ABSTRACT
Ethnographic accounts of plateau pacifism have come under growing criticism from archaeologists working in the Columbia and Snake River basins of the Interior Northwest. Archaeological evidence for violence continued to emerge, along with attempts to find appropriate terms for it. Chatters interpreted the orientations of cranial and arrow wounds to indicate feuds over resources rather than interethnic warfare. Although defensive works in the Interior Northwest have received little attention from archaeologists, early ethnographers recorded several examples. Archaeologists studying the record of collective violence in the Interior Northwest might begin with a close review of the scattered ethnographic and historic evidence for defensive works throughout the area. Egalitarianism is a hard-won and precariously maintained achievement, not a blank slate or starting point that allows more complex arrangements to evolve later. Keeping kin networks intact and negotiating balanced power relations promised participants greater rewards than land grabs or population subtractions in the Interior Northwest.
