Does the way people learn technical craft skills fundamentally change with the appearance of social inequality in small scale societies? Under the direction of Dr. Colin Grier, Adam N. Rorabaugh of Washington State University will conduct research using existing archaeological research collections, to examine sites from the past 4,000 years in the Salish Sea (Northwestern Washington and Southwestern British Columbia). Archaeologists studying the emergence of social inequality and leadership have often examined prestige exchange items thought to have been used or controlled by chiefs and elites such as exotic jade, dentalia shells, volcanic glass, native coppers, and ground stone bowls. Taking a different but complimentary approach, this research examines stone tools used for every-day activities such as hunting and fishing to determine how their manufacture changed after the emergence of large sedentary villages, systems of resource ownership, and intensive storage economies on the Northwest Coast. The central hypothesis is that certain tool technologies will become less variable because the knowledge needed to produce them became more tightly controlled by elites after the emergence of more structured systems of social inequality.
In a broader context, this project examines how knowledge is produced and managed in small scale societies, and the ways in which control of knowledge changes with increasing social inequality. The focus of this project on stone tool technologies of the Northwest Coast will further understanding of how the production and reproduction of technical craft training was restricted in these societies. Learning how knowledge is produced and controlled is critical to understanding how social inequality becomes entrenched in hereditary forms.
Although anthropologists have long studied the emergence of social inequality and the control of resources, the impacts these fundamental societal transformations have had for social learning, and how knowledge itself represents a controlled resource, have been less systematically examined. Based on oral traditions, many forms of knowledge in Northwest Coast societies are controlled including songs, stories, and resource gathering locations.
If craft skills became a controlled resource, there should be increased uniformity in the styles of stone tools as knowledge was more restricted to elites through time. Restricted craft knowledge means fewer teachers, and with fewer teachers there would be a smaller pool of potential styles. This shift should be evident through time in the archaeological record. Stone tools can provide strong evidence for how people learned in the past as they require a high degree of skill and knowledge to produce. Both chipped stone and ground stone tools will be examined in this project, as they each have unique production constraints as well as functional applications, and therefore will allow for the identification of variation caused by both the materials used in their manufacture and the degree to which knowledge used in their production was restricted.
Archaeological sites to be examined include shell middens and villages dating from the past 4,000 years. The tool collections are housed at Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, Western Washington University, the Burke Museum, and Royal British Columbia Museum. All chipped and ground stone tools traditionally used as knives, arrows, spears, and harpoons within the geographic scope of the study will be analyzed, focusing on the hafting areas of these tools. Based on these criteria, a total of 70 sites will be examined, with a sample size of 3,600 artifacts. The data generated through the examination of these collections will be at a resolution higher than any previous study, and so will provide a detailed view of social learning processes over time and space in the Salish Sea.
Understanding the impact of social inequality on every day practices remains one of anthropology's most important contributions. This study will makes a small but concrete contribution to this larger question. More specifically, this project provides an opportunity to explore the ways in which traditional knowledge of stone tool production was held in small scale societies, and contributes to a greater understanding of forms of transmission of traditional knowledge and resource management practices. The key aim of this study, reconstructing the learning processes of past stone tool traditions through archaeological data, will highlight the connections between past and present knowledge, and demonstrate the meaningful contributions archaeology can make towards reconstructing how knowledge in indigenous communities was traditionally produced, consumed, and conveyed down generations.
Understanding how social inequality impacts daily life remains one of the most important contributions of anthropology. This study contributed to broader investigations in the connection between the emergence of inequalities that are passed down between generations and knowledge. Specifically, I examined how the traditional ways of producing stone tools among the pre-European contact Coast Salish-speaking peoples of the Northwest Coast changed over the past 5,000 years. This period that included a shift towards large residential plank houses and the emergence of social institutions such as hereditary chiefs and slavery. Drawing from models developed in evolutionary biology, I examined how the diversity of stone tool types was impacted by the number of teachers which should decrease if the passing down of knowledge became increasingly restricted and controlled through time. Chipped and ground stone artifacts from previously excavated archaeological sites from throughout northwestern Washington State and southwestern British Columbia, which formed the Coast Salish world before contact, were examined for whether there were shifts in the diversity of artifact styles and fine scale variation in aspects of artifact size. Another significant aspect of this project was acquiring new radiocarbon dates for undated archaeological sites to refine our knowledge of ages of sites in the region. Once controlling for issues such as tool function, quality of used materials, and tool re-use, the data suggest that stylistic diversity decreased through time, which may reflect a smaller pool of potential teachers through time. The timing of craft knowledge restrictions corresponds with the emergence of hereditary chiefs and village life. This study demonstrates that these fundamental changes in daily social life are also reflected in the teaching and learning of every day material objects. The key aim of this research, examining the learning processes of past stone tool traditions through archaeological data, highlighted the connections between past and present knowledge, and demonstrated the meaningful contributions archaeology can make towards examining how knowledge in indigenous communities was traditionally produced, consumed, and conveyed down generations.
