North Cascades Archeology Summary

An UPDATED SUMMARY STATEMENT of the ARCHEOLOGY of the NORTH CASCADES NATIONAL PARK SERVICE COMPLEX

Principle Investigator
Robert R. Mierendorf, North Cascades National Park

May 1998

North Cascades National Park Service Complex
2105 Highway 20
Sedro Woolley, WA 98284

In the early 1980s, the National Park Service (NPS) initiated more systematic and thorough archeological studies than ever before, of its park units in the Pacific Northwest. The main purposes of these studies were to inventory and assess archeological resources for which NPS was given management responsibility through federal legislation, most particularly the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 and its subsequent amendments. These studies have resulted in the acquisition of new and sometimes surprising information about Native American habitation of mountainous parks, particularly North Cascades National Park Service Complex (hereafter, the park), Olympic National Park, and Mt. Rainier National Park. As yet, much of this information is in technical reports, management documents, and agency records, eventually to be utilized by NPS interpretive staff to tell the story to the interested public of Northwest mountain prehistory. However, although we have made significant progress finding archeological evidence of Native uses of the mountains, new information is added yearly and it is clear that we have much more to learn. Among other uses, this information serves to implement NPS' mandate to protect and conserve important archeological sites. At the same time, interested groups and individuals, aware of exciting new insights into the earliest inhabitants of the mountains, frequently express a desire to access this information in a nontechnical, general format. These groups and individuals represent the interests of writers of popular books, school teachers, Native American tribes, NPS exhibit designers and interpretive staff, government offices, and outdoor and environmental education organizations, among others.

The purpose of this summary statement is to provide a general overview of what has been learned recently about the prehistory of the park. This overview is general and park-wide in scope, and is intended to serve the various interests noted above until a more thorough treatment of the subject is possible. This statement was prepared by Robert R. Mierendorf, park archeologist, North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Marblemount, Washington. In compliance with NPS regulations, site-specific locational information is omitted in order to protect archeological sites from vandalism.

The first professional archeological investigations in the park, beginning in the early 1970s, were surveys conducted to find and document archeological sites. Only a few archeological sites were found, as artifacts and other remains of the first people proved difficult to detect in dense forests and rugged mountainous terrain. With little hard evidence to go by, it was generally thought that Native American people and their ancestors made little if any use of the Cascade Mountain interior, except to cross between interior and coastal regions for purposes of trade. These views were held in spite of the recollections of Native elders, who told of the use of high elevation areas by their ancestors to gather berries, hunt, and practice traditional ceremonies.

Beginning in the early 1980s, under the direction of Mr. Jim Thomson, at the time NPS regional archeologist in Seattle, the NPS began to systematically gather field and archival data relating to the earliest human uses of NPS lands in the Pacific Northwest. Some of the first surveys were completed at Olympic National Park, where archeologist Eric Bergland found a significant number of archeological sites in upper timberline settings of the park. Starting in 1984, archeological projects to inventory and assess the significance of prehistoric sites have been conducted annually in the North Cascades. This has resulted in the rapid accumulation of a large body of archeological data: in 1984 only 17 sites had been inventoried within the park complex while today there are 260 archeological sites (237 prehistoric and 23 historic). Although on-going, archeological research and inventory at the park are still in their infancy, with only about 5% of the total 684,000 acres of the park complex surveyed to date. Though it will be a long time before the complete story of human use of the North Cascades can be told, the following sections summarize what has been learned from recent archeological studies in this most scenic and rugged of Washington's mountainous landscapes.

The lands in today's park complex were occupied by human groups for at least the last 8,400 years, based on radiocarbon dated archeological sites within the park complex. Distinctive styles of a few spear points, though they offer less certainty than the radiocarbon dates, suggest that humans may have utilized the North Cascades for the last 10,000 or so years. It is most probable that these people were the ancestors of today's Coast Salish and Interior Salish-speaking peoples, particularly the various bands of today's Skagit, Nooksack, Stolo (Chilliwack band), Nlakapamux (Lower Thompson), Colville tribes (the latter representing Chelan, Methow, Entiat, and Wenatchee bands).

