Environment, Prehistory & Archaeology of Mount Rainier National Park, Washington
Greg C. Burtchard

NOTES

¹ Tahoma is employed here as a proxy for a wide variety of similar names pronounced somewhat differently by the region's Sahaptin and Salishan speaking Indian groups (see Smith 1964:42).

² Edmund Meany (1916) and Allan Smith (1964) offer interesting and useful accounts of early explorations and ethnohistory of Mount Rainier respectively.

³ Rice suggested use between 300 and 1,000 years ago. Radiocarbon dating, however, was not used to establish this estimate. Judging from cave deposit descriptions, it appears that some cultural materials underlie Mount Rainier series C volcanic debris deposited about 2,300 years ago (Pringle, pers. com. 1995). Accordingly, use of the shelter may be substantially older than previously thought. Firmer determination awaits more refined site analysis.

⁴Robert Mierendorf, North Cascades National Park archaeologist, contributed to the North Cascades discussion, originally written for inclusion in Columbia Cascade Systems Support Office's Systemwide Archeological Inventory Program report (Schalk 1977).

⁵Perhaps because of these characteristics, there presently is no unequivocal evidence for mountain goats or sheep south of the Columbia River.

⁶These arguments are more fully developed in an earlier study of environmental and site distribution patterns in Mt. Hood National Forest (Burtchard and Keeler 1991; see also Appendix C in this volume).

⁷Early accounts seldom mention Alaska huckleberry. This probably is because V. alaskaense and V. ovalifolium are difficult to distinguish by either habitat or habit (Mathews 1988:97). It is likely that early accounts identified both species simply as ovalifoluim (blue or oval-leaf huckleberry).

⁸In lowland environments such as the Puget Trough, the pattern is reversed. Sustained warm intervals are associated with a higher fraction of more mesic species in more open stands (i.e., forest maturity declines). Cooler, effectively wetter conditions are associated with more nearly closed maritime forests.

⁹This represents a circa 9° C mean summer temperature increase from the height of the Fraser's Vashon Stade.

¹⁰Because Dunwiddie's samples were taken from Paradise lahar sediments, his inferences do not extend to the early Holocene. Also note that the link between continued presence of seral species and climate is not clear cut at this elevation. Succession also could be repressed by increased summer storm frequency or by human induced fires. Evidence for increased fire frequency is ambiguously represented in the profiles. Fire and climate should both be considered contributing variables to maintenance of seral species in the pre series Y tephra samples.

¹¹Absence of pollen and macrofossil studies directed to eastern and northern sections of the Park make environmental effects difficult to track with precision.

¹²Dunwiddie labels all Garda stade advances as the "Little Ice Age". The term is more appropriately applied to late Garda world-wide cooling episodes (and lesser glacial advances) beginning about A.D. 1450 with cold weather peaks in the mid to late 1600s, early 1800s and mid to late 1800s (Crowley and North 1991:95-96).

¹³This is not meant to imply that all prehistoric use of Mount Rainier was economically driven; but rather, that most prehistoric use, most of the time was geared toward extraction of critical subsistence and maintenance resources. Accordingly, general patterns in the character of the archaeological record are explained most effectively by reference to these seasonally available economic attractors to the montane environment.

¹⁴The forager to collector continuum, and the mid-Holocene shift from predominantly mobile foraging to semisedentary collector land-use systems is discussed further in Chapter 5.

¹⁵Radiocarbon dated southern Washington Cascade sites discussed Chapter 3 also demonstrate human presence in the mountains during the late Holocene.

¹⁶While not credited in Daugherty's report, the survey team apparently was shown the site by Terry Patton, then a Ranger Naturalist at Mount Rainier National Park, underscoring the value of actively seeking Park employee cultural resource observations and opinions.

¹⁷Documented localities first reported by John Dalle-Molle include the Buck Lake lithic scatter (FS 71-01), Frozen Lake Site (FS 86-01), Berkeley Park Rockshelter (FS 86-02), Vernal Park Rockshelter (FS 74-01), Mt. Pleasant Rockshelter (FS 72-02), and the Deadwood Lakes Pass isolate (IF 01-77). He, Carl Fabiani, and Frank Bell also variously reported lithic remains at Windy Gap and at Bee Flat on the Northern Loop trail to Windy Gap from Ipsut Creek. Thanks to their general directions, recorded sites and isolates in these areas now include FS 90-03, FS 95-07 and FS 95-08 near Windy Gap, and IF 01-68 at Bee Flat. Information on all of these localities is included in Sections 2 and 3 of this report, and summarized in tabular form in Appendix B.

