Ridge-Top Storage and Defensive Sites: New Evidence of Conflict in Northern British Columbia

Abstract

Regional settlement survey at Kitwancool Lake in northern British Columbia has indicated that food storage features (cache pits) tend to be situated in steep ridge-top locations, as are a lookout site and small pithouse settlement. The positioning of these sites provides evidence of perceived threats and fits a pattern of regional conflict emerging from other ethnohistoric and archaeological data. The motives for conflict are briefly considered in terms of the lake's rich salmon resources and its position near the interior frontier of the Northwest Coast culture area, but the main focus is upon contextualizing a ubiquitous but under-emphasized site type—cache pits.