Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Excavating Archaeological Knowledge: An Archaeological Ethnography Of Indigenizing Practices Within A Collaborative Field School Landscape, Isabella Pipp

WWU Graduate School Collection

This thesis outlines the results of the ethnographic archaeological research on the community-based participatory field school program undertaken in partnership between the Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians and Western Washington University–the Stillaguamish-WWU Collaborative Archaeological Field School. The use of an ethnographic reflection of Indigenous and university collaboration offers lessons for institutions teaching archaeology that transform pedagogical practices, uphold Tribal sovereignty, and challenge academic standards to archaeological field schools and research. Goals of this research include exploring the efficacy of methodology implemented within the field school and to create a body of work about the field school that is relevant to the …

Archaeological Photography: The United Kingdom, Madeline Scholten

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Archaeological photography is an interdisciplinary aspect of archaeological endeavors that is key in allowing archaeological finds to be accessible to a general audience. This facet is key in data collection and distribution within the field as it is to the general public.

Photography is something that people are exposed to, possibly even partaking in, on a daily basis, but photography goes a lot deeper than simply capturing a still image. The history of photography, and the ways photography has improved so many disciplines are things that are just as important as the camera itself, and yet not necessarily needed to …

Digital Archaeology: Detection Of Archaeological Structures Using Convolutional Neural Networks On Aerial Lidar Data, Katie Larue

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Archaeology is a field that is mostly done by hand. Archaeologists explore remote and unknown areas of the world to find undiscovered civilizations that will give us any idea about how people lived in the past. To speed up this process, Airborne light detection and ranging or LiDAR systems have been used to great effect to speed up this processing. However, we still require domain experts to annotate this information to confirm structures. Deep learning has the potential to speed up this process and the following presentation is a basic overview of machine learning, popular types of deep learning models, …

Learning By Trowel And Error, Kayla Alvarado-Hogan

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In this essay, I speak on how my time at Western Washington University allowed me the space to explore how my many interests interconnected with my Archaeology Major. From choosing Latin America as my preferred area of study to focusing on the methods of Indigenous and Community Archaeology, my experiences at Western helped me find the career goal of working towards an archaeology that won't repeat the wrongs of the past.

A Review Of The Mandible, Emily Hill

Anthropology Department Scholars Week

A Review of The Mandible by Emily Hill

The mandible is one of the 22 bones in the human skull. This paper aims to encapsulate the basic features of the human mandible while also addressing the evolution and morphological mandibular variation between mammals. It also aims to address the role that anthropology and all its sub-disciplines has played in the exploitation and erasure of Indigenous peoples. There must be a significant push to decolonize the field of osteology. The mandible is useful for forensic applications such as post-mortem identification. In a rapidly expanding technological world, new ways of studying the …

Impacts Of Resource Fluctuations And Recurrent Tsunamis On The Occupational History Of Čḯxwicən, A Salishan Village On The Southern Shore Of The Strait Of Juan De Fuca, Washington State, U.S.A., Ian Hutchinson, Virginia L. Butler, Sarah K. Campbell, Sarah L. Sterling, Michael A. Etnier, Kristine M. Bovy

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

A summed probability density function (spdf), generated from the catalog of 101 radiocarbon ages on wood and charcoal from the Čḯxwicən archaeological site (Washington State, USA), serves as a proxy for the site's occupational history over the last 2500 years. Significant differences between spdfs derived from a null model of population growth (a bootstrapped logistic equation) and the observed index suggest relatively less cultural activity at Čḯxwicən between about 1950–1750 cal BP, 1150–950 cal BP, and 650 to 550 cal BP; and increased activity between about 1350–1250 cal BP and 550–500 cal BP. Peaks in the Čḯxwicən spdf are closely …

Exploring Ecodynamics Of Coastal Foragers Using Integrated Faunal Records From Čḯxwicən Village (Strait Of Juan De Fuca, Washington, U.S.A.), Virginia L. Butler, Sarah K. Campbell, Kristine M. Bovy, Michael A. Etnier

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Extensive 2004 excavation of Čḯxwicən (pronounced ch-WHEET-son), traditional home of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in northwest Washington State, U.S.A., documented human occupation spanning the last 2700 years with fine geo-stratigraphic control and 102 radiocarbon samples. Remains of multiple plankhouses were documented. Occupation spans large-magnitude earthquakes, periods of climate change, and change in nearshore habitat. Our project began in 2012 as a case study to explore the value of human ecodynamics in explaining change and stability in human-animal relationships on the Northwest Coast through analysis of faunal and geo-archaeological records. Field sampling was explicitly designed to allow for integration …

Using Bone Fragmentation Records To Investigate Coastal Human Ecodynamics: A Case Study From Čḯxwicən (Washington State, Usa), Kristine M. Bovy, Michael A. Etnier, Virginia L. Butler, Sarah K. Campbell, Jennie Deo Shaw

