Ernest Bertelson began his collecting twenty or twenty-one years ago on a sandy spit on the former Suquamish Indian Reservation at Suquamish, Washington. Suquamish is on the west shore of Puget Sound almost directly across from Seattle and the spit lies south of the present Seattle-Suquamish ferry landing. On this same point of land, once stood the renowned Old Man House, largest aboriginal structure of the American Northwest. The bulk of the collection consists of chipped stone artifacts, varying in workmanship from beautifully finished points to crudely worked flakes and pecked cores. Some polished stone, a few bone pieces, and one piece of copper are also included. Mr. Bertelson moved away from Suquamish in 1944 and the collection, which has been kept intact, is now housed with his brother in Minnesota. By the summer of 1945 the spit was surveyed and divided into small building lots for the erection of a summer colony so that the possibility of obtaining further information is slight indeed.

All of the artifacts of the McClallum Middle Fraser Collection were found on the McClallum farm a few miles northwest of Agassiz, British Columbia. A large habitation site is located on the farm on a ridge facing what may once have been a water connection between Harrison Lake and the Fraser River. This habitation site was mapped in 1945, and has been described elsewhere. In that year, the Columbia University Summer Field Party studied the collection and introduced Mr. McClallum to Mr. A. E. Pickford, then of the Provincial Museum, Victoria, who joined the party for a few days. The collection was moved to the museum under his direction.

Chipped stone points are now classified according to a scheme suggested by Thomas Wilson in 1898, worked out by Gifford and Schenck in 1926, and carefully modified by Strong in 1935. Part of Strong's modification developed from his earlier work in the Dalles-Deschutes region. The classification is based upon analysis of form. The presence or absence of a stem, indicated by S- and N- respectively, is used as the primary basis for division with the shape of the stem secondary. In discussing the Dalles-Deschutes points, Strong, Schenck, and Steward question the validity of the particular elements selected: “There remains some question whether the shape of the stem … or the presence of a shoulder or barb … should be chosen for secondary classification. We endeavor to present data so that either may be used.”

Before turning to a systematic description of the archaeological sites of the Columbia-Fraser region, it will be well to review briefly the main sources of information. It may then be possible to bring together various of the sites and, with considerable tentativeness to be sure, associate them according to the cultural phases they represent. Some framework for the prehistory of the region may thus be obtained.

Judge Wickersham's early data for western Washington led him to believe that it was a poor region “for the development of the Stone Age,” and that the Indian “made his implements of bone, shell, or wood, and these soon decayed.” He goes on, however, to mention mauls, adz blades, clubs, and pipes of polished stone, in addition to chipped points among which “ … local forms are rare, but so distinct in character from others, which are so clearly traced to eastern Washington, as to admit of but little doubt as to their local origin.” He apparently thought the archaeological materials were closely related to the objects used by living Indians. Ties between the peoples east and west of the Cascades were obvious on the ethnological level and Wickersham was, consequently, not surprised to find arrow points on the Sound which were reminiscent of the eastern section of the state.

The archaeology of the Columbia-Fraser region in the southern Northwest Coast is more complicated than early generalizations woilld have led one to suspect. Although there has been a constant adaptation to a river and marine economy, variations within that economy are marked and may be tentatively identified by the presence of bone and stone carving, and by the proportion.of stone to bone tools. Using these criteria, four cultural phases may be recognized: (1) Late Bone, which ties with historically known Indian groups and occurs throughout the region. It has wood sculpture but no carving in bone or stone; there are a few ground stone artifacts but chipped stone is rare. (2) Early Bone, which has the greatest antiquity and is apparently the richest culture of the region, having elaborate carving in bone and stone, beaten copper, a large variety of bone artifacts, and a number of stone pieces both ground and chipped.