6 PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM vol.73 



Wash. There was no evidence that burials there had ever been 

 disturbed. Neither was there in the objects recovered from the graves 

 any indication of Hudson's Bay Co. influence such as trade beads of 

 glass or of shell beads which in historic times were traded to the 

 Indians as a substitute for the Dentalium indianorum, or of iron knives 

 or copper implements. It was likewise impossible to obtain at 

 Wahluke any direct evidence of great antiquity of occupancy or of 

 culture type. 



Wahluke is in Grant County on the west bank of the Columbia 

 River, which in this part of its course flows north, immediately south 

 of the point where the stream impinges on the precipitous escarpment 

 formed of yellowish gray volcanic debris, white silt, volcanic dust, 

 and ash known as White Bluffs. Wahluke is the site of a former pit- 

 house village consisting of 30 semisubterranean structures erected in 

 an irregular row extending a distance of 100 rods along the river 

 bench. Each habitation ruin to-day consists of nothing more than 

 a stone-capped rim of earth surrounding a centrally excavated pit of 

 varying depth with a diameter of 30 or more feet. The bench land 

 at Wahluke is broad and high enough to aflPord protection against 

 the flood waters of the Columbia. The opposite flank of the river is 

 much lower and is subject to seasonal inundations, hence was not 

 occupied by the ancient inhabitants of the region except as a place 

 for procuring game. Low-lying river benches gradually sloping down 

 to the river's edge were favored watering places for animals which 

 often traveled many miles to reach them, although no evidence was 

 uncovered that the bison ever reached this region. 



The high river bluflp which faces Wahluke at right angles on the 

 north is an exposed section of the Ellensburg formation laid down 

 in the late Tertiary in old fresh water lake beds that at one time 

 extended from the Pacific coast to what is now the upper plateau 

 country east of the Cascade Mountains. In the valley of the Yak- 

 ima River the composition of the Ellensburg formation is coarser 

 than that of the White Bluffs on the Columbia River which con- 

 tains large quantities of volcanic ash and wind-blown dust. 



At Wahluke the Columbia River is deflected in a general south- 

 easterly direction, where it completes the final sector of its course 

 known as the big bend. The vertical escarpment of the White 

 Bluffs formation lies hard against the northern end of the village 

 site; the cemetery proper is an extension of the village and is 

 directly south of the long and irregular row of semisubterranean 

 pit-house ruins. White Bluffs extend in a line reaching from east to 

 west. From the point where the channel of the Columbia is deflected, 

 the escarpment continues on the west as a range of hiUs known as 

 Saddle Mountains or, locally, as Sentinel Bluffs, forming a relief feature 

 several hundred feet high. Twenty-five miles farther west this range 



