The Northwest Coast Culture Area

Because this book focuses on the evolution of the Developed Northwest Coast Pattern, an abstraction based on the ethnographic cultures, we need to describe exactly the extent, commonalities, and the variation within this culture area. We begin with a brief review of the definition and description of this culture area by Wissler, Kroeber, and Drucker, and then look at the very different procedures used by Jorgensen (1980) to arrive at a similar classification. After this discussion, we review the commonalities and variability that make up the Developed Northwest Coast Pattