ABSTRACT
The study of Northwest coast subsistence can offer some guidance in estimating the possibilities of cultural development under comparable conditions in prehistoric times. The Northwest coast refutes many seemingly easy generalizations about people without horticulture or herds. The Northwest coast material suggests that where people are faced with great seasonal and local variations in the amount of food offered by their habitat, their success in exploiting the abundance depends on more than technology alone. Of course the possibilities offered by the environment and the techniques of food-getting and food-storing could be realized only through the work of people, organized by their social systems and motivated by their value system. The Northwest coast was an area where one could find, on a single occasion, quite literally tons of food. Perhaps, also, a single, once-a-generation failure of a major fish run or prolonged period of severe weather may explain an otherwise inexplicable practice such as the Northwest coast search for prestige.
