pip. N^f; 2?l''' McNARY RESERVOIR — SHINER 197 



a full-sized mallet. The former, which may have been a toy, is sim- 

 ilar to, but smaller than, those illustrated in plate 42, h. Two small 

 projectile points found there were corner notched with straight 

 stems. 



This is the first appearance of the stone mallet in the local sequence. 

 Mallets, or mauls as they are sometimes called, are among the most 

 carefully made artifacts in the region. Ground and polished from 

 basalt, porphyry, and diorite, these tools are about the size and shape 

 of a milk bottle with the handle often suggesting a phallic symbol. 

 The earliest mention of mallets in the literature is from the Lewis and 

 Clark journals (Thwaites, 1904-5, vol. 3). When these explorers 

 were on their way to the coast in 1805, Clark visited a village near the 

 juncture of the Snake and Columbia Eivers. He reported seeing a 

 stone mallet used in conjunction with an antler wedge for splitting 

 timber. His description makes it clear that the artifact was of the 

 type being discussed here. Fine groimd mallets have been reported 

 from The Dalles, Oreg. (Strong et al., 1930), from the upper Colum- 

 bia (Collier et al., 1942), and from the Yakima River (Smith, 1910). 



The small, rather delicate, corner-notched projectile point becomes 

 the typical one for the historical period. How much earlier than that 

 it occurs is difficult to say, but corner-notched points appear in quan- 

 tity in sites that have no European trade goods. 



ECONOMY 



Most of the tools that could be assigned to a particular economic pur- 

 suit were obviously designed for fishing. The large number of net 

 weights in and around the houses attested to a considerable reliance 

 on fishing, as did the number of fishbones. Animal bones included 

 those of deer, rabbit, various birds, antelope {Antilocapra americana) , 

 bison, but no horse (Osborne, 1953, p. 261). Projectile points were 

 present although not really plentiful, but there was no direct evidence 

 of vegetable foods. Shellfish were apparently consumed in quantity, 

 although not to the extent that was evident at Cold Springs (35- 

 TJM-7). 



SITE 45-BN-53 



This large village site was excavated by Douglas Osborne in 1948, 

 and was reported in full in his doctoral dissertation.^ It was not a 

 large or a lengthy excavation, and not many diagnostic artifacts were 

 recovered. Because of these things only a brief summary of the 

 results is presented here. 



One of the largest villages anywhere in the middle Columbia region, 

 45-BN-53 was situated on a long flat terrace about 5i/^ miles upstream 



" See footnote 3, p. 164. 