¹⁸The stratigraphically lowest radiocarbon sample taken from a charcoal lens in culturally sterile sediments overlying probable Mount Rainier C tephra returned a radiocarbon age of 1970 ±80 years: 20 B.C. [Beta 44528] (Sample MORA #4633 submitted by R. McClure after Bergland's study). A discrete sample from the lowest clearly cultural stratum 39 cm below the surface returned an age of 1070 ±90 years: A.D. 880 [WSU 3666]. A composite sample from 0 to 10 cm below the surface was dated to 290±120 years: A.D. 1660 [WSU 3665]. All samples were removed from test Unit A in the lower shelter.

¹⁹Fifty eight prehistoric sites divided into six site-types were tested in 1997 in Wenatchee National Forest's Naches and Cle Elum Districts after the present summary was written. Procedures and results are included in Burtchard and Miss (1998).

²⁰The site's dates are consistent with the peak of the Hypsithermal Interval shown on Table 2.3 in Chapter 2.

²¹More recent studies of two sites in the upper Lewis River drainage have identified deeply buried site components greater than 7,000 years old, suggesting an even earlier period of colonization (see Table 3.4).

²²There is room for disagreement. Dunwiddie's (1986) study of floral response to volcanism on Mount Rainier suggests that natural ecosystems quickly return to normal following the volcanic events noted here. It is unlikely that simple volcanic disruptions of plant and animal communities would have been sufficient to have an archaeologically measurable effect on human settlement, let alone adequate to cause a 2,000 year abandonment of the area. In my opinion [Burtchard], relatively brief gaps in the current radiocarbon data base (see Figure 3.4) are insufficient to support cultural hiatus notions, but rather more likely reflect normal gaps expected in a limited early to mid-Holocene data set. In lieu of a satisfactory explanatory mechanism for a hiatus, the possibility of regional abandonment or settlement reorganization from ca. 3,500 to 2,500 years ago should be retained as an intriguing possibility warranting further research.

²³The proposed hiatus does indeed correlate with a period of glacial advance shown as the Burroughs Mountain Drift on Table 2.3. However, a more severe glacial advance ca. 900 to 500 years ago (the Garda Stade on Mount Rainier) is not accompanied by a similar reduction in archaeological presence.

²⁴Several site localities were brought to our attention late in the 1995 field season. These are included in Appendix A and in the 1995 site data Table 4.1 accompanying map Figure 4.1.

²⁵The high elevation focus is counterbalanced somewhat by the floodplain emphasis of Daugherty's (1963).

²⁶A glance at site and isolate distribution and environmental patterns as they unfold on Figures 3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 4.1 shows clearly that the archaeological record is consistent with focused prehistoric use of subalpine to alpine terrain. Environmental determinants underlying this pattern are discussed at length in Chapter 2.

²⁷Surface counts of lithic materials associated with Mount Rainier sites are often low. In part, this reflects short-term, non-redundant use, limited on-site manufacture, and implement conservation. It also reflects repeated volcanic deposits covering large areas of Mount Rainier during the Holocene. Sites for which stratigraphic information is available (Berkeley Rockshelter [FS 86-02], Fryingpan Rockshelter [FS 63-01] and Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit lithic scatter [FS 90-01]) have lithic debris both above and below substantial tephra deposits–especially Mount Rainier C circa 2,300 years ago. Deeply buried Mt. Mazama tephra (circa 6,700 years ago) in a profile from Grand Park suggests that cultural deposits could be found over a meter deep in some locations. It is most probable, then, that a number of prehistoric sites are buried at varying depths with only a fraction (if any) of their lithic debris visible in reworked surface context, and hence, available for documentation by surface reconnaissance techniques such as those employed here. The author believes that when subsurface test procedures are employed, site totals and artifact densities will increase. In addition, subsurface testing probably will reveal that a number of isolated finds also warrants site designation. For purposes of this report, sites and isolates are both used to address site distribution and land-use issues.

²⁸Three Mount Rainier sites were tested prior to completion of this report–45PI43, Fryingpan Rockshelter (Rice 1965); 45PI303, Berkeley Rockshelter (Bergland 1988); and current work at 45PI406, Tipsoo Lakes (Sullivan pers. com. 1996). Work also has been done in the vicinity of the Ohanapecosh campground in the Park's extreme southeastern corner and at the Sunrise Ridge Borrow Pit Site–45PI408 (Liddle pers. com 1997). Information on Tipsoo Lakes, Ohanapecosh and Sunrise Ridge projects were not made available for inclusion in this report.

²⁹The stratigraphically lower earlier date is from non-cultural sediments, but establishes a basal date for the site. A younger age of 290 ± 120 years: A.D. 1660 (WSU 3665) was returned sediments 0 to 10 cm below the modern ground surface. However, this latter age dates a composite sample of near surface charcoal and is not considered to be a reliable temporal marker.

