Washington between Clealum on the forested eastern slope of the Cascade Mountains and Kennewick on the Columbia River; also. The Nez Percys are of the same linguistic stock as the Shahaptian tribes of the Columbia Valley. All the upper plateau tribes resorted to the salmon and other varieties of fish of the Columbia and tributaries, and thus obtained an abundant supply of food.
In the Yakima River valley, the composition of the Ellensburg Formation is coarser than that of the White Bluffs on the Columbia River, which contains large amounts of volcanic ash and windblown dust. The Saddle Mountains are ethnologically important as the area forms one of the few natural geographic barriers. The Saddle Mountains are geologically important because of their influence on any attempt to interpret the antiquity of man in the Columbia Valley.
Suspected evidence of human antiquity in the Columbia Valley, however, has been found in the form of rough, unfinished stone tools deposited near a glacial moraine in the Lake Chelan country. In many places along the banks of the Columbia River and its tributaries, sediments that have been carried away are exposed. A child's grave, located on the hill of the cave ruins, and several unburnt burials were found in the cemetery outside the cremation line.
ART.11 PREHISTORIC PIT HOUSE VILLAGE SITE KRIEGER 11certain degree of flattening of the occiput due to contact with.
ART. 11 PREHISTORIC PIT HOUSE VILLAGE SITE KRIEGER 11 certain amount of flattening of the occiput due to contact of the
Artifacts recovered from graves in the cemetery and from surface finds at the site of the pit house village of Wahluke are mainly animal, vegetable and mineral products obtained from nearby areas. They consist of objects shaped from stones, bones, horns, bark from trees, grasses and various vegetable fibers, human and animal hair, primarily from the mountain sheep and the dog. The more formal and conventional rectilinear art designs of the early inhabitants of the arid middle Columbia Valley were executed mainly on antlers and.
Another rarely found tubular pipe is the type of carved bear figurine that comes from the Pacific Northwest tribes. ART.H PIT HOUSE PEEHISTOEIC VILLAGE SITE KRIEGER 13 Shell species from the Pacific coast, except Dentalium and. Among them many objects of personal adornment found from cemetary}^in Vahlukearrectangular, pendants with holes, scrolled ear-rings, laminated gloves and tubular beads beaten with hammers and.
Ornaments, tools and weapon points fashioned from such materials are expressions of some of the finest examples of the stonemason's art. To convey an idea of the abundance of resources in stone and of the great variety of uses to which such material was put by the early inhabitants of Wahluke, the following is appended. Although the variety of such resources was limited in extent by the virtually arid and barren environment, the density of the native population of the middle Columbia Valley may have been greater than that of the white race occupying the same area in historic times.
If every permanent village and every temporary fishing camp of which traces have been found along the middle and upper Columbia had been occupied in a period of one decade, the whole native population must have exceeded the number of the white race now occupying the same territory. Cottonwood (Populustrichocarpa)_ Bud or inner bark used as bedding and cordage; logs hollowed out by fire into dugout canoes. Sun conditions of decaying cave ruins were observed at Pasco, VantageFerry, at the mouth of the river.
Another body of water like the Nez Percys, imagined and described by Spinden, is on the west bank of the Columbia 6 miles below the confluence of the Methow River. The difficulties encountered by the Columbia River Indians in transporting buffalo hides from the east, beyond the Rocky Mountains, prevented any major use of buffalo products. Essential features in the artistic designs of the ancient Columbia River Indians and in the manner of their use and execution are those of the historic Indian tribes of the Middle and Upper Columbia Basin.
Both curvilinear and rectilinear surface designs are applied by etching with bone, stone or horn points, by rubbing and by crumbling, although to a lesser extent also by cutting out of the solid, by chopping, drilling and burning. A few beautiful etching tools or points of chipped jasper, chalcedony and agate are remarkable for the almost microscopic dimensions of the working surfaces.
ART. H PREHISTORIC PIT HOUSE VILLAGE SITE KRIEGER 19 such etching tools may be seen to advantage on several dentalia shell
There were no equine paraphernalia, such as plaited ropes of horsehair, sculptures of an equine figure appearing anywhere except Rock Island among the petroglyph spots on the raw columnar basaltic rocks of the Columbia River north of Wahluke. There were no shafted and grooved axes; nor was there anything in the burials to indicate that Plains-type clothing was used. That the practice of wearing feathered headdresses was an early one is further supported by the etching of a costumed human figure on a wooden comb unearthed at Vantage Ferry, and by a wood carving of a fully costumed human figure showing the use of the a feather headdress, excavated at Tampico.
EXPLANATIONS OF PLATES
Neither this head north of Nos. 6 and 8 is characteristic of the stone bars of WahlukeasareNos. The edges of the shell are cut in the shape of a rectangle, rubbed at the ends and rounded at the corners. The point where the Columbia River hits these bluffs can be seen in the vertical eroded walls on the slope to the right.
