Indigenous Adaptations to Salmon Run Volatility in the Salish Sea during the Late Holocene

More than a million fish bones have been analyzed from the faunal assemblages in shell middens that mark the location of ancestral Indigenous settlements on the shores of the central reaches of the Salish Sea. Salmon bones, which account for 38% of the identifiable fish remains, are most abundant close to the main migration route of Fraser River sockeye and pink salmon. Salmon bone abundance in the “Marpole” cultural phase from 2400 to 1200 cal BP varies in concert with activity levels at salmon-fishing locations upstream on the Thompson River, peaking in the interval of maximal local marine productivity from about 1650 to 1350 cal BP. Summed probability distributions (SPDs) derived from the radiocarbon catalogs of coastal sites either echo the Thompson River pattern or are contrapuntal. The concordant SPDs suggest that Salishan population dynamics on the sockeye migration route reflect the relative success of the salmon fishery. The contrapuntal patterns are restricted to bays and inlets off the main sockeye and pink salmon migration route and may reflect the movements of Salishan people responding to a dearth of salmon by resettling in locales with a less volatile resource base.