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North Pacific coastal environments from the Sea of Japan to Northern
California were occupied in ethnographic times by cultures that were clearly
linked all along the way through an array of technological and architectural
similarities, as well as social practices and spiritual beliefs. Their
communities were generally of considerable size and sociocultural complexity,
the region as a whole being long noted by anthropologists as one where
hunter-fisher-gatherers, so-called “Affluent Foragers,” achieved levels of
sociocultural elaboration elsewhere reached only by agricultural peoples. Initial connections along this coastal zone
through migration and diffusion, first established in terminal Pleistocene
times, continued through much of the Holocene.
These are documented most clearly in archaeological assemblages by
distinctive prepared core-blade/microblade and biface technologies, but there
are other shared elements as well.
Socioeconomic similarities and variations that owe much to habitat
similarities and variations along the 6000 miles of North
Pacific coastline are also clearly marked. Waterside adaptations seen along the
central and southern California coasts reached comparable levels of cultural
elaboration and complexity, but did not participate in the North Pacific
coastal diffusion sphere that existed throughout most of Holocene times. Rather, they arose convergently from an
indigenous North American Archaic cultural base that was widespread in the
western continental interior and dates back to earliest Holocene times. This
review proceeds from the present to the past, beginning with the ethnographic
picture and then working back through broad slices of time: 3000 to 6000 years
ago, 6000 to 10,000 years ago, and before 10,000 years ago. It is suggested
that the first people to enter North America were northeast Asians culturally
adapted to the North Pacific coast and adjacent interior regions, who came
during the waning phases of the last glaciation, probably around 14,000 years
ago.
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