Collaborating for First Foods: Archaeological Investigations of Chinookan and Lower Chehalis Foodways in Willapa Bay, Washington

Abstract

In the U.S., Indigenous communities often suffer poor health at greater rates than non-Native populations. This is due, in part, to economic stresses, restricted access to food sources, and the colonization of Native American territories that physically severed the ties between Indigenous peoples and their land, weakening or destroying their culturally informed subsistence practices. To remedy these health disparities, many Indigenous communities are reviving traditional foodways, establishing food sovereignty, and reclaiming their rights to local food sources. This dissertation explores collaborative and applied methods of archaeological research and argues that an archaeological understanding of past foodways can help Indigenous groups accomplish these community-set agendas. When conducted in collaboration with the community, in adherence to their values, and motivated by their interests, archaeology can be a useful tool in cultural revitalization efforts. To illustrate this point, this dissertation describes archaeological research conducted with two communities on the Northwest Coast—the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe and the Chinook Indian Nation—and how such research contributes to their fight for sovereignty as it relates to food systems and community health. Investigations focused on Nukaunlth, a Lower Chehalis and Chinookan village occupied during the Late Pacific, protocontact, and postcontact periods. As the descendant communities are most interested in revitalizing marine-based foodways, this project sought to ascertain (1) the importance of marine resources among Chinookan and Lower Chehalis peoples living at this ancestral village, and (2) the makeup of the larger subsistence system within which marine resource use was situated. More specifically, this study addresses whether shellfish was a key resource that was managed, and/or harvested intensively to meet important dietary needs of the community, or a low-priority resource that was harvested and consumed only opportunistically. While many other resources, such as plants, were likely consumed at this village but are underrepresented in the archaeological record currently available, zooarchaeological analysis demonstrates that marine resources—shellfish (cockles, mussels, and various species of clam, in particular), marine mammals (especially whale), and fish (salmon, flounder, and sturgeon, most notably)—were key food resources for those who lived at Nukaunlth and were arguably indispensable to their lifeways. Such marine resources may have been good sources of essential caloric and noncaloric nutrients such as fat, protein, iron, and omega-3 fatty acids. By all measures, shellfish dominate the faunal assemblage and makes up the largest portion of edible food reflected by the archaeological record. Shellfish, while providing fewer calories and less fat than other food sources, could have been a critical source of vitamins and minerals that were difficult to obtain from other food sources. This dissertation concludes by outlining the community-enriching programs and public goods the Shoalwater Bay Indian Tribe has created using the outcomes of this research. Through these initiatives, the descendant community is using Western scientific data to corroborate a long-held Indigenous understanding that local natural resources, especially marine, were indispensable to life before European settlement and that the right to access these resources is an inherent right of Indigenous peoples. In this way, archaeology that is done in tandem with descendant communities and motivated by their interests and needs can be more than the data it generates; it can be a creative process by which Indigenous communities can explore their history on their own terms and craft possible futures that champion culture, health, and wellness.