The Archaeological Study of Culture Change And

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL STUDY OF CULTURE CHANGE AND

CONTINUITY IN MULTIETHNIC COMMUNITIES If K) il.

Kent G. Lightfoot Archaeological Research Facility Department of Anthropology University of California Berkeley, CA 94720

ABSTRACT

California is ideally suited to the study of the emergence, growth, and consequences of multiethnic colonial communities. Research on how native peoples responded to Spanish, Mexican, Russian, and Anglo-American exploration and colonialism can provide important insights into the roots of contemporary pluralistic Californian populations. An ongoing study ofthe Russian colony of Fort Ross is examining the cultural landscapes of diverse ethnic groups in a long-term temporal framework. This study questions the growing practice ofsplitting "prehistoric" and "historical" archaeology into separate subfields, shifts the emphasis from artifact analyses to the study of spatial contexts, and employs ethnohistorical and ethnographic data as end sequences oflong-term developments in native societies.

INTRODUCTION dating of archaeological deposits. As little as ten years ago, many sites _. especially lithic scatters An important focus of social theory and recorded in swface surveys -- were difficult to studies of cultural change in anthropology today is date. With recent chronological advances, espe understanding how indigenous peoples responded cially obsidian hydration research, archaeological to European contact and colonialism, and how the deposits in many regions of California can now be outcomes of these encounters contributed to the dated along an ordinal scale that spans prehistoric, pluralistic populations of contemporary America protohistoric, and historic times. The rich archival (Biersack 1991; Deagan 1990; Ohnuki-Tierney data base and more refmed chronologies provide 1990; Sahlins 1992; Simmons 1988; Wolf 1982). an ideal combination for examining long-tenn Archaeologists in California are ideally situated to developments in the hunter-gatherer societies of make important contributions to the study of long California. tenn change by examining how coastal hunter gatherers responded to Spanish, Mexican, Rus sian, and Anglo-American exploration and settle THE FORT ROSS ment (e.g., Hardesty 1993). The state is blessed ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT with a wealth of ethnohistorical sources that date to as early as the sixteenth century, and one of the Since 1988, a collaborative team of scholars largest bodies of ethnographic data collected in has been working with the California Department North America. Recent developments in chro of Parks and Recreation in the archaeological nology construction have greatly improved the investigation ofthe Fort Ross State Historic Park