Most of the archeological sites in the park consist of the below-ground remains of camps, villages, and resource use areas where Indian people processed and cooked food, collected specific kinds of rocks and minerals for tools, and hunted, fished, and collected plants. Some sites have above-ground remains, and appear as rockshelters, rock art, bark-stripped trees, rock features, and pits dug into the ground. A much smaller number of sites reflect historic-period, non-Indian settlement and exploration, especially mining.

These sites are found in all environmental and elevational zones of the park complex, from the densely forested valley bottoms to above where trees can grow, in the alpine tundra. Because some of these locations are so remote and so interior to the steepest portions of the mountains, it is clear that prehistoric people were more than just casual travelers passing through; rather, they explored all portions of the mountains and used the locally available resources during their stay. However, some parties traveled across the mountains for purposes of trade and social relationships, which lent great importance to the lowest passes, such as Cascade Pass, as these provided the main travel routes across the range.

Although permanent villages have yet to be found in the park complex, remnants of these are likely to exist along the lower valleys of the largest rivers, particularly the Skagit. Most of the camps that have been found represent short-term seasonal occupation by relatively small groups of people. Many of these camps have been occupied recurrently for thousands of years. The geographic distribution of camps within interior valleys shows a clear settlement pattern: not unexpectedly, camps are selectively located in those parts of a valley offering maximum solar insulation and minimum exposure to avalanche slopes and flood-prone river segments. Because narrow valleys and adjacent high elevation summits cast long shadows, sites tend to cluster in the "warm" unshaded parts of valleys and to be scarce in the "cold" shaded portions. This pattern is clearly expressed in the Skagit River valley and Stehekin River-Lake Chelan valley.

The information provided in this section concerns a series of archeological problems that are typically addressed by archeological research in the Pacific Northwest, but in this case, reflecting the specific needs of North Cascades National Park Service Complex, given its particular history of research and the research needs as outlined in the park's 1986 archeological research design and overview. The data that addresses these problems is necessarily technical and is derived from detailed study and analysis of about 50 archeological sites from across the park complex. Although I have attempted to minimize the use of technical language, some of the information below may be overly technical to some readers, in which case I offer my apologies for this in advance.

1. Radiocarbon Chronology. The chronology of prehistoric use of the park complex is based on a sample of 60 radiocarbon dates. The oldest of these sites is a chert quarry in the Skagit River valley dated to 8,400 years old (calibrated to calendar years using dendrochronology). The youngest site is a fishing encampment dated at 170 years old. The entire sample of radiocarbon dates is not uniformly spread across the last 8,400 years. Instead, the dates cluster into three distinct time periods: the earliest period is 5,000 to 3,500 years ago, the next is 2,000 to 1,000 years ago, and the most recent is 600 to 200 years ago. The exact significance of these clusters is currently unknown, but it is possible that each corresponds to a period when local populations were relatively larger than at other times. Generally, we can conclude that the park complex was used by humans more or less continually over the last 8,400 or more years.

2. Tephrochronology (volcanic ash dating). As in other areas of the Pacific Northwest landscape, Native populations coped with the frequent eruptions of Cascade volcanos. Ash deposits from some of these eruptions are prominent within archeological sites or the deposits below them. To date, four chemically distinct ash layers have been identified from within the park complex. These include Mt. St. Helens J (~12,000 years old), Mt. Mazama O (6,800 years old), Mt. St. Helens Y (3,500-2,900 years old), and St. Helens W (500 years old). Two additional ash layers have been found, but their source is unknown. Mt. Baker or Glacier Peak, the two closest volcanos to the park, may be the source of one or both of the unidentified ashes. The effects of all these ash falls on the lives of Native populations is uncertain, but there is nothing in the archeological evidence so far to indicate that it significantly altered their subsistence and settlement activities.

3. Prehistoric Artifact and Feature Types. A wide array of tool types and features have been found in archeological sites. Chipped stone tools include: spear, dart, and arrow points; knives; scrapers; drills; gravers; microblades and microblade cores; and simple flake tools. Stylistically, these suggest that Native groups in the North Cascades maintained direct or indirect relationships with groups widespread in the foothills and non-mountainous lands surrounding the northern Cascade Range. Ground stone tools include: adz blades; slate knives; soapstone pipe bowls, one effigy, and decorative pieces; pestles and manos; and abrading tools and hammerstones. A few broken bone awl or harpoon tips have been found at one site.

