Culturally Modified Trees in the Pacific Northwest

In the last decade, a growing body of mostly unpublished research on culturally modified trees (CMTs) has demonstrated: (1) their wide distribution throughout the Pacific Northwest, and (2) their inherent anthropological value for studying Native and non-Native forest use. Culturally scarred trees f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Arctic anthropology 1992-01, Vol.29 (2), p.91-110
Main Authors: Mobley, Charles M., Eldridge, Morley
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bark
Branches
Fire scars
Forest resources
Logging
National forests
Scars
Stone tools
Timber
Trees
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:In the last decade, a growing body of mostly unpublished research on culturally modified trees (CMTs) has demonstrated: (1) their wide distribution throughout the Pacific Northwest, and (2) their inherent anthropological value for studying Native and non-Native forest use. Culturally scarred trees from the Oregon Cascades to the Kodiak Archipelago in Alaska are predominately cedar, hemlock, spruce, and pine, and can in many cases be correlated with ethnographically-known traditions of bark and wood use. Nonetheless, the morphological variability displayed by reported samples is wide, and CMT typologies have necessarily been regionally specific. Criteria for discriminating natural from cultural modification have become more sophisticated. Techniques for dendrochronological analysis of CMTs have been perfected, with reported samples dating as old as A. D. 1467. Analysis of tool marks documents an array of metal and nonmetal tools used to strip bark, fell trees, and remove wood. Distributional patterns at several different scales have been recognized in systematically acquired CMT samples. The result is a blossoming field of study which blends ethnography and archaeology to focus upon a common (but often overlooked) feature class holding the potential for powerful anthropological inferences.
ISSN:0066-6939
1933-8139