PSU Magazine Winter 2001

extraordinary environment," ays Smith. Traces of this abundance are evident in the remains and artifacts found at Cathlapotle. "There is a whole range of material that was uncovered at the site," Ames says, "and it has been di persed to various places. The animal remains are at the University of Missouri and the floral remains are in southern Illinois. The artifacts are here." The walls of the archeology lab in the basement of Cramer Hall are lined floor to ceiling with boxes containing the thousands of tiny pieces of stone, bone, bead, and metal artifacts that have been excavated from the site. They literally bulge with material that waits for analysis, classification, and computation. "Of the 75,000 artifacts, there are about 10,000 that are cataloged as arti– facts. That is, they were objects that were really being used by people. There are an additional 60,000 arti– facts that are waste products," says Smith, whose work involves searching for evidence of specialized labor. "It's hard to imagine how much information is contained even in the rubbish. For example, under a micro– scope I can tell the different types of cratches and polishes that come from using a crapper on wood from a scrap– per on antler or on leather," he ays. "By tudying all the different kinds of artifacts-bone, antler, and stone tools-I can reconstruct a more detailed picture of what people were doing." I n some ways the digging is the easi– est part of the puzzle. After the fieldwork come long hours in the labo– ratory, counting, cataloguing, measur– ing, analyzing, and teasing the meanings out of the collected material. "Generally speaking we figure that for every person-day in the field we have four-person days in the lab– minimum," ays Ames. "So, say you spend seven weeks at a site, as we did in 1995. With 45 students, that calcu– lates out to a lot of person-days in the lab. And we can't have 45 people in the lab. It won't accommodate that many, so it's a much slower proce ." But some early finds are already 8 PSU MAGAZINE WINTER 200I emerging. An iron adz blade, probably Chinese, dating to AD 1450 has been unearthed, as well as a Chinese coin and copper from a variety of places. Ames says the copper and iron date from 500 years ago into the 1830s, which spans the beginning of the fur trade with Europeans. The find reveals a tremendous amount about the trade routes and the distribution of goods. The animal remains supply other fascinating fact to ponder. "The animals bones, the stuff in Missouri, are much larger than modem forms," says Ames. "So one question done with it," says Ames. "We just don't have room for it here." T om Melanson, who heads U.S. Fish and Wildlife's effort to rai e funds for the center, says that raising the money remains a real challenge, but he hopes private donors can be found. "The Chinook would like it to stay either close to where it was found, or they would like to store it," says Ames, "but until they get recognition by the federal government as a tribe, they're not going to have the resources to ... 0 -'~l· rm 2 I ~I j[ll ~~ l!l 1 7 jllllj 1~11 lljll~dlll!llt~l ,ll 1 j~ 11 ~~ j ~1 3 II ; II Js An array of artifacts-amulets and hand.le pieces, as well as beads-make up the 10,000 items from Cathlapotle that are cataloged. they're trying to answer is why were there giant elk, giant deer, and giant mountain lions?" The sheer burden of storing the material is a problem that confounds Ames. He cannot take any more mate– rial out of the site at Ridgefield until another storage place i found. An $8. 7 million interpretive center has been proposed at the Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge in anticipation of increasing visitors to the site for the Lewis and Clark bicentennial, but the funds have yet to be found. "The material could end up in the Burke Museum in Seattle when we're build a facility of the ir own." "Knowing the story of the former residents is essential for understanding our place here in the Portland Basin," says Raymond. "Dr. Ames's work pro– vides an example of a time when the Columbia River was full of Chinook Indians living in great affluence. Cath– lapotle is one of the few intact exam– ples of this former glory. Ken has been able to give us a little window into this fanta tic and bustling civilization that was here for hundreds of years." D (Merlin Douglass '95 is a Portland fre~­ lance un-iter.)