Pacific Northwest Archaeological Society-PNWAS

04/12/2026

Join us for our SPRING PNWAS, see PNWAS Newsbulletin #174 here:https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_174_compressed_2026-03-20.pdf

And be sure to become a member today to enjoy this and our upcoming PNWAS ZOOM meetings: https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html

Thursday, April 16th, 2026, 6:30 PM

"Terminal Pleistocene Bison and Sloth from Vancouver Island"
By Morley Eldridge
Millennia Research Limited, B.C.
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-16-april-2026.html

In line with our theme of the Chehalis River Hypothesis and Squaxin Museum Mammoth exhibit (see in PNWAS Newsbulletin #174), we will have a talk by archaeologist Morley Eldridge, Victoria, B.C. on recent megafauna finds on southern Vancouver Island. They have found Bison antiquus bones with distinct butchering cut marks.
We are finding more evidence of peoples moving down the glaciated coast using the abundant megafauna they encountered. These Victoria, B.C., finds are right across from the Manis Mastodon site in Sequim where they found a bone spear point in a rib (10,800 years old; we are working on getting a loan of this rib and bone point for our Squaxin Museum Mammoth exhibit)!

02/16/2026

Join us for our Late WINTER PNWAS, see PNWAS Newsbulletin #173 here:https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_173_2-15-2026_compressed.pdf

And be sure to become a member today to enjoy this and our upcoming PNWAS ZOOM meetings:
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html

Thursday, February 19th, 2026, 6:30 PM
"The Undervalued Chiton as a Shellfish Resource on the Northwest Coast of North America"
By Dr. Dale R. Croes, W.S.U./PNWAS
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-19-feb-2026.html

For the past 10 years I have been studying and publishing on the importance of chitons as a food source and in the oral history of Northwest Coast Peoples. As a food the western world rarely eats, we tend to ignore their considerable importance in the archaeological shell middens from the earliest periods on the entire Pacific NW Coast (see endowed chiton maps of sites of importance to this presentation).

12/10/2025

GOOD NEWS, Dr. Rick Knecht and Yup'ik Community are doing well in their Heroic Effort to Rescue Wood and Fiber Artifacts washed out by Typhoon Halong. Some of our PNWAS Members asked me to set up a GoFundMe so we can help this Nunalleq Community rescue and preserve the thousand+ wood and fiber artifacts so far being found along 4 miles of beach in front of the site.

Through PNWAS Member's generous donations, some large and small (all helps!!), we have raised $13,000 so far, and with other contributions Rick said they can mount and support a crew of volunteers into the summer when the site and additional artifacts are visible again! THANK YOU, THANK YOU from the Yup'ik Community and their generations to come! Rick will have more to add in his update.

Here is our Society's GoFundMe link so you can Help too: https://gofund.me/7fbf15cb6 .

Dr. Knecht will give us a first-hand update on the effort we are supporting. Dr. Ben Fitzhugh, UW Archaeology Professor, and PNWAS contributor, saw his October talk and went up to help Rick following the talk--we hope Ben can give us an Update on his experience too.

WINTER PNWAS,

Thursday, December 11th, 2025

Aftermath of Typhoon Halong—Community Rescuing Eroded Wood and Fiber Artifacts from an Ancient Yup’ik Village, AK:
UPDATE
By Dr. Rick Knecht, University of Aberdeen, UK
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-11-dec-2025.html

Hi, I’m DALE CROES, Director of the Pacific Northwest Archaeological… DALE CROES needs your support for Help Rescue Endangered Pacific NW Archaeological Sites

11/11/2025

ED AND DALE PRESENT their Basketry/Nets and Books at the
ARCHAEOLOGY FAMILY DAY, UW Burke Museum, all Day Sunday, November 16th—come see us!

Join Ed Carriere, Suquamish Elder (91) and Master Basketmaker, and Dr. Dale Croes at Archaeology Family Day (all day) at the UW Burke Museum, Sunday November 16th for a demonstration of our
work replicating the 2,000 year old wet archaeological site, Biderbost, pack basket--found in Snoqualmie Traditional Territory and the subject of our first book: Re-Awakening Ancient Salish Sea
Basketry: https://www.burkemuseum.org/calendar/ed-carriere-artist-studio?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTAAYnJpZBExSEQ3WXJBcTdKeFU2b3RQcQEeYCrcqHuw-lHUX8QqSTWxmOai_yVHEKc6gn0kIHYfTQjuM8QFHEzFBm9smug_aem_TeU6qD0MXUXajoBR7HgIfQ
(How to get our books from
Publisher linked here too!)

In conjunction with our new book '"Living-Off-The- Land" for 4,000 Years on the Salish Sea' we will have lots of his salmon, shrimp, eel traps, and nettle fiber duck/salmon gill nets to show (see examples
below). Also bring your books for signing and we will have our books for sale at the program for signing.

11/11/2025

GOOD NEWS and WINTER PNWAS: Dr. Rick Knecht and Yup'ik Community are doing well in their Heroic Effort to Rescue Wood and Fiber Artifacts washed out by Typhoon Halong. Some of our PNWAS Members asked me to set up a GoFundMe so we can help this Nunalleq Community rescue and preserve the hundreds of artifacts being found along 4 miles of beach in front of the site. Here is our Society's GoFundMe link so you can Help: https://gofund.me/7fbf15cb6

Also Dr. Knecht will give us a first-hand update on the effort we are supporting. Dr. Ben Fitzhugh, UW Archaeology Professor, and PNWAS contributor, saw his October talk and went up to help Rick following the talk--we hope Ben can give us an Update on his experience too.
Please see this current, Nov. 4th, NY Times article about the amazing effort: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/climate/typhoon-alaska-archaeology.html?unlocked_article_code=1.yk8.YnkC.oM6fu6_ffRQt&smid=fb-share&fbclid=IwY2xjawN3HfhleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHjDT_31Up3o2pnpJXxEK4iTmhyTYLDpfNWzJ9MilKzP-1O4_gs0pQDozbf0G_aem_YY5_G3PWxHGMHA9sowopdg

WINTER PNWAS,
Thursday, December 11th, 2025
Aftermath of Typhoon Halong—Community Rescuing Eroded Wood and Fiber Artifacts from an
Ancient Yup’ik Village, AK:
UPDATE
By Dr. Rick Knecht, University of Aberdeen, UK

If an Anthropology teacher/instructor, please feel free to share our forthcoming link for your students to attend.
Please join PNWAS for 2026 for these and other upcoming programs (see Membership- https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html ) to renew with PayPal or print out our form and mail (attached)):https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/join_pnwas_2025_zoom_11-3-2025.pdf

We are glad Rick is doing okay and we can help him with this community archaeological and their heritage effort.

Also come see Ed Carriere, Suquamish Elder, and I at the UW Burke Archaeology Family Day all day Sunday, Nov. 16th!
Thanks and Best to all, Dale

10/10/2025

REMINDER!
Join us for our FALL PNWAS, see NewsBulletin #171 (attached here:https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_171_9-12-2025.pdf

And be sure to become a member today to enjoy this and our upcoming PNWAS ZOOM meetings:
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html

Thursday October 16th 2025, 6:30 PM
"Melting Permafrost and Rescue Archaeology in a Yup’ik Village"
By Dr. Rick Knecht, University of Aberdeen, UK
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-16-october-2025.html

Dr. Rick Knecht has been conducting archaeological research in Alaska since 1983. He lived and worked on the Kodiak and Aleutian Archipelagos and was founding director of the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository on Kodiak and the Museum of the Aleutians in Unalaska.
He has generously offered to join us by ZOOM to present to PNWAS members the amazing discoveries made at the Nunalleq Archaeological Project in Quinhagak, Alaska since 2009.

He currently holds a Major Research Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust and is working on analysis of precontact Yup’ik material culture from the Nunalleq site. The site work is described as recovering one jawdropping museum piece per person per day!!!! I think you’ll agree!

04/06/2025

REMINDER!
We are preparing for the SPRING PNWAS, see NewsBulletin #170 (attached here:
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_170_3-18-2025.pdf).
We are connecting with Dr. Peter Bellwood through ZOOM in Australia on April 10th at 6:30 PM our time, and 11:30 PM his time April 11th. Thank goodness it is a comfortable time for him!

Thursday, April 10th, 2025
THE FIVE MILLION YEAR ODYSSEY,
The Human Journey from Ape to Agriculture
By Dr. Peter Bellwood
Emeritus Professor of Archaeology in the School of Archaeology and Anthropology, Australian National University (ANU), Canberra, Australia (a top-rated Archaeologist in the World:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bellwood )

Dr. Bellwood was a speaker at our PNWAS 1989 Circum-Pacific Prehistory Conference at the Seattle Center—our society provided the much-needed volunteer staff for this international conference held with the 1989 Washington Centennial programs. See our conference program at this web site, and Peter is on page 14:
https://rex.libraries.wsu.edu/esploro/outputs/conferenceProceedi%20ng/Circum-Pacific-Prehistory-%20Conference/99901083737301842?institution=01ALLIANCE_%20WSU
PNWAS is recognized on the cover as sponsor.

We hope you have had a chance to read his new book and prepare to ask questions (this will be a presentation and a conversational discussion/chat with Peter). He has a refreshing Pacific Basin view of things. You can get a Kindle version or actual copy of book through Amazon.
Here's the description in Amazon:
"Over the course of five million years, our primate ancestors evolved from a modest population of sub-Saharan apes into the globally dominant species Homo sapiens. Along the way, humans became incredibly diverse in appearance, language, and culture. How did all of this happen? In The Five-Million- Year Odyssey, Peter Bellwood synthesizes research from archaeology, biology, anthropology, and linguistics to immerse us in the saga of human evolution, from the earliest traces of our hominin forebears in Africa, through waves of human expansion across the continents, and to the rise of agriculture and explosive demographic growth around the world."

