying together the late prehistory of the southern interior is the pit house, which first appears in the archaeological record about 4,500-4,000 years ago. Despite its seeming advantage as a snug dwelling for cold climates, the pit house concept seems to have entered British Columbia from the south, where it is found in the Columbia River basin and northern California back 6,000 years. Prehistoric pit houses came in a wide array of shapes and sizes, including rectangular, oblong and circular ground-plans, and deep and shallow pits up to 20 m across. A common type was circular, 5-10 m in diameter and 1-2 m deep, with a conical earthen roof supported on wooden posts and rafters. A smoke hole in the centre of the roof provided light, air and access via a notched-log ladder, although some houses also had side entrances. Historical pit houses were occupied in winter, and villages of up to two hundred of the crater-like pits have been found by archaeologists. Pit houses are not known in British Columbia north of the Fraser and Skeena River drainages, although far less archaeological research has been done in the Subarctic than in the Plateau.
Pit houses, like coastal shell middens, signify a seasonally sedentary style of settlement, and their appearance in the archaeological record parallels evidence for a growing role for salmon and wild plant foods in the Plateau economy. Harpoons, net sinkers, other fishing gear and salmon bones become more frequent in Late Period archaeological sites, particularly in the last 2,500 years. Storage pits, used to keep dried salmon secure and edible, appeared in the Plateau about 3,500 years ago, and many hundreds can sometimes be found around old village sites. Baking pits up to 5 m diameter, filled with fire-cracked rocks and ash, were used in the last 2,000-3,000 years to cook wild crops like balsam root, whose bright yellow flowers carpet Plateau upland valleys and meadows in early summer. Antler handles, which formed a crossbar on a pointed wooden digging stick used by women for excavating roots, are also found in Late Period sites. However, neither baking ovens nor digging stick handles are known in the Subarctic, where northern forests supported few edible plants.
Another prominent aspect of the archaeological landscape of interior British Columbia is the numerous pictograph sites. The pictographs include human, animal and supernatural figures, as well as geometric designs, painted with red ochre, on boulders and cliffs. Pictographs cannot be directly dated, but the exposed locations of many suggest that they are not more than 200-300 years old. Some appear to have acted as "message boards" along trails and waterways, while more isolated examples were probably made by adolescents on their "spirit quests," a search for personal supernatural power alone in the wilderness. Like pit houses, pictographs are not found in most of the Subarctic area of the province.
Various notched and stemmed atlatl points dominated interior weapons in the Late Period, although in the last 1,500 years small side-notched arrowheads heralded the arrival of the bow. In the Subarctic, large straight sided spearheads similar to Early Period types persisted into the last 3,000-4,000 years of prehistory, along with the other forms. Interior tool kits included numerous flaked drills, scrapers, knives and even flaked bangles or pendants, as well as projectile points. Most of these artifacts were made of basalt, a fine-grained grey-to-black volcanic rock which is today sometimes mistaken for flint. Some ancient sources for this raw material are still recorded in modern place names, such as the Arrowstone Hills near the Plateau town of Cache Creek.
Like their coastal contemporaries, prehistoric residents of the interior also began to work stone with pecking and abrasive techniques in the Late Period. Some of their most spectacular achievements include long, finely polished nephrite adze blades, as well as occasional small jade chisels and knives. Translucent green nephrite was sometimes associated with the water world, and nephrite sources occurred near some of the major salmon fisheries along the Fraser River. Besides their woodworking use, the adze blades, which were traded considerable distances, were perhaps also symbols of wealth. Late prehistoric Plateau people also carved steatite, and the best of their art rivals any coastal stonework. Indeed, some stone bowls with rattlesnake motifs found on the south coast were probably originally made in the interior. Numerous amulets, bowls and statuettes of animals and people have been found along the lower Fraser and Thompson River drainages, where late prehistoric peoples seem to have had strong cultural links with the coast. Steatite tobacco pipes, with flaring trumpet shaped bowls and straight stems, are another distinctive artifact type of about the last thousand years of Plateau prehistory.
Plateau artistic products include geometrically decorated miniature bows, clubs, awls, pendants and beads of antler and bone, and stone objects. Wooden carvings, boxes, bowls and masks would also have been originally part of prehistoric interior material culture, along with numerous items of basketry, birch-bark and cordage; unfortunately, only rare fragments of these perishable materials have survived in archaeological sites. Subarctic peoples, restrained by a more mobile seasonal round and less productive environment than the Plateau, seem to have restricted their artistic endeavours to work in hide, skin or bark.
Prehistoric human burials are also known in the Late Period, some of the oldest originally placed beneath the floors of house pits. Later burials were concentrated in hills, slopes and promontories overlooking valleys and river confluences. Large adze blades, carvings, beads, weapons and other artifacts have been found with some of these interments, but not all, suggesting social status differences among the burial population. Historical Plateau societies have sometimes been described by ethnographers as egalitarian, but traits such as rich burials, elaborate art and the occasional very large house pits suggest that some prehistoric individuals or families commanded greater wealth and status than others.
Warfare was also part of late interior prehistory, although it was probably never as intense as on the coast. Historical accounts describe many battles, particularly between the Shuswap and ChiIcotins, and Chilcotins and Carriers. Archaeological evidence for warfare includes clubs of stone, antler and whalebone, the latter traded in from the coast, and some skeletal remains with arrowpoints in their abdominal cavities. Despite this, most sites thought by modern interior residents to have been "Indian battlefields," because of finds of spear or arrowheads, are usually just villages or hunting camps.
The Chilcotins figured strongly in historical accounts of fighting between tribes because they were part of a wedge of Athapaskan speakers who pushed southwards into the Plateau in late prehistory. People as far away as the Navajo and Apache of the American Southwest speak languages closely related to those of Subarctic British Columbia because of the same great Athapaskan migration out of the far northwest. The reasons for this movement are not clear, although a massive volcanic eruption in the Yukon basin about 1,400 years ago has been cited as one factor. Archaeologists have searched for evidence of the first arrival of Athapaskans in interior British Columbia, with varying degrees of success. However, wandering Athapaskan bands would likely have acquired most of the cultural traits of their neighbours before settling in a new area, making them archaeologically indistinguishable from those people.
Popular images of the native cultures of British Columbia often dwell on the coastal peoples to the exclusion of their inland neighbours. There is a conception, fostered even by some anthropological writing, that the interior was simply a marginal area between the Northwest Coast and the Plains, where more important cultural developments took place. This perception may be a result of too much attention to historical or ethnographic data, collected after the aboriginal cultures had been profoundly altered by European contact. However, archaeology, which is the only means we have of reconstructing true pre-contact lifeways, clearly reveals unique and vital cultures in the late prehistory of the interior, the equal in complexity, in their own way, of those of any neighbouring area. The Plateau, and even some portions of the Subarctic, was a naturally rich land, well capable of supporting substantial native populations and nurturing the evolution of creative and dynamic cultures.
Today, few traces of the ancient interior ways of life remain and most modern residents go about their business unaware of the many generations who were there ahead of them. Occasionally, however, a hiker may stumble on some dancing red figures peering from a rock and perhaps wonder for a moment about the artist who painted them many years ago, when all the world was still just lakes and mountains.
