Household archaeology focuses on what households do. Building and repairing houses is a household task that receives less explicit attention than do other tasks. Through the lens of political economy, we examine how three southern Northwest Coast households organized and orchestrated a complex labor task: building and maintaining their houses, by developing estimates of labor and raw material costs. We then use this analysis to show how house building and maintenance bears on issues of collective action, monumentality, anthropogenic landscapes, the development of concepts of property on the Northwest Coast, and of household continuity across episodes of cultural change. The political economies of Northwest Coast households have been central to theory building about the evolution and nature of sociocultural complexity among complex hunter-gatherer-fisher societies, but archaeological attention has emphasized subsistence. Our analysis does not supplant such models, but rather compliments them.
Plankhouses were functionally and symbolically integral to Northwest Coast societies, as much of economic and social life was predicated on these dwellings. This thesis investigates both plankhouse architecture and the production of these structures. Studying plankhouse construction and maintenance provides information regarding everyday labor, landscape use outside of villages, organization of complex tasks, and resource management. This thesis investigates three plankhouse structures at two sites, Meier and Cathlapotle, in the Lower Columbia River Region of the southern Northwest Coast of North America. Methods consisted of digitizing over 1,100 architectural features, creating detailed maps of architectural features, and conducting statistical and spatial analysis of these features. I use ethnographies, historical documents, experimental archaeology, and ecological studies to characterize the processes of plankhouse production. This information is combined with excavation data from Cathlapotle and Meier to calculate estimates of material and labor required for plankhouse-related activities. Results of this study support previous inferences regarding house architecture, construction and maintenance at the two sites. Structural elements were frequently replaced, yet overall house appearance changed little over time. Some differences in structural element use and size are noted between the two sites, suggesting that slightly different building techniques may have been employed at the two villages. This project was made possible by work accomplished by past researchers at Meier and Cathlapotle, and by field school participants who excavated at the sites. Thanks so much to Ken Ames being such an excellent mentor and for encouraging me with his curiosity and humor. I appreciate Shelby Anderson and Doug Wilson for their helpful comments. Much thanks goes out to Connie Cash for constant logistical support, jokes and snacks, and to all of the PSU Anthropology Department for teaching me so much and for their patience with my shenanigans. I've benefited greatly from friendships and discussions with many fellow students at PSU, and support from family, friends and my husband David. Finally, I would like to dedicate this thesis to my grandma Sharon Shepard, who was a lifelong lover of learning.
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