Proceedings ofthe SocIety for California Arobaeology. 1994. Vol. 7, pp. 7·12. Copynght () 1994 by the Society for CaliIDmia Arohaeology along the Sonoma County coastline in northern A RECONSIDERATION OF THREE California. The historic Ross community provides ARCHAEOLOGICAL PRACTICES an ideal case study to evaluate native responses to a pluralistic mercantile Russian colony. Fort Ross Research on native responses to early mul was administered from 1812 to 1841 by the Rus tiethnic colonies, such as Fort Ross, provides sian-American Company. a mercantile monopoly critical insights into the roots ofcontemporary that represented Russia's interests in the lucrative pluralisitic Californian populations. However, the North Pacific fur trade. It served as a staging area study of the emergence, growth, and consequences for sea otter and fur seal hunts in northern Califor ofpluralistic colonial communities requires that nia, and as an agricultural base for raising crops we reconsider three common practices of Ameri and livestock. Similar to other fur companies, the can archaeology. These include: 1) how we study Russian-American Company recruited peoples long-term change; 2) how we measure cultural from across Europe, North America, and the change in the archaeological record; and 3) how Pacific Rim as part of its multiethnic work force. we employ ethnohistorical and ethnographic data Ethnic Russians made up a relatively small por in archaeological research. tion of the Fort Ross community. The majority consisted of native Alaskan workers in which (I) The Study of Long-Term Change. The study Koniag Eskimos dominated, followed by a handful of native and European encounters requires that of Chugach Eskimos, Aleuts, as well as Tanaina we undertake studies of long-term cultural change and Tlingit Indians from the Alaskan mainland. grounded in both prehistory and history. We Other workers included Creoles (people of mixed believe that the common practice of segregating Russian/native ancestry), Yakuts from Siberia, North American archaeology into "prehistoric" native Hawaiians, and at least one African-Ameri and "historical" subfields is counterproductive for can. Kashaya Pomo and Coast Miwok people this kind of research (e.g., Kirch 1992:26). from nearby tribelets were also recruited as Prehistorians typically study Native American general-purpose laborers and as mates in the material culture that is viewed as "pristine" or formation of inter-ethnic households (cf Lightfoot "unspoiled" by European contact, while et aI. 1991: 11-26). post-contact times are the domain of historical archaeologists. Acculturation studies are usually We are addressing the degree to which inter undertaken by historical archaeologists who do ethnic interactions in a pluralistic mercantile not systematically connect the research directly colony served as sources ofcultural change. Did back to the prehistoric past. However, a strong the close interaction and cohabitation ofethnic grounding in prehistory is essential to define the groups from many different homelands stimulate cultural practices of native peoples prior to the cultural exchange of architectural styles, European contact and colonialism. It is only ~ material goods, foods, technologies, and ceremo through a systematic, diachronic analysis of sentcl nial practices? Were new cultural forms generated prehistoric, protohistoric, and historic contexts culu by combining or modifying innovations from that we can evaluate the full magnitude of the diVerT: European. Creole, Siberian, Aleut, Eskimo, and cultural transformations involved. These include, across Indian peoples? What role did Creoles and native among others, changes that may have taken place theDD Alaskans, who lived, worked, and socialized prior to face-to-face contact with Europeans as a practil closely with Kashaya Porno and Coast Miwok consequence of the regional exchange of European mon11 families, serve as cultural mediators between the trade goods (Trigger 1981: II-B); the en Russian administrators and local Indian laborers croachment of foreign weeds, insects, and animals It at Fort Ross? (Crosby 1986: 145-216); and the rapid assault of analyr. highly lethal diseases introduced into North span. America by early European explorers (Dobyns long... OfgaDI

8 1983; Dunnell 1991). tures and across the residential community, provides one means of analyzing the material (2) Measures of Cultural Change. Deagan manifestations ofcultural practices in archaeo (1988:9) notes that research on native accultur logical contexts. The underlying organizational ation has yet to be fully realized in historical structure of households, neighborhoods, and archaeology. She argues that archaeologists have villages may be represented in a variety ofarchae the yet to develop "principles of interpretation that ological spatial associations, including the spatial iICCS allow us to recognize 'acculturation' in the archae layout of house features; the patterned distribution It ological record, other than a vague idea that the of trash deposits inside and outside house fea ;i presence of European items on a non-European tures; the kinds of materials associated in different lly site (and vice-versa) reflects 'acculturation.'" A trash deposits; the way in which house locations significant constraint in analyzing materials solely were maintained, abandoned, and reused; and the w from post-contact deposits is that it limits one's spatial relationship ofhouse features and public lta ability to measure change in relation to pre-contact architecture in villages. contexts. A common approach is to calculate artifact ratios ofnativelEuropean materials from The study of culture contact in a multiethnic tty post-contact deposits in Indian residences asso colonial environment requires a comparative it ciated with missions, forts, and trade posts. The approach for understanding how different ethnic IIgC greater the presence and quantity of European groups constructed their cultural landscapes. We introduced materials or innovations, it is assumed are currently developing a diachronic sequence of g the greater the degree of overall native accultura household and community spatial organizations tion. for prehistoric, protohistoric, and historic native Ifor Californian sites in the greater Fort Ross region. However, acculturation research by cultural This approach demands not only intensive re anthropologists indicates that the adoption of gional survey to locate and date sites, but also specific technological traits (metal tools, glass broad-scale, areal excavations of selected ar objects) in and of themselves is not a good mea chaeological deposits to reveal the organization of sure ofoverall transformations in native cultural features, artifacts, and ecofacts across space. We Ily practices (e.g., Linton 1940:485). Furthermore, are also undertaking back-ground research on how artifact ratios of native and European materials the other ethnic groups at Fort Ross -- the Rus alone may be poor measures ofcultural change sians, Siberians, and native Alaskans -- organized, that results from the close interactions ofdifferent constructed, and maintained space in their tra Ie native ethnic groups in complex, pluralistic social ditional homelands and at Fort Ross. Detailed environments. For example, native Alaskan archaeological investigations of the different workers stationed at Fort Ross may have pre ethnic neighborhoods at Fort Ross are ongoing, sented their own interpretation of "Russian" including the broad-scale excavations of SON culture to local native peoples, exposing them to a 18971H and SON-I 8981H. These two sites, as diverse range of native beliefs and lifeways from discussed in the following papers, comprise the lie, across the North Pacific, and possibly encouraging Native Alaskan Neighborhood where native ICe the maintenance and modification of local cultural Alaskan workers and their families lived and a practices, especially those elements held in com worked, and where resided the interethnic house IC8I1 mon with other Pacific peoples. holds of native Alaskan men and native Califor nian women. ~ An alternative approach is to shift the unit of :of analysis from artifacts per se to the broader (3) The Use of Ethnohistorical and Ethnographic spatial contexts of archaeological remains in a Sources. North American archaeologists have long-term diachronic framework. How people long employed ethnohistorical and ethnographic organized space, both within and outside struc data of known ethnic groups as "simple" an

