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Coast Salish Interaction: A View from the Inlets
Academic Work
Ethnographic and archaeological accounts document a complex web of socio-economic and religious networks among Coast Salish communities. While these accounts provide a general understanding of interactions among some Coast Salish groups, our knowledge of social relations among specific groups is uneven. In particular, we know little about social interactions among the people living in upper Burrard Inlet and Indian Arm (the "Inlet Locality"). We analyze faunal remains, plant remains, and lithics recovered from Late Phase ( 1200-250_BP) deposits of the settlement of Say-Umiton (DhRr-18) and compare these results to data collected from the previously excavated sites of Tum-tu-may-whueton (Belcarra Park) and Whey-Ah-Wichen (Cates Park). In particular, we use the source and abundance of archaeological remains as a proxy for determining the degree of interaction among the inlet peoples and between the inlet peoples and other communities. Our results demonstrate that the overwhelming majority of resources recovered at these settlements were acquired locally and few resources were acquired from outside the Inlet Locality. This suggests that while the people of the Inlets were linked to broader socio-economic spheres, their interactions were firmly rooted in the Inlet Locality. These data support the idea that in the past, as today, the people of the Inlets formed a regional social network within the broad Coast Salish social continuum.
31, 2, 190-223
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