This report continues the description of the Sheep Island burial complex and offers a compilation of Garth's and River Basin Survey data. Acculturation apparently took place from the second quarter of the 18th century well into the 19th century. Non-material features of the past can be inferred from the ancient, pre-Plains Plateau culture.
It appears more as a masking surface cover than as an aspect of the structure of the excavated area. Subdivision IVa shows sections where the gravelly nature of the deposit was particularly evident in the profiles.
THE BUEIALS
The change in burial seems rather abrupt given the apparent cultural continuity if Stratum III represents only one season. 280 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [BxilL 179 Table 2, prepared by Heglar, shows the sex and age of the burials. The first is not easily explained; the last three appear to be simply altered burial bundles by attendants.
Chalcedony projectile point (relevant information on broken pieces is shown in Table 3). Burial 2.—Adult female, i) soil condition, partially damaged by collector digging, probably included in layer IV; a box of Kleenex with some bones and under them. The presence of the shell links the bones to that adjacent burial, which was well furnished.
ARTIFACTS WITH THE BURIALS
This individual was clearly killed by the numerous arrows shot into him, one of which became embedded in the bone of a central lumbar vertebra. Their appearance, at the mainland 35-UM-7 (Osborne and Shiner, 1949), sub-solidstratum of mussel shells, left no doubt about the antiquity of the forms of burial 4, and others. The use of the bow and arrow, together with the manufacture of the basalt blades (at least in the period of burial4 when basalt was used) was not certain until the artifact shown as plate 52, a,/22 was found not.
The game fragment (p. 52, &, /26), found with Burial 4, shows that the hand games so characteristic of the Northwest have great chronological depth. Burial 1, which we will examine further, also contained a basalt point (p. 52, a, /ll), but the facies of the artifact is different. They may have been projectile points, spikes, or the centerpiece of the moving harpoon so common in the Northwest.
One of them, shot from the right and slightly from behind and above, penetrated to the depth of the point in the body of a central lumbar vertebra. If they can be seen as a prototype of later points, or as a completely independent, but very similar, though. It is of interest that basalt points of this type were used on Sheep Island at later cremation times, but that these points of the same type, fired at the earlier burial, were all cryptocrystalline.
The simple, perhaps too simple, explanation for this situation would be that burial 17 was killed by a neighboring group that specialized in the cryptocrystallines, while the conservatives of the Sheep Island region, although participating in the same cultural traditions, still held in the basalt in the real stone. This occurrence of Haliotis at an early level in the Columbia Valley speaks to connections to the south or west that can be seen as cultural straws in the wind. One aspect of the burial pattern that cannot be well delineated, partly because of the looseness in which the burials lay, is the nature of the wrapping.
ARTIFACTS FROM THE MIDDEN
Apart from dentalia, which were often associated with infants (when they had imperishable grave goods), a Haliotis pendant was fomid with Burial 11. It is not possible to state whether the shell is a Califomian or Northwest Coastal species; it's probably the last. Enough fragments of mats were observed with the bones to indicate that wrapping in mats was standard burial practice.
There are too few fire remains associated with the grave to allow us to suggest the element's use in a mourning ceremony. It is entirely possible that the site, at least the burial section, existed before the fine jadeite, anthophyolite, and serpentine adzes, or the techniques for their manufacture, began to infiltrate the area from the north. These fine adzes probably traced back to the timberworking coast of British Columbia, or the near coast, and, as mentioned, are certainly later on the plateau than our earlier finds.
The heavy, often nondescript hand tools of the varieties shown in Plate 53, a a, and Plates 54, and 53,&,/20 all have rough, hammered and/or chipped edges. It is often difficult to be sure whether or not a chipped edge is the result of intentional chipping or deliberate chipping by hammering. It is almost triangular in cross-section, and broad strike bands, below the corners of the triangle, illustrate the method of stone-working employed.
ARTIFACTS FROM THE SURFACE
Obsidians are not found on the pebble beaches of Columbia, as are most of the crypto-crystals that were used. This count does not fit with our belief that basalt was preferred in the older periods and calls attention to the need for further investigation of the concept. This is also true if the various large blades are eliminated from consideration, mainly due to the large points /136 and /137, the Mule ears /6, /32 and /12, and the large basalt point /ll.
CREISIATION PITS
However, the overall set of points, cryptocrystalline, from Burial 17 was heavier than the basaltic sets from Focal Pit 1. There is little doubt that this indicates a process of branching change, probably a refinement of the bow and arrow complex. From the meager collection it appears that the petioled forms were largely confined to basalt and obsidian, while the oval and larger blades (which may or may not have had) were made of opalite, jasper, chalcedony, etc.