9 alogues for reconstructing the archaeological pated in colonization of Fort Ross. Accounts of oft! remains ofthe ancestors of those groups. As administrators, sailors, and merchants provide COOl Wylie (1988) notes, this rather unsophisticated important insights on the Europeans' view of the pret use ofsimple analogy tends to stress similarities native workers. The third perspective is from :CrOll between source and subject, and to be conspicu ethnographers, such as Powers, Barrett, Gifford, late ously ahistorical in its approach. Ethnohistorical Stewart, and others, who undertook investigations and ethnographic observations of people over sev ofcoastal Pomo peoples' lifeways beginning in the eral centuries are often collapsed into a single 1870s. The fourth perspective is from the vantage abo account ofthe "traditional" lifeways ofa group, ofthe local Kashaya Pomo. Robert Oswalt rna which is then projected back into prehistory. (1964) recorded word-for-word native accounts logii that contain historical stories of the Kashaya For! Rather than viewing ethnohistorical and Pomos' encounters and experiences with Russian, pap ethnographic sources as simple analogues for Mexican, and Anglo-American settlers. In addi Wal reconstructing the past, they should be viewed as tion, collaboration with tribal scholars, such as stra1 revealing of the time they were recorded, and as Otis Parrish, is providing us with powerful in anal the end sequences of long-term developments in sights into the past as constructed by the Kashaya NaI.i native societies (cf. Kirch and Green 1987). Pomo. GIa Historic observations of native peoples represent f«li additional lines ofevidence for evaluating cultural Fad change, and not a mirror of the prehistoric past. CONCLUSIONS disc: Information derived from archaeology, ethnohis an:b tory, ethnography, and native texts may be em In conclusion, by rethinking several common KasI ployed in the study ofcultural change by compar practices of American archaeology, we hope to an:b ing and contrasting these independently consti accomplish the following four goals at Fort Ross. eiP tuted lines ofevidence in a diachronic framework. One is to identifY the source, magnitude, and rate issuI This approach allows you to "tack" back and forth of cultural change in prehistoric, protohistoric, and and between the source and subject in a temporal historic Native Californian sites. That is, how did the. framework that identifies both similarities and the spatial organization of Native Californian sites desc: anomalies. Wylie (1988) argues that this more in the Fort Ross region change over time, and can sophisticated analogical approach may identifY these changes in historic contexts be attributed to similar social processes taking place across time, social relations with other ethnic groups? The as well as significant differences that characterize second goal is to identifY the cultural practices of the past and present. different ethnic groups in the historic Fort Ross community. That is, can Russian, Siberian, Alas We are employing this approach to identifY kan, and Californian households and neighbor concordances and anomalies through which hoods be defmed by the architectural elements, the different perspectives on European and native spatial layout of internal and external space tanco encounters can be evaluated critically over time. around house structures, and the association of corp We are examining four different historical per artifacts and ecofacts in archaeological deposits? SUCQ spectives. The first perspective is derived from A third goal is to identifY archaeological spatial theCI our intensive surface survey and ongoing excava contexts in the Fort Ross community that have atioa tions of archaeological remains in the Fort Ross little or no concordance with our idealized spatial #8N1 State Historic Park, the results of which are models of different ethnic groups. These anoma Facill providing us with micro- and macro-scale spatial lies are ofspecial interest because they may Sity44 information on the cultural landscapes of the Fort represent cultural practices of inter-ethnic house Sbid Ross region in prehistoric, protohistoric, and holds, cultural transformations ofemerging R.estt historical times. The second perspective is that of pluralistic societies, and/or explicit Russian terpII the literate, affluent, male Europeans who partici colonial policies that structured the organization

