Villages, Demography and Subsistence Intensification on the Southern Columbia Plateau

Abstract

Semi-sedentary villages were established on the southern Columbia plateau by 4300 years before present. Demographic changes accompanying this event included a major shift in human population dispersion. While previous archaeological explanations have emphasized salmon productivity as the major variable in these changes, archaeological and ethnological evidence strongly supports the view that intensification of plant exploitation was the critical subsistence change. Subsistence intensification, sedentism and demographic change in this region are directly relevant to more general questions concerning sedentism among foragers.