Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T07:17:42.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Underground Houses on the British Columbian Coast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2017

H. G. Barnett
H. G. Barnett*
Affiliation:
University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Semi-Subterranean houses with an entrance through the roof are a well known feature of the interior of British Columbia, having been described for the Thompson, the Chilcotin, the Shuswap and others of the upper Fraser River valley. They have, in fact, an even wider distribution east of the Coast and Cascade Ranges, extending south over the Plateau and into northern California. Although this type of dwelling existed among the Aleuts, it appears that the coastal people to the south of them, even in Alaska, were either unfamiliar with the pattern or rejected it in favor of others. Sporadically, along the Pacific Coast all the way from California to Bering Sea, house floors were excavated to varying depths, sometimes even to two levels; but, everywhere, the houses characteristically lack the roof entrance and, except for sweathouses in the south and Bering Sea Eskimo dwellings in the north, even the idea of an earth covering is absent. In view of this fundamental divergence, it is interesting that subterranean structures do appear in several places on the coast of British Columbia.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , January 1944 , pp. 265 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1944

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Birket-Smith, Kaj 1929. The Caribou Eskimos. Report of the Fifth Thule Expedition, Analytical Part (2), Vol. 5. Copenhagen.Google Scholar
Boas, Franz 1900. The Mythology of the Bella Coola. Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 2, Pt. 2. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, Vol. 1, 1898–1900.Google Scholar
De Laguna, Frederica 1934. The Archaeology of Cook Inlet, Alaska. The University Museum, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Hill-Tout, Charles 1903. Ethnological Studies of the Mainland Halkdmél'lEm, a Division of the Salish of British Columbia. Report of the 72nd Meeting (1902) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. London.Google Scholar
Munro, N. G. 1911. Prehistoric Japan. Yokohama.Google Scholar
Niblack, Albert 1890. The Coast Indians of Southern Alaska and Northern British Columbia. U. S. National Museum Report for 1888.Google Scholar
Petroff, Ivan 1884. Alaska: Its Population, Industries, and Resources. Tenth Census, 1880.Google Scholar
Ray, Verne 1939. Cultural Relations in the Plateau of Northwestern America. Publications of the Frederick Webb Hodge Anniversary Publication Fund, Vol. 3. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Smith, Harlan 1907. Archaeology of the Gulf of Georgia and Puget Sound. Memoirs, American Museum of Natural History, Vol. 4, Pt. 2. The Jesup North Pacific Expedition, 2, Pt. 6.Google Scholar
Smith, Harlan 1925. “A Semi-Subterranean House Site in the Bella Coola Area on the Coast of British Columbia.” Man, Vol. 25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waterman, T. T., and collaborators 1921. Native Houses of Western North America. Indian Notes and Monographs, Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation.Google Scholar