Reconstructing Houses: Early Village Social Organization in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia by Anna Katherine Berenice Patton A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Anthropology Department University of Toronto © Copyright by A. Katherine Patton 2011 ii Reconstructing Houses: Early Village Social Organization in Prince Rupert Harbour, British Columbia A. Katherine Patton Doctor of Philosophy Anthropology Department University of Toronto 2011 Abstract In this dissertation, I investigate the nature of social relations on the northern Northwest Coast during the Late Middle Period (500 BC to AD 500) through the rubric of House Societies as defined by Levi-Strauss (1982). In House Societies, corporate groups hold estates and wealth that are transmitted from one generation to the next. Houses were, and still are, the fundamental organizing principle in Tsimshian society. In the 19th century, Houses were central to systems of property ownership and social ranking. The antiquity of this institution however, is not clear. In this study, I ask whether Houses existed in the past in the Prince Rupert area and if so, what implications they might have had on social and economic relations. To investigate this question, I excavated two house depressions at GbTo-77, a small village site in Prince Rupert Harbour and considered whether evidence existed for long-term investment in place, the transmission of dwellings across multiple generations, and for owned estates or resource locations. The results suggested that one house depression (house D) showed some evidence for house reconstruction and maintenance, but over a relatively short period of time, particularly in comparison to other locations across the Northwest Coast. A second house depression, iii however, may have been used intermittently, or for an even shorter period of time than house D; no evidence was found for continuity between occupations or long-term investment in architecture. Faunal remains from both house depressions were very small and could not be reliably used to infer differences in owned resource locations. As such, the results of this study indicate that the house depressions at GbTo-77 likely do not represent Houses. These results are significant because archaeologists have often assumed that the house depressions forming organized, rowed villages, such as GbTo-77, are the remnants of Houses or incipient Houses. I explored also how architectural, stratigraphic and faunal evidence at GbTo-77 compared with these data at four other village sites in Prince Rupert Harbour. Few other house depressions were excavated sufficiently in order to adequately compare architecture remains between villages. The comparison of faunal remains between village sites in Prince Rupert Harbour, however, showed that there may have been important differences between villages in terms of economic systems, particularly in terms of salmon abundance, when compared with other fish taxa. The most significant differences in abundance were observed within column, bulk and auger samples (equal volume samples), indicating the importance of using small mesh screens (<2.8 mm) in faunal analyses. These data suggest that villages may have exerted control over important resource locations. The extent to which this control, or ownership, might reflect differences between houses, rather than villages, is not entirely clear for the Late Middle Period villages. I also observed significant differences in terms of shellfish composition at each village site. Variability in local resources may relate primarily to the precise location of these villages within the harbour, but may also have implications for our understanding of pre-contact land tenure practices in Prince Rupert Harbour. iv Acknowledgments I am indebted to many people and organizations whose assistance was vital to the successful completion of this work. First and foremost, I am grateful to my supervisor, Dr. Gary Coupland, for his guidance, support and encouragement through each stage of this project. I am also grateful for his patience and his understanding of my need to balance graduate school with family life. I am enormously appreciative of the time and efforts of my other core committee members. Dr. Max Friesen and Dr. Ted Banning provided sound insights into drafts of my dissertation which have improved it immensely. I would also like to thank Dr. Heather Miller for asking keen and insightful questions on this work at my defense. I am very thankful to my external appraiser, Dr. Madonna Moss who provided extensive and thoughtful critiques of this work. I know that this is a much better work on account of her appraisal. The field and lab component of this work were assisted by an able and intelligent crew that included Steven Denis of Lax‟kwalaams First Nation and Barbara Petzelt, Economic Development Officer, Metlakatla First Nation, students from the University of Toronto (in particular, David Bilton, Mark Peck, Mike White, Laura Burke, Mike O‟Roark, Danielle Desmarais and Marina LaSalle) and students from Northwest Community College (NWCC). I am particularly grateful to David Archer, NWCC, for helping to coordinate student volunteers from NWCC, and for overseeing the house A excavation; I benefitted greatly from his extensive knowledge of Prince Rupert archaeology. Dr. Kathlyn helped me with the analysis of faunal remains, in particular the fish remains; her skills were enormously helpful to my analysis. Dr. Trevor Orchard also allowed me to use his fish and shellfish collection in my analysis and Dr. Mark Peck (Royal Ontario Museum) granted me access to the ROM‟s avian collection to assist with my analysis. Jennifer Melanson and Jonathan Sharp created a beautiful map of house D. v I benefitted from a rich graduate student life at the University of Toronto, but am particularly grateful to Joan Banahan, Terry Clarke and Trevor Orchard and for their support and assistance in the field and in the lab. Joan, Terry and Trevor were always up for stimulating discussions about Northwest Coast archaeology; these have helped me to form the ideas that I present in this dissertation. A very special thanks to family and friends who encouraged me to see this project to completion. I am particularly indebted to the Mothers of Cabbagetown for helping with child care and providing good companionship. I am eternally grateful for my loving and supportive husband, David Simms, for his persistent confidence in my abilities, and for never asked me when I would be done. I owe a particular and very special thanks to three children, Barbara, Maeve and Fiona. I know that it has sometimes been difficult to have a mother who “always has to work.” But, we had fun in the field in beautiful British Columbia; I hope you may remember some of that time in Dodge Cove looking at the mountains and collecting shells along the beaches. I would like to thank the communities of Lax Kw‟alaams and Metlakatla for granting me permission to pursue this project. Funding for the field component of the project was graciously provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (through Dr, Coupland); the University of Toronto, the Government of Ontario and the Andre Bekerman Memorial Graduate Scholarship also provided important funding during the course of my studies. vi This dissertation is dedicated to my daughters, Barbara, Maeve, and Fiona Simms, and in memory of my mother, Barbara Patton. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 1 Social Inequality in Ancient Prince Rupert Harbour .............................................................. 3 The Tsimshian .......................................................................................................................... 6 Research Objectives: when is a house just a house? ................................................................ 8 Organization of Dissertation ................................................................................................... 11 Implications for Results .......................................................................................................... 12 Chapter 2. Theoretical Perspectives ..................................................................................... 14 Pronounced Social Inequality on the Northwest Coast. .............................................................. 16 Houses and Households. .......................................................................................................... 19 Ideas about the House on the Northwest Coast...................................................................... 24 Use of the House Concept in this Study. ................................................................................. 27 The Architecture of Houses. ................................................................................................... 28 The Economies of Houses ....................................................................................................... 31 Archaeological Correlates of Houses ...................................................................................... 34 Conclusions. ............................................................................................................................. 35 Chapter 3: The Environment. ...............................................................................................