Descriptions are found in the long descriptions accompanying plate 55, which illustrates most of the objects found in the remains of the pit. Oval points and diagonal or square-cut points with various stems and lateral curvatures, in basaltocrystallines, are what Osborne now considers to be an "upper middle" in the sequence of development of Middle Columbia shell points. These varieties extend to modern collections, uneven, small, found with very refined and symmetrical late spots with deep basal or angular notches, slightly imbricate sides, and parallel-sided or widened stems.
Both work objects – antler wedges, projectile points, awls, needles or skewers – as well as personal decorative items – beads and combs, pendants or bracelets – are represented. constitute the bulk of the artifact recoveries from the remains of the cremation pits. Unfortunately, the deformation of this semi-molten sand has been sufficient that it is not possible to diagnose the piece with certainty. It is only a square inch in size, not large enough to be admitted as evidence of burned structures.
OSTEOLOGICAL AND OEGANIC REMAINS
T' SHEEP ISLAND — OSBORNE, BRYAN, CRABTREE 293 . there was elation about the burial sites, the stratigraphy, or the portion of the deposit that existed.
PREVIOUS WORK, DISCUSSION, AND CRITIQUE
SHEEP ISLAND — OSBORNE, BRYAN, CRABTREE 293 . there was elation about the burial sites, the stratigraphy, or the portion of the deposit that existed. String basketry, an unusual term given the well-developed terminology describing basket weaving, was given to Carolyn Osborne for analysis. The Weltfish article does not show that the basketry she mentions was of the same type (Weltfish, 1932, pp. 113-114).
It would be useful to have a little more of the burial stratigraphy of Garth's childhood burial (p.44), but the shallow depth (4.5 metres) and burial in compacted sand indicate that this cannot be associated with the old elaborate funerals like Garth tried to do. Osborne (in 1950, published 1957) listed references for this burial type and speculated that it might be an aspect of the widespread truncated cone. It is true that the peoples were not warlike, and trading and visiting Salish groups must have occurred frequently along that stretch of the river.
It appears, according to Livingston Farrand, that the Lewis and Clark use would have included "Walla Walla and possibly other Sahaptins." A number of uses of the word are given in the handbook. It may have been a usual reference to the original transients in the great Dalles trading centre. Yet, as far as we know, there is none other than Garth's Walla Walla (Wallula). p. 47) and Wahluke and Sundale (pp. 44, 54) and a few other secondary burials and partial cremations, any evidence of the ways in which the large Sahaptin population of the area disposed of their dead, despite very full investigation and much excavation in McNary.
Collier and his associates found no cist-type or rock-slide graves above the confluence of the Spokane and Columbia (Collier, . Strongexception must be taken in the statement (p.54) that the historic Salish culture is "widely divergent" from either the historic Sahaptin or from that of A final word: Osborne acknowledges Garth for critiques of the manuscript that resulted in the paper.
A FINAL. STATEMENT
SPECULATIONS
Osborne read some of it, but not all that was published, as a research report with Dr. ended up. Sites that can provide information about cultural sequences in the most easily readable way, through stratigraphy, are nowhere to be found. Basalt fragmentation has recently been an aspect of Northwestern Indian culture on the northern plateau and coast.
It also flourished, apparently as a larger complex, in the Lake Tahoe region of the Central Sierra Nevada (Heizer and Elsasser, 1953). Certainly here exist problems of magnitude: Is the old basalt industry with which wear on the American plateau is related to the use of that material in the North and on the Coast. Are we material, or are both we and the Northern and Coastal and the Californian part of an ancient and widespread complex.
Following this reasoning, a plan for archaeological work along the eastern slopes of the Cascades from central California northward through Oregon, and the means to carry it out, would certainly reveal many facts important to the development of Plateau culture. The Sahaptin connections through the Moal and Modoc (Jacobs, 1931, Introduction) provide a route abroad which, although quite overgrown, may still lead back to the origins of much of the Plateau culture. Historically, much can be done with linguistic techniques, but the fact that the basic material culture of the plateau was, as far as we know, equally Salic and Sahaptic, makes it impossible to simply assign the sites to speakers of one of the language groups.
The archaeologist's responsibility, at least here and now, is the historiographical study of the growth and change of culture in the area.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX
WALLULA RECTANGULAR-STEMMED
MIDDLE COLUMBIA BASAL-NOTCHED
COLUMBIA MULE EAR, KNIFE