   Other remains, called "features" by archeologists, include living floors at camps, food-cooking pits and hearths, sweat lodges, salmon smoking and drying sites, vision quest locations, hunting blinds, and food storage locations. The oldest dated feature in the park complex is a subalpine campfire area dated at 5,400 years old (calibrated to calendar years using dendrochronology). Overall, the combined inventory of artifacts and features indicates extensive use of mountain landscapes for hunting, gathering, and fishing purposes, including the processing, cooking, and working of a wide variety of local resources.

   With few exceptions, the artifact assemblages from throughout the park complex are dominated by utilitarian remains. These remains reflect the procurement, manufacturing, and processing of the numerous locally-derived resources provided by the mountain environment. Compared to artifacts from archeological assemblages from non-mountainous environments, one is left with the impression that people in the North Cascades wasted little and tended to discard tools only after they had become worn out. These early people certainly traveled light by today's standards, and without the benefit of maintained trail systems of the present; they lived through climatic events that we have never experienced and at a scale that we are only now becoming aware of. In small groups these early people appear to have moved freely across all parts of the mountain landscape.

4. Faunal and Floral Remains. Often in the excavation of archeological sites, the remains of animals and plants used by the sites' inhabitants are found. Due to the moist, maritime climate, which accelerates decay processes, and the acidic mountain soils, organic remains are rarely preserved. To date, the best preservation environment, surprisingly, is in cooking hearths and other features where organic remains become charred, but not completely burned. Like charcoal, such charred remains are chemically quite stable and can remain in the soil for thousands of years.

   Animals, used for food and utilitarian purposes, have been recognized from remains found in a few hearths. These include beaver (Castor canadensis), mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus), elk (Cervus), deer (Odocoileus hemionus), dog or wolf (Canis), black bear (Ursus americanus), and snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus). Other animal remains cannot be identified to the species level, but to a more general taxonomic level. Thus, we have found numerous bones from birds, small mammals, and salmonid fish. One site that marks a fish smoking and drying location, dated 660 to 170 years old, contains thousands of bones (spines, vertebrae, and teeth) of Salmonids of as yet undetermined species.

   Plant remains are preserved in sites as charred fragments or sometimes complete specimens. At a site along the Skagit River dating to 475 radiocarbon years old, dozens of charred red elderberry seeds (Sambucus racemosa) were identified from a cooking hearth. Most of the charred remains from archeological features appear to be woody parts of trees and shrubs used for fuel. However, a 3,000 year old campsite in the Stehekin Valley suggests that wood was intentionally procured and prepared for some as yet unknown use. At this site, a split board of the yellow pine group (probably Pinus ponderosa) was dated to 450 years old. From the same site, charred branches identified as Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) were found within a cooking hearth and were dated to 1,410 radiocarbon years old.

   Shell remains are rarely found from park complex sites, the single exception being a complete Dentalium shell recovered from the 1,350 year old Newhalem Rockshelter. Dentalium is a sea shell found in sand and mud habitats under 6 to 500 feet of water along the Pacific coast. It was highly valued by Native peoples and was used throughout the Pacific Northwest as a form of currency.

5. Stone Procurement and Use

   The North Cascades provided an incredible array of stone raw materials that were used by Native groups for tools and other utilitarian needs. These stone materials include varieties of quartz called "chert", slate, argillite, serpentine, quartz crystal, soapstone, and vitrophyre.

   In the northern portion of the North Cascades, numerous chert quarries have been found, marking the places where chert fragments were hammered from bedrock outcrops and glacial boulders. Artifacts made of this Hozomeen chert have been found as far east as Lake Chelan and as far west as Puget Sound. In another part of the park complex, far removed from the chert quarries, are found alpine and subalpine vitrophyre quarries. Although generally poor in quality, this distinctive material has been used for at least the last 5,400 years.

