Coastal Peoples of Oregon: The Par-Tee Collection


Introduction

The Oregon coast falls within the Northwest Coast culture area, a region long inhabited by diverse hunting, gathering, and fishing peoples. The northern portion of this state’s coast was home to the Clatsop, speakers of a Chinookan language, and the Tillamook, speakers of a Salish language. Despite these language differences, the Clatsop and Tillamook regularly traded, intermarried, and otherwise interacted, and as a result, shared many customs, traditions, and beliefs.

At the southern margin of the long sandy beach extending from the mouth of the Columbia River is the town of Seaside. During the early 1800s, the Seaside area was the location of several villages inhabited by a mix of Tillamook and Clatsop people. Several large archaeological sites in and around Seaside testify to thousands of years of occupation by these peoples. Here we examine recent research carried out on Smithsonian collections from one of these ancient villages, known to archaeologists as the Par-Tee site (35-CT-20).

Website created by Robert Losey, Department of Anthropology, University of Alberta.