1973 Biderbost (45SN100) Ancient Basketry and Cordage Collection Characterized and Compared to Other Wet Archaeological Site Collections Along the Northwest Coast of North America

The Biderbost wet archaeological site was excavated in the late 1950s and early 1960s, approximately 50 years ago, by the Washington Archaeological Society (WAS) from the banks of the Snoqualmie River, Snoqualmie Tribe traditional territory, near Duvall, Washington, USA (Figure 1). The recovery represents the first larger scale wet/waterlogged site removal of preserved wood and fiber artifacts, especially ancient basketry and cordage, from along the Northwest Coast of North America. The site was dated to approximately 2,000 years ago (Nordquist 1976). In 1973 I was conducting my research on basketry and cordage from the Makah Ozette Village wet site for my dissertation and visited and recorded (in photographs, drawings, data sheets and pin cards (see above)) the Biderbost collection in Del Nordquist’s garage where 70% of it was stored at that time. The site was misnamed Biederbost in many articles (the actual owners name was Biderbost) so it is call this in the dissertation (Croes 1977).