THE FRASER RIVER INVESTIGATIONS INTO CORPORATE GROUP ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT more  -->

The goal of the Fraser River Investigations into Corporate Group Archaeology Project was to understand the economic and social organization that made large villages and households possible prehistorically. In order to answer such questions, special attention had to be paid to formation processes and the nature of sediments encountered in housepit remains. Project results indicate that the 'Classic Lillooet' villages were exceptionally well situated to obtain and trade large numbers of salmon of prime quality for drying and preservation. Evidence of trade with the coast is abundant at the site, as well as evidence for ownership of resources, wealth, accumulation, and hierarchial socioeconomic organization. On the basis of the analysis of fish remains at the site, it appears that large households probably owned or restricted access to some of the most lucrative fishing and hunting areas.

This fishery provided thousands of fish for winter food and for trade to other communities around Lillooet.

In August and September, most residents moved to the Fraser River to catch migrating salmon. The most productive fishing site in the entire Interior Fraser River drainage is in the Six-Mile fishery, shown here, where the river is tightly constricted and where salmon rest before attempting to swim up the rapids. First Nations drying racks can be seen on the far bank of the river. Fish drying camps are simple affairs consisting of pole racks for hanging up fish to dry. 

While the areas around the drying racks are kept scrupulously clean of any fish remains, leaving no clue as to their actual function on the basis of faunal remains, the bone and other fish wastes are carried to narrow ravines on the site, where they are dumped in bulk. Some of the piles of fish bones in these locations are over a meter deep. Contents of these ravines are sometimes flushed back into the river by heavy rains. At other fishing sites, fish remains are simply thrown back into the river, again leaving no faunal remains at the actual sites where thousands of fish are butchered each year. 

Overfishing and industrial degradation of the river and spawning stream environments have greatly reduced the quantities of salmon that now migrate up the Fraser River. However, at the turn of the century, the fish were "so thick that you could walk on them".

photo W.A. Phair (taken in the early 1900's)
This early photograph (Courtesy of the Royal British Columbia Museum Victoria, British Columbia. negative number: PN13404.) gives some impression of the abundance of salmon that used to occur in the Lillooet area.

photo by B. Hayden, 1991Archaeological remains from a fish drying camp.

photo by B. Hayden, 1991
Fish drying camps are simple affairs consisting of pole racks for hanging up fish to dry. After filleting the fish, it takes about 3 - 4 days for them to dry thoroughly.