Measuring Cultural Complexity in Protohistoric Hunter-Fisher-Gatherer Societies: Haida Gwaii Between Ca. 1650 and 1775 A.D.

This new work seeks to restore the Northwest Coast societies and their cultures to their proper places in an understanding of hunter-fisher-gatherer societies and cultural developments, using an integrated archaeological and ethnographic analysis of the Haida, who still live in the Haida Gwaii archipelago off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. The ultimate goal is the measurement and interpretation of socio-cultural complexity in protohistoric hunter-fisher-gatherer societies in northwestern North America by statistical analyses of all the available archaeological, ethnohistorical, and ethnographic data. Comparisons are then made with bordering Northwest Coast and neighboring Northern Athapaskan, Eyak, Yupik, and Inupiat.