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Plant Technology in Archaeology-From the Ancient Past into the Future (Case 1)

Ethnobotany in British Columbia: Plants and People in a Changing World, BC Studies, 179, Nancy J. Turner and Dana Lepofsky, Editors, 2013
This Case Study, focusing primarily on woods and fibres as key materials for construction and artifact production on the Northwest Coast, emphasizes the overwhelming importance of plant materials in past cultures. In fact, based on the plant remains from several coastal wet­site contexts in British Columbia and beyond, wood, fibre and other plant materials comprise over 85 percent of the ancient Northwest Coast material culture, as far back as ro,500 years or more (Bernick 1983, 2001; Croes 1977, 1995, 2012a, 20126; Croes et al. 2009; Fedje et al. 2005). Fishhooks, wedges, nets, fish weirs, cordage, and basketry have all been identified and described from such sites. Cellular analysis of wet-site material is constantly revealing unexpected finds, such as the apparently distinctive use of bigleaf maple bark (Acer macrophyllum) for woven basketry, cordage, and nets from the Qwu?gwes wet site of southern Puget Sound (Hawes and Rowley 2013). In British Columbia, cellular analysis reveals that true fir, salmonberry wood, and hardwood bark (cherry or maple) were used to make a basket recovered from the Glenrose Cannery site in the Fraser delta dating to approximately 4,000 years B.P. (Eldridge 1991, 36-37). ...Read more