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Social scientists recognize a complex and iterative relationship between the built environment and social identities. Here, we explore the extent to which household and settlement remains may be used as archaeological correlates of collective identities among the Stó:lō-Coast Salish peoples of the Fraser River Valley. Using data from six recently tested archaeological sites we begin with the household and explore expressions of identity at various social-spatial scales. The sites span the period from 4200 cal B.C. to the late A.D. 1800s and include settlements with semi-subterranean houses of different forms as well as aboveground plank houses. Across this timeframe we see both change and continuity in settlement location, layout, size, and house form. Our data suggest that although group identities have changed over the millennia, selected social units have persisted through many generations and can be linked to present-day identities of the Stó:lō-Coast Salish.

Despite its ubiquity in residential middens at many North American archaeological sites, thermally modified rock (TMR) is among the least studied elements of the archaeological record. TMR assemblages, however, may provide key insights into routine cooking practices, patterns of refuse disposal, and midden formation processes. This article outlines the results of experimental research aimed at understanding the conditions by which TMR assemblages were created in residential settlements in the Pacific Northwest. We present baseline data addressing the thermal properties of the hearth, the rate and circumstances of cobble fracturing, the extent to which different kinds of cobbles break when exposed to heat for varying durations, and the effectiveness of hot cobbles at achieving cooking temperatures.

Whether or not traditional centralized leadership existed among the central Coast Salish of the Gulf of Georgia-Puget Sound Regions is a topic of ongoing interest and debate among archaeologists, social anthropologists, ethnohistorians, and Aboriginal communities. Recent findings in the lower Fraser River Canyon of British Columbia of a unique class of archaeological site—rock fortifications, newly identified on the Northwest Coast—present an opportunity to address this discussion. Description of these features and analysis of their situation within the physical and social landscapes of the Fraser Canyon provides insight into the nature of Stó:lō warfare and defensive strategy. I propose the existence of a multivillage defensive network aimed at regulating access to the entire “Canyon watershed” rather than simply defending individual settlements. I present a “corporate family group” model of sociopolitical organization through which this defensive system operated—representing a minimum level of intercommunity governance traditionally known to the Sto:Lō of the Gulf of Georgia Region. This proposition provides an alternate view to the long-held belief that individual households were the traditional centers of economy, and by extension, of political authority among the Aboriginal peoples of the Northwest Coast. These results affect the current understanding and reconstruction of traditional expressions of Stó: Lō identity engrained in sociopolitical organization.

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, becoming, existence, and relation. This paper presents an ontology of the Sq’éwlets Virtual Museum of Canada Website Project, a project that has focused on creating a digital community biography of the Sq’éwlets First Nation ( www.digitalsqewlets.ca ). Based on several decades of community archaeology and the recent production of short video documentaries, the website presents a long-term perspective of what it means to be a Sq’éwlets person and community member today. We explore how this project came to focus on the nature of being Sq’éwlets; how community members conceived the nature, structure, and nomenclature of the website; and how this Sq’éwlets being-ness is translated for outside audiences. We suggest what lessons this approach has for anthropological conventions of naming and knowing as they relate to Indigenous histories, and consider how archaeological knowledge can be transformed into a digital platform within a community-based process.