   Varieties of high quality obsidian also appear in archeological sites of the park complex. Chemical analysis of these varieties indicates that they are derived from sources far to the south and east, in today's northern California, Oregon, Idaho, and Wyoming. We can now say with certainty that Native inhabitants of the North Cascades participated in a broad, intra-regional trade network, through which they procured high quality obsidians from such volcanic terrains as Newberry Crater, Glass Butte, the Three Sisters, Whitewater Ridge, and Obsidian Cliffs, all in central and eastern Oregon; from Timber Butte in eastern Idaho; and from Obsidian Cliffs in today's Yellowstone National Park.

A small display of prehistoric artifacts from the park complex is available for viewing by the public at the North Cascades Visitor Center, located a short distance south of Hwy. 20, just outside of Newhalem. The display shows original artifacts from eastern, western, and subalpine landscapes of the North Cascades, as part of a larger exhibit explaining the natural history and ecology of the park complex.

On May 30, 1998, the park opened to visitor use an interpretive trail leading to a small prehistoric rockshelter located not far from the visitor center. This trail is accessible to wheelchairs. The first 1400 feet of the trail is built to a not-fully-accessible, moderate level of difficulty with a grade not exceeding 10%. The final 95 feet of trail is a fully accessible wooden walkway leading to an elevated viewing platform that offers outstanding views of the interior of Newhalem Rockshelter, adjacent Newhalem Creek, under the canopy of an old-growth forest.

Three interpretive panels explain the significance of the rockshelter from archeological, cultural, and Skagit Indian perspectives. The shelter interior is closed to visitation in order to preserve the site and the surrounding forest in its natural condition.

Use of this shelter by ancestors of today's Skagit tribes is dated to 1,350 years ago, with occupation as recent as 250 years ago. This shelter was used to cook a variety of local food resources, and it appears to have served as a short-term camp for small groups of people. Most of the remains from the shelter are associated with hunting activities, and include small stone arrow points and mountain goat bones. Other artifacts from the site indicate that most of the stone tools were manufactured elsewhere and brought to the site, where they were repaired and resharpened. Some of the animals brought to the site were butchered there, and the abundance of charcoal associated with small pit features indicates that food animals were cooked or smoked, and were probably consumed at this location.

The National Park Service and North Cascades National Park Service Complex are committed to the protection of the archeological resources under its jurisdiction. These resources are protected under the Archeological Resources Protection Act of 1979 and its amendments, and other federal regulations and guidelines. It is illegal to remove, destroy, disturb, or deface artifacts, to dig in archeological sites, or to disturb or deface Indian burials or rock art. Annually, such activities result in the irretrievable loss of the Nation's heritage. To assure that this does not become a problem at North Cascades, the specific locations of most archeological sites is confidential.

Archeological inventories and assessments of site significance in the park are on-going. If information gained in the next few decades is comparable to the accomplishments of last two, we expect that many new insights into the past will be acquired. Increasingly, this information will be offered to the interested public through a variety of NPS interpretive programs and publications.

For more detailed information on some of the archeological studies conducted in the park, the selected list of publications below are available to interested readers at the park library, located at the park headquarters in Sedro Woolley.

Draffan, George, Ken Favrholdt, Mitch Friedman, and Bob Mierendorf
1993, History of the Greater North Cascades Ecosystem. in Cascadia Wild, edited by Mitch Friedman and Paul Lindholdt, pp. 22-48, Greater Ecosystem Alliance, Bellingham, Washington.

Mierendorf, Robert R.
1986, People of the North Cascades. North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Cultural Resources Division, Pacific Northwest Region, Seattle.

1991, An Archaeologist's View. in Reflections of the Past, pp. 15-19, Ministry of Lands and Parks, Province of British Columbia.

1993, Chert Procurement in the Upper Skagit River Valley of the Northern Cascade Range, Ross Lake National Recreation Area, Washington. Technical Report NPS/PNRNOCA/CRTR-93-001. North Cascades National Park Service Complex, Sedro Woolley, Washington.

1996, Who Walks on the Ground. in Impressions of the North Cascades, edited by John C. Miles. The Mountaineers, Seattle. In Press.

National Geographic
1990, Prehistoric Indians in the North Cascades. Vol. 177, No. 3 (Geographica).

Smith, Allan H.
1988, Ethnography of the North Cascades. Center for Northwest Anthropology, Washington State University, Project Report Number 7, and National Park Service, Cultural Resources Division, Pacific Northwest Region, Seattle, Washington.