point acquisition A GLIMPSE OF ANCIENT LIFE ON THE NORTHWEST COAST

acquisition

The Conservancy is pleased to announce the launch of the POINT-4 Program,

a $2 million emergency acquisition project designed to ensure that virtually no nationally significant archaeological site is destroyed by development, looting, or the effects of the environment.

The program will focus primarily on sites in five geographic regions representing particular cultures that are in great danger of destruction, and on one national culture. Those regions and cultures are the Algonquians and Iroquois villages of the Northeast; the monumental sites of the Mississippi Delta; the mound builders of the Ohio Valley; the Anasazi of the Four Corners; and the prehistoric and historic sites in California’s Central Valley. It will also focus on the Paleo-Indian culture that spanned the country.

This year marks the 30th anniversary of The Archaeological Conservancy. In honor of this event, the Board of Directors and staff of the Conservancy have pledged the first $1 million for POINT-4, to be matched dollar for dollar by new contributions.

A Glimpse of Ancient Life on the Northwest Coast

An unusual wet site in Washington State could yield valuable information.

This is one of the numerous basket fragments that archaeologists have recovered from the site.

The Conservancy has acquired the DeqWaled site on the Snoqualmie River north of Seattle, preserving information about the activities of the people living on the Northwest Coast about 2,500 years ago. The Washington Archaeological Society excavated DeqWaled in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These were the first waterlogged investigations, also known as “wet site” excavations, conducted in the Pacific Northwest. In addition to examining waterlogged areas, the researchers also exposed a portion of the dry riverbank.

Archaeologist David Rice participated in one of the digs while he was attending high school. “The initial finds suggested that the site was a prehistoric seasonal fishing site that was periodically flooded by annual runoff of the Snoqualmie River,” he said. The dry phase of the excavation revealed an archaeological midden deposit. The artifact assemblage contained fire-modified rock, and a wide range of chipped stone tools, including projectile points, knives, scrapers, gravers, adze blades, microblades and cores, and many flakes. The researchers had to develop different excavation strategies to cope with the problems posed by the waterlogged environment. Water inhibits the oxidation and decomposition of organic artifacts; but once they are removed from the water, they quickly decompose. Consequently, wet site spring • 2010

excavations require specialized collection and preservation techniques.

In 1979, archaeologists Astrida R. Blukis Onat returned to the site with students from Seattle Central Community College to do more excavations. “We uncovered what appeared to be a burned house post, with adjacent side posts,” Blukis Onat said. “This structural feature is much like those described in ethnographic literature for house construction. Removable wall planks were tied with cedar rope between the main post and the side posts. These planks formed both outer and inner walls for the structure.” DeqWaled is a Lushootseed word—Lushootseed is the language spoken by Native Americans in this area—meaning “house post. “There is no known place name in the Lushootseed language for this location,” she added. In 1985, Blukis Onat learned that the land containing the site was going to be sold, so she purchased it to preserve the site. “There are very few sites of this period—2,000 to 3,000 years old—known in the greater Puget Sound area,” she said. “And there are very few sites that contain both dry land and wet

Ancient fishermen used net sinkers wrapped in cherry bark.

site deposits that appear related.”

In the fall of 2008, Blukis Onat donated more than 3,000 artifacts and other data from the site to the University of Washington’s Burke Museum. The artifact collection includes hundreds of basketry fragments, net sinkers wrapped in cherry bark, and fishing gear. “The fragments of cedar baskets and woven mats, coupled with fishhooks, net weights, and stone tools, offer valuable insights into the collecting and storing of fish, shellfish, and berries,” said Laura Phillips, the archaeology collections manager at the Burke Museum. “They tell stories about life, technology, trade, and artistic invention.”

Blukis Onat thought that the site would be an ideal candidate for preservation, so she contacted the Conservancy, and we acquired DeqWaled in January. “The site is unique because it contains both a high riverbank portion with features and lithic artifacts, and a lower overbank deposit—in the delta of an adjacent small stream— with perishables, including mats, baskets, and a portion of a fish trap,” she said.DeqWaled is the Conservancy’s first wet site. Researchers will now have the opportunity to study this unusual and extremely valuable archaeological resource. —Julie Clark

Point acquisitions

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Deq Waled

the Protect our irreplaceable national treasures (Point) program was designed to save significant sites that are in immediate danger of destruction.