ART. 11 PEEHISTOEIC PIT HOUSE VILLAGE SITE KEIEGER 6 



of the Willamette to near the mouth of the Snake show that the simi- 

 larities throughout this region are not of recent origin. Some of the 

 finest and best carvings come from above The Dalles, while very few, 

 if any, have been found below the mouth of the Willamette. It would 

 hence appear that this stonework, if it did not originate, at least had 

 its highest development in a region where wood was scarce, and thence 

 probably moved down the river. On the lower river wood carving 

 probably took its place, as the wood here was soft and easily worked 



^ with stone and shell tools." 



' In commenting on the archeology of the interior tribes of the Colum- 

 bia Valley, Lewis refers to the need for further knowledge regarding 

 culture centers and the various sources of culture diffusion that must 

 have influenced the large area known as the upper plateau and the 

 Great Basin. 



• A study of a limited area of the upper plateau region at Lytton 

 1 and other sites on the Thompson River in southern British Columbia 

 ' with regard to its archeology and early culture connections was made 

 ' by Harlan I. Smith. A summary of his investigations was published 

 f' in the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society.^ 



Smith also carried on archeological investigations for the American 



• Museum of Natural History during 1903 in the Yakima Valley in 

 Washington between Clealum of the forested eastern slope of the 

 Cascade Mountains and Kennewick on the Columbia River; also 

 between the mouths of the Yakima and Snake Rivers in the treeless 

 arid region of the Columbia Valley and in the vicinity of Priest Rapids. 

 Smith concludes that definite age can not be assigned to archeological 

 finds made during his investigations, but that they antedate the 

 coming of the white man to the valley of the Columbia, as no objects 



j of European manufacture were included.^ 



Smith finds that the partial identity of the Yakima Valley and 



' Thompson River region in the southern interior of British Columbia 



j is supported by definite evidence. " The preponderance of chipped 



points over those ground out of stone; cache pits; circular lodges; 



rings of stones; and of semisubterranean houses with stones on the 



encircHng ridge; pairs of arrow-shaft smoothers, and bone tubes, 



I were all found to be common to both regions. Tubular pipes, mod- 



I em copper tubes or beads, incised designs consisting of a circle with 



- a dot in it and engraved dentalium shells, each of a particular kind, 



besides pictographs in red, rock-slide sepulchres, modern graves 



walled up with parts of canoes, the marking of recent graves with 



sticks, and the custom of burying artifacts with the dead were also 



, > Vol. 38, May, 1906. 



' 'His larger publication on the "Archeology of the Yakima Valley" appeared as vol. 6, pt. 1, of the 

 Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History published in 1910. The results of 

 his studies in British Columbia were published in IBOO as a part of the publications of the Jesup North 

 Pacific Expedition. 



