AttT. 11 PEEHISTORIC PIT HOUSE VILLAGE SITE KRIEGER 7 



again lies at right angles to the Columbia, where the channel cuts a 

 gap through it. This gap is just below the confluence of Crab 

 Creek, and about 40 miles by a circuitous course upstream from 

 Wahluke. From the gap through Saddle Mountains to Wahluke 

 the river inscribes a[semicircle to which Saddle Mountains and White 

 Bluffs are tangent. During this section of its course, the Columbia 

 River passes over the 15-mile stretch of Priest Rapids, famous as a 

 gathering place for various tribes during the fishing season. Here, 

 on the west bank, was located the village of Smohalla, a leader in 

 the Ghost Dance cult. 



Saddle Mountains are of importance ethnologically, as the range 

 forms one of the few natural geographic barriers. Within historic 

 times this range separated the Shahaptian-speaking tribes on the 

 south such as the Wanap^m, or Columbia River Indians, the Paliis, 

 the Yakima, the Walla Walla, the Umatilla, and other tribes from 

 the Salish groups, as the KaUspel, Winatshi, Okanagan, Nespilim, and 

 others that occupied the region of central and eastern Washington 

 north of the range. 



Saddle Mountains are geologically important because of their bear- 

 ing on any attempted interpretation of the antiquity of man in the 

 valley of the Columbia. In the deeply cut gorge of this river, in its 

 escarpment of columnar basalt, is written much of the early Tertiary 

 geologic history of central Washington. South of Saddle Mountains 

 the basaltic lava flow is covered with thick deposits of andesitic 

 materials, volcanic ash and dust, and loess. 



During the Miocene, sheet after sheet of basaltic lava was poured 

 out over the greater part of Washington, all of eastern Oregon, part 

 of California, and a large area in the Snake River Valley of Idaho. 

 This basalt represents a great number of flows. About 20 of these 

 are exposed in some of the lava bluffs of the Columbia and Snake 

 Rivers. A cross section of the gorge cut by these rivers shows inter- 

 vening beds of varying thickness of soil in which trees grew to a 

 thickness of several inches before they were charred and buried by 

 later flows. Embedded sand, clay, gravel, and soil debris all bear 

 evidence of burning and baking. 



After the completion of the period of basaltic upheaval and the 

 later depositions of andesitic material in the fresh water lake beds 

 which characterized the Tertiary history of central Washington, there 

 began the gradual uplift of the Cascades in the Pleistocene and the 

 formation of the high plateau region. The invasions of ice sheets 

 from the north and from the northeast date from this period. One 

 of these great ice sheets came down the valley of the Okanogan River 

 from the north and filled the old channel of the Columbia River, 

 causing it to form new and more direct ones, among the more impor- 

 tant of which are the Moses and Grand Coulees. Later, on the 