³⁰The radiocarbon age of 1,090 years and minimally nine arrow-sized points from Berkeley Rockshelter (Bergland [1988] identifies 13) illustrate the temporal utility of small hafted projectile points nicely.

³¹Recall that in the present reconnaissance, localities with either one or two surface visible artifacts were documented as isolated finds.

³²The Schalk and Atwell reference is recommended for thorough background into this issue.

³³Ethnographies, while constituting an interesting and fertile source of ideas to apply to the archaeological record, reflect highly disturbed system states, characteristics of which should be projected into the more distant past with great caution.

³⁴Readers more interested in immediate application to Mount Rainier and the southern Washington Cascades may wish to jump ahead to the intensification model beginning on page 140.

³⁵Wagner (1960) used the terms Gathering, Predation and Collecting to discriminate among non-agricultural peoples on the basis of mobility and reliance on storage. These concepts, and especially use of Collecting to identify sedentary hunter-gatherers with storage, anticipate several aspects of Binford's model, albeit with very different causal mechanisms.

³⁶In the years since developing the Mt. Hood model, I have become more suspect of the gradualism inherent in this approach; favoring instead a more rapid, punctuated shift toward collector land-use practices as suggested by Schalk (1988:13) and incorporated into the present Mount Rainier model. Accumulating climatic information also suggests that environmental patterns were not so simple as assumed, and arguably had an indirect feedback relationship on subsistence strategies rather than direct effects as implied in the earlier model.

³⁷Schalk accepts a temporal relationship between Cascade dart points and early Holocene use of the Olympics. While such points appear to be widely distributed in the early Holocene, there is compelling reason to believe that similar points continued to be used well into the late Holocene in montane contexts (Daugherty et al. 1987b:234; Burtchard 1990:144-149). This suggests 1) that such points were functionally well suited to upper elevation hunting, and 2) that atl atl, darts, and montane land-use continued into the late Holocene; overlapping bow and arrow hunting. Accordingly, while Cascade style points may be associated with early Holocene sites, their presence alone does not necessary indicate great antiquity.

³⁸These include the northern Rockies in Idaho, the John Day-Deschutes drainages in central Oregon, Klamath-Modoc in southwestern Oregon and northern California, and Upper Sacramento and Lower Sacramento-San Joaquin Valleys in north central and central California.

³⁹Because of the variety of sources that make up age estimates employed in this volume, I have used radiocarbon ages as a standard temporal referent. Taylor et al. (1996) recently calibrated 20 Clovis and Folsom sites using both Quaternary Research Center (Stuiver and Riemer 1993) and uranium/thorium procedures. Their results suggest that radiocarbon ages in this range may reflect calendar dates 1,000 to 1,500 years older still. If so, the Everson Interglacial and earliest human colonization of North America south of Alaska may date to 14,500 to 12,000 B.P. or 12,550 to 10,050 B.C.

⁴⁰Despite similar orientation, this argument is contrary to Schalk's (1988) ideas for early use of the uplands in Olympic National Park. The difference is due, I believe, to his assumption that upper elevation forest cover would have been reduced by Hypsithermal warming rather than expanded by suppression of snowpack and lengthened growing season.

⁴¹Please note that for the present I do not accept the notion of a mid to late Holocene population drop for the southern Washington Cascades.

⁴²Faunal resources recovered from Layser Cave and Judd Peak Rockshelters include a wide species variety dominated by deer in all levels. Interestingly, early to mid-Holocene deposits at Layser Cave contain a small fraction of salmon remains. Anadromous fish are represented in substantially greater proportion in the late Holocene cultural deposits at Judd Peak Rockshelters (see Table 3.4 for radiocarbon data from these sites).

⁴³Because subsurface tests were not a part of the present project, I do not know how many of the presently documented Mount Rainier sites are located on deeper Holocene sediments. Cursory inspection of the distribution of Holocene tephra deposits suggests that deepest deposits are biased toward the eastern side of the Park (see Figure 2.3).

⁴⁴More rapid recovery rate and ability of deer to exploit smaller, more widespread and hidden forage patches relative to elk, may have facilitated longer reliance on this animal.

⁴⁵Note that mule deer and elk share variant but overlapping habitats. Deer eat a variety of herbaceous shrubs and grasses, but can thrive on the former. They are well adapted to forest fringes and to stream channels where deciduous young growth penetrates the forest cover. While they tend to migrate upslope with seasonal warming, individuals and small groups can remain near and browse in minor forest openings so long as forage is adequate. Elk can use similar habitats, but thrive on more extensive grasslands that can support their large body size and more gregarious habit. Both species use forest cover for shelter and predator protection, but again because of size and number, elk can successfully risk venturing further and longer into open countryside. For thorough consideration of elk, mule deer and black-tailed mule deer ecology see Thomas and Toweill (1982) and Walmo (1981).