Peter divides the whole Odyssey, from ape to agricultures into four Acts (below) and we will discuss each Act with him individually. No doubt some or all of these Acts will interest you, and I know the end of Act III, Settlement of Americas, will be an important act for most of us looking at the entrance (our Chehalis River Hypothesis) and movement of people throughout the entire second earth (the American continents)!

Of course, much more will be of interest, the first making and using stone tools (Acheulean hand axes), development of our cousins, Neanderthals and Denisovans, how we leave Africa into much of the Old World, colonizing the Arctic, the first food production and development of writing and empires. An amazing story, synthesized with a Pacific viewpoint by Peter Bellwood.

02/07/2025

REMINDER:
LATE WINTER 2025 PNWAS ZOOM Meeting (add to your calendar!):
Thursday, February 13th, 2025
(starting at 6:30 PM)

REMINDER that our Long-time PNWAS member Dr. James Chatters will present his BREAKING NEWS research as lead author in Dec 6th Science Advances article titled: Mammoth Featured Heavily in Western Clovis Diet, see SMITHSONIAN and CNN articles at:
SMITHSONIAN: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/an-ice-age-infants-bones-reveal-early-americans-ate-woolly-mammoths-as-a-protein-staple-180985618/
CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/06/science/north-america-mammoths-diet-intl-scli/index.html
(see our new PNWAS NewsBulletin #169 and schedule/membership form attached--and, if you have not already, Please be sure you're a member for 2025):
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_169_1-20-2025.pdf

New Insights into the Diet of America's First Peoples
By Dr. James C. Chatters, Applied Paleosciences
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-13-february-2025.html

In recent decades archaeologists have actively, often acrimoniously debated the migration route and ecological adaptation of the earliest Americans. You have the Kelp Highway hypothesis, that argues for a maritime adaptation versus the inland migration hypothesis that envisions of terrestrial foragers. Then, for Clovis, the first and only continent-wide cultural pattern, we have those who see big-game focused adaptation versus backers of the “broad
spectrum forager” hypothesis. Recent studies of two of the most ancient human skeletons, the Anzick boy and Naia of Hoyo Negro contribute actual, direct evidence to these debates. Each allows us to approach the question from a different perspective.

12/01/2024

REMINDER:
WINTER 2024 PNWAS ZOOM Meeting
Thursday, December 5th, 2024
(starting at 6:30 pm)
To join the ZOOM Meeting and see the presentation.
please become a member today! https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html
Read more about this ZOOM presentation and our exciting line-up of talks for 2024/2025 in the most recent PNWAS Newsbulletin 168 here:https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_168_11-12-2024.pdf

The Edziza Ice Patch Work, Central B.C. Canada
By Duncan McLaren, Cordillera Archaeology, the Hakai Institute, and the University of Victoria
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-5-december-2024.html

The thawing ice patches of Mount Edziza Provincial Park, B.C. Canada, have unveiled a cache of ancient artifacts dating back 7,000 years. As a source for some of the best obsidian, the Edziza
Ice Patch has beautiful examples of collected and processed obsidian. These stone and perishable artifacts, primarily connected to the interior Tahltan First Nation, offer insights into their daily lives.

09/30/2024

REMINDER:
FALL 2024 PNWAS ZOOM Meeting
Thursday, October 3rd, 2024
(starting at 6:30 pm)
To join the ZOOM Meeting and see the presentation.
please become a member today! https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/membership.html
Read more about this ZOOM presentation and our exciting line-up of talks for 2024/2025 in the most recent PNWAS Newsbulletin 167 here:https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/uploads/2/3/6/9/23696833/pnwas_news_bulletin_167_9-10-2024.pdf

PART 1: The Deep-Water Technology for Gathering Dentalium Shells: Brooms and Spears &
PART II: A Clean Sweep—The Design and Use of NW Coast Herring Rakes By Daniel Meatte, former Archaeology Program Manager, Washington State Parks (this is the 7th PNWAS presentation by Dan, Thank You).
https://pnwas-society.weebly.com/upcoming-meeting-3-october-2024.html

Join Daniel Meatte for an overview of dentalium, one of the Pacific Northwest’s most highly prized decorative shells. Also known as hiqua, these curved, tusk-like shells were greatly prized and widely traded from California to Alaska and far into the interior of the continental U.S.
Dan’s presentation will examine the distribution and characteristics of the dentalium shell fishery on the Northwest Coast. He’ll begin with a brief summary of the ecology of dentalium, then describe the methods and unique tools developed to recover dentalium shells from coastal waters at depths of 3 to 44 meters (9 feet to 144 feet). He will show several replicas of specially designed “brooms” and demonstrate how they were used to recover dentalium shells from deep coastal waters of Washington and British Columbia.

Like salmon, herring runs are in decline along much of the Northwest Coast. So thick were these runs that many coastal tribes employed a novel tool to gather herring. A long, slender wood pole bearing a single row of sharp spines was swept through the water impaling herring during their seasonal runs. Dan will show several herring rake replicas, briefly explaining their construction and use.