changing conditions in the natural environment

changing conditions in the natural environment

Introduction

Significant cultural and environmental changes have taken place in the northern and southern areas of Oregon in the past decades. However, there have been limited attempts to search for more excellent scale temporal changes in settlement, substance, technology, and cultural complexity. This is partly due to the less intensive level of research conducted in the region compared to other pacific areas and the lack of radiocarbon for several essential fossil records. This plateau is a vast and dramatically eroded lava plan cut at the Columbia River and its tributaries. It is bounded on the south by the Blue Mountains. It is essential to study changing conditions in the natural environment as well as the artifacts to understand the social life of the ancient people.

Columbia Plateau

Evidence of Conflict and Defense

The Columbian plateau has traces of human presence. However, the earliest artifacts defined ages currently known in this region are Clovis fluted projectile points. These projectile points included long-stemmed and leaf-shaped forms assignable to the subsequently defined Win dust type. There is a large and dramatic image pecked into and painted on basalt ledge at the long narrow of Columbia. According to one Wishram tale, it signifies a traditional chief turned to stone by trickster god to watch over the people in the coming time of significant change. It became prominent as a guardian spirit during early periods when smallpox and other alien diseases raged throughout the Northwest. In Wildcat Canyon, there were skeletons of ten dogs found at the various places within the areas of the household of the site. Metric analysis of these remains indicated similarities to the sledge dogs of Siberia and thus large enough to have served the villagers of Wildcat Canyon as traction. Archaeologists have always characterized the native people of this plateau as peaceful with well-established traditions of intercommoned cooperation. However, there was evidence of individuals with projectile wounds and blunt force injuries appearing in the prehistory of the plateau. There is also evidence of a male skeleton with healed skeletal fracture and flaked stone in his pelvic girdle, indicating the possibility of conflicts. The appearance of defensive settlements indicates growing intergroup competition and social stress in which the bow and arrow played a significant role. However, increasing population and social complexity generated a different level of systemic stress. The plateau society is seen in the many crowded households built-in places chosen for their defensibility.

Resource Intensification

Traces of human presence in Columbia plateau shows evidence of groups of people with similar culture foraged throughout the mountainous interior of Pilcher Creek. Some of these people fished for Salmons along the Columbia River and were seeking other kinds of resources in the uplands at various seasons. Perishable bone and plant remains were not found in this region. However, the setting of the highland suggested the pursuit of animals like deer and harvesting of roots, berries, and other plants. These people also had Check cherry pits and bulrush, which could yield seeds for food and fibers used in matting and basketry.

Furthermore, the analysis of blood residue on stone artifacts showed that rabbits were probably prepared for cooking near the hearth while deer, mountain sheep, and elk were butchered outside the house. People also camped in Marsh meadow to hunt and gather food. It is clearly shown by the bones of mountain sheep, milling stones, and pestles indicating vegetal food processing. Also, not far from this highland, there is evidence of fishing to the East of Stockhoff and Mash meadow at Kirkwood bar. These sites show the prime importance of fishing by forager who was drawn to productive localities even in entirely mountainous and isolated areas.

Social Organization

The traces of people in this plateau also indicated the existence of social groups. For instance, family and multifamily groups visited stable residential camps in Paulina Lake. These people were highly mobile foragers who stayed at Paulina Lake for weeks or months as they harvested the region’s multiple resources. The discarded specimen during the harvest period at this lake indicated the various directions from which people came on different occasions. Trading activities already well-attested at The Dalles for some thousand years reached a high point in the early 19th century boosted by trading goods and Spanish horses. As a result, a social class system of the Northwest Coast prevailed. This class had a few wealthy aristocratic lineages enforced their ownership of best fishing sites and largely controlled the flow of trade.

Settlement

Archaeologists present evidence of permanent settlement in the Columbian plateau. The enormously productive stretch of the river that ran down from Celilo became an epicenter of the very populous region. In 1805, The Dalles was a home of a multiethnic community dominated by Wishram and Wasco tribes. These tribes moved among the long-established Tenino and related groups, which continued their traditional way of life. The growth of homesteading and stock rising of both sheep and cattle and their incompatibilities led to the brief rage war leaving Cabin, camping sites, and cemeteries. These traces of the site show that family homesteads existed there when the nearby town of Prineville was nearly founded.

Willamette Valley

Evidence of Conflict

There has been evidence of conflicts and defense in Willamette valley. The modest evidence presence associated with terminal Pleistocene peat deposits has been reported near Woodburn peat. Clues include animal’s bones fragments exhibiting possible butchering marks and possibly human hair. The increase in weaponry in this valley reflects a growing concern with defense and warfare during the raids to secure slaves who were taken to trading centers on the Columbia River. There was also the evidence of intentional burning indicating evidence of conflict. It can be seen in the growth of individual plants, including seed-bearing annuals and grasses.

Resource Mobilization

An increasing emphasis on hunting has been cited for the greater frequency of projectile points in the late Willamette Valley sites. There were Recovered tools like scrapers, flaked knives, and an all used in hunting and hide working points and places, mortars, and pestles. Some western Oregon groups were accustomed to make raids on their neighbors to procure food supplies. Initial occupants at Calapooia Midden site were intermittent and focused on seasonal processing of vegetable food primarily came. All these activities reflect a vast range of domestic operations and ways of finding food.

Social Organization

There is evidence that these people in the Willamette valley of social organization in homesteads and villages in this valley. The artifacts assembled from Fuller and Farming mounds included historic goods like brass buttons and rings, glass trade beads, and rolled copper bangles. A formal record of groups was made at Champoeg treaty proceeding in 1851 and Dayton proceedings in 1855. However, the extent to which these groups reflect pre-epidemic social relationships is not known. Champoeg, a state park located on the south bank of Willamette River, developed as an economic and social center. It served as a shipping point for agricultural production because it was a site for Willamette’s first grist mill. It hosted meetings that formed Oregon’s first provisional government in 1843. The Fuller and Farming mounds were probably stable residential location and may have been larger villages than homesteads in Calapooia. All these indicated the social organization of people who existed in this valley.

Settlement

Many sites with records of occupation represent the growing number and density of established residential places in the Willamette valley, reflecting an increasingly sedentary pattern. The Calapooia site probably served as a family residential center. Those who settled here made it their home and shift of focus of primary residence occasionally. The Hurd site near Cobury on the eastern edge of the valley includes the remains of house structures. Its location on higher grounds and its distinctive artifacts assemblage further indicating the site was a more permanent settlement.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cultural artifacts in Willamette Valley and Columbia plateau indicate the persistence existence of people, conflict, and defense, settlement, subsistence, and their social organizations. Various weaponry like bows, arrows, knives, and the injured skeletons of people indicate the existence of conflict and defense. Social organization, settlement, and subsistence is shown by the villages, homesteads, trade, and ways of finding food in the regions. It is, therefore, essential to study the existence of human beings alongside these issues to understand the way of life of the early man in these regions.