The Lives of the First People of the Northwest as Revealed by their Skeletal Remains
Archaeologists learn about ancient peoples through studying the tangible evidence they left behind. Remains of tools, technologies, houses, and foodstuffs tell us a great deal about the cultures of our predecessors, but it is only through their skeletons that we can gain a true sense of what it was like to live their lives. This presentation will discuss the few individuals who have come forward in time from the earliest well-documented cultures of the Pacific Northwest, including those from Marmes, Buhl, and Kennewick, and show how the evidence they provide compares with what is known about other first North Americans.
Jim Chatters is an archaeologist and paleontologist who owns the consulting firm Applied Paleoscience. He formerly managed contract paleontological and cultural resources research for the University of Washington, Central Washington University, Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratory, Foster Wheeler Environmental, and AMEC. Officially “retired” he is actively involved in research and publishing on the Pacific Northwest and Mexico, and consults to the commercial radiocarbon dating laboratory DirectAMS. In 1996, Chatters recovered, and was the first scientist to study, the PaleoIndian skeleton now known as Kennewick Man. He is the author of numerous scientific articles and monographs and the public-oriented book Ancient Encounters: Kennewick Man and the First Americans (Simon & Schuster, 2001).
1pm-3pm