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Coastal shell middens are known for their generally excellent preservation and abundant identifiable faunal remains, including delicate fish and bird bones that are often rare or poorly preserved at non-shell midden sites. Thus, when we began our human ecodynamics research project focused on the fauna from Čḯxwicən (45CA523, pronounced ch-WHEET-son), a large ancestral village of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe, located on the shore of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Port Angeles, Washington (USA), we anticipated generally high levels of bone identifiability. We quickly realized that the mammal bones were more fragmented and less …

Thečḯxwicən Project Of Northwest Washington State, U.S.A.: Opportunity Lost, Opportunity Found, Virginia L. Butler, Kristine M. Bovy, Sarah K. Campbell, Michael A. Etnier, Sarah L. Sterling

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Čḯxwicən (pronounced ch-WHEET-son) is a 2700 year-old ancestral village of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe (LEKT), located on the northwest coast of Washington State, U.S.A. The Čḯxwicən project has scientific values that broadly contribute to research in human ecodynamics and maritime foragers, given the scale of the project, excavation methods, and enormous quantities of faunal materials recovered. The village holds great significance to the LEKT as their traditional village, which includes a sacred burial ground. The project began under challenging circumstances, when the village was inadvertently encountered during a construction project, incurring huge political, social and financial costs. Commitment by …

Human Ecodynamics: A Perspective For The Study Of Long-Term Change In Socioecological Systems, Ben Fitzhugh, Virginia L. Butler, Kristine M. Bovy, Michael A. Etnier

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Human ecodynamics (H.E.) refers to processes of stability, resilience, and change in socio-ecological relationships or systems. H.E. research involves interdisciplinary study of the human condition as it affects and is affected by the rest of the non-human world. In this paper, we review the intellectual history of the human ecodynamics concept over the past several decades, as it has emerged out of classical ecology, anthropology, behavioral ecology, resilience theory, historical ecology, and related fields, especially with respect to the study of long-term socioecological change. Those who study human ecodynamics reject the notion that humans should be considered external …

Building A Landscape History And Occupational Chronology At Čḯxwicən, A Coastal Village On The Strait Of Juan De Fuca, Washington State, U.S.A, Sarah K. Campbell, Sarah L. Sterling, Dennis E. Lewarch

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Geoarchaeological analysis at Čḯx^wicən, an ancestral Klallam village near Port Angeles in northwestern Washington State, U.S.A., highlights the resilience of coastal foragers and their connection to place. Ancestral Klallam peoples occupied ever-changing beach and spit landforms growing within the shelter of Ediz Hook on the Strait of Juan de Fuca (SJDF) for 2700 years. Geoarchaeological methods were employed to define seven chronostratigraphic zones that chronologically structure the cultural deposits and allow them to be correlated to a sequence of beach development and to markers for tsunami that overtopped the site. Initial habitation prior to 1750 BP utilized a …

The Shifting Baseline Of Northern Fur Seal Ecology In The Northeast Pacific Ocean, Seth D. Newsome, Michael A. Etnier, Diane Gifford-Gonzalez, Donald L. Phillips, Marcel Van Tuinen, Elizabeth A. Hadley, Daniel P. Costa, Douglas J. Kennett, Tom P. Guilderson, Paul L. Koch

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Historical data provide a baseline against which to judge the significance of recent ecological shifts and guide conservation strategies, especially for species decimated by pre-20th century harvesting. Northern fur seals (NFS; Callorhinus ursinus) are a common pinniped species in archaeological sites from southern California to the Aleutian Islands, yet today they breed almost exclusively on offshore islands at high latitudes. Harvest profiles from archaeological sites contain many unweaned pups, confirming the presence of temperate-latitude breeding colonies in California, the Pacific Northwest, and the eastern Aleutian Islands. Isotopic results suggest that prehistoric NFS fed offshore across their entire range, that …

Sediment Analysis Of Two Archaeological Sites In The Deception Pass Area, Fidalgo Island, Washington: A Geoarchaeological Approach, Shelby Anderson

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

The Western Washington University’s Field School (1999 and 2000 seasons) excavated two prehistoric shell midden sites located on Lighthouse Point in the Deception Pass area, Washington. A geoarchaeological approach was taken in studying site depositional processes; grain size analysis and study of sedimentary structures present in excavation profiles provided information about both natural and cultural deposition at site SK-144 and SK-46. Grain size analysis shows that angular, unconsolidated and poorly sorted colluvial sediments compose the lower beds of SK-46. While it is thought that colluvial sediments also underlie SK-144, difficulty relocating where samples were taken from makes testing this impossible. …

The Origin Of Tan Ashy Lenses In A Puget Sound Shell Midden: Results Of Sediment Analysis, Stephanie Vanbuskirk

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Excavation of a shell midden in Puget Sound, Washington, (45-SK-144) revealed tan-colored lenses full of shell fragments with an ashy feel, alternating with black lenses with abundant charcoal. Magnetic susceptibility tests. Curie tests, particle size and constituent analysis were performed to compare the two types of lenses and to determine the origin of the tan-colored samples. Sorting of the Strongylocentrotus spp. framents, while the black samples had a greater abundance of charcoal, bone, Saxidomus spp., and Mytilus edulis. The tan-colored lenses contained far less charcoal, but had higher magnetic susceptibility values (X₀) than the black …