10 of of the cultural landscape. The fmal goal is to REFERENCES CITED compare and contrast these archaeological inter De pretations with other historical accounts generated Biersack, Aletta (editor) from the perspectives of Russian administrators, 1991 Clio in Oceania: Toward a Historical td, later ethnographers, and Kashaya Pomo peoples. Anthropology. Smithsonian Institution Press, tDDS Washington, D.C. ,I the The papers in this symposium addressed the ttage above research goals, as well as cultural resource Crosby, Alfred W. management issues and the integration of archaeo 1986 Ecological Imperialism: The Biological I logical research and public interpretation at the Expansion ofEurope, 900-1900. Cambridge Fort Ross State Historic Park. The fIrSt four University Press, Cambridge. 111, papers by Ann Schiff, Lewis Somers, Thomas ii· Wake, and Peter Mills concerned the excavation Deagan, Kathleen A. strategy, remote sensing survey, and preliminary 1988 Neither History Nor Prehistory: The analyses of archaeological materials from the Questions that Count in Historical Arch· I)'a Native Alaskan Neighborhood at Fort Ross. aeology. Historical Archaeology 22:7-12. Glenn Farris then examined the research potential for studying the sloboda or Russian Village at 1990 Accomodation and Resistance: The Pro Fort Ross. Antoinette Martinez followed with a cess and Impact of Spanish Colonization in discussion of Kashaya Pomo ethnohistory and the Southeast. In Columbian Consequences archaeology, while Otis Parrish evaluated how (vol. 2), edited by David Hurst Thomas, pp. III Kashaya Pomo history relates to the ongoing 297-314. Smithsonian Institution Press, archaeological investigation at Fort Ross. In the Washington, D.C. IS. eighth paper, Breck Parkman addressed important ire issues concerning the management, protection, Dobyns, Henry F. land and preservation of the archaeological resources in 1983 Their Number Become Thinned: Native :tIid the state park. In the ftnal paper, Dan Murley American Population Dynamics in Eastern iites described how our ongoing archaeological re North America. University of Tennessee lID search is being integrated into the public interpre Press, Knoxville. Ito tation program at the Fort Ross State Historic Park. Dunnell, Robert C. tof 1991 Methodological Impacts of Catastrophic ,I Depopulation on American Archaeology and as· ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Ethnology. In Columbian Consequences (vol. 2), edited by David Hurst Thomas, pp. 1the We appreciate greatly the support and assis 561-580. Smithsonian Institution Press, tance of the following agencies, foundations, and Washington, D.C. corporations that are critical to the continued II? success of the Fort Ross Archaeological Project: Hardesty, Donald L. ,l the California Department of Parks and Recre 1993 Historical Archaeology in California. ation; the National Science Foundation (Grant Proceedings ofthe Society for California tal #BNS-8918960); the Archaeological Research Archaeology 6:37-44. San Diego. IB Facility and the Committee on Research, Univer sity of California, Berkeley; the American Home Kirch, Patrick ". Shield Corporation of Santa Rosa; McDonald's 1992 The Archaeology ofHistory: Anahulu the Restaurant of Berkeley; and the Fort Ross in Anthropology ofHistory in the Kingdom of terpretive Association. Hawaii (vol. 11). University of Chicago Press, n Chicago.

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