Lithic Design and Technological Organization in Housepit 1 of the S7istken Site, Middle Fraser Canyon, British Columbia

Author

Matthew Mattes, The University of Montana

Year of Award

2014

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

Master of Arts (MA)

Degree Name

Anthropology

Other Degree Name/Area of Focus

Archaeology

Department or School/College

Department of Anthropology

Committee Chair

Anna Marie Prentiss

Commitee Members

John Douglas, Pei-Lin Yu

Keywords

Middle Fraser Canyon, Lithic Design

Abstract

Archaeological research of Housepit 1 at the S7istken site in the Middle Fraser region of the British Columbia Plateau has been ongoing since the summer of 2010. Housepit 1 is one of eight housepits at the site, and to date it has been excavated in near entirety. This has provided a large faunal assemblage mostly comprised of stored salmon remains, and also a lithic assemblage that has proven to be a useful measure of late prehistoric lifeways from the perspective of technological organization and lithic design strategies. Housepit 1 was occupied twice between about 350-300 B.P., which is the proto-historic era in the Middle Fraser. This timeframe bridges the preceding abandonment of winter village seasonally sedentary and logistically mobile patterns, and then a later reemergence of that pattern carried into the historic Fur Trade era. The research presented here studies technological organization and lithic design to view lifeways during the transitional times of the proto-historic era, and establish knowledge of how sedentary or mobile people living in Housepit 1 were during their times at the S7istken site.

Recommended Citation

Mattes, Matthew, "Lithic Design and Technological Organization in Housepit 1 of the S7istken Site, Middle Fraser Canyon, British Columbia" (2014). Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers. 4201.
https://scholarworks.umt.edu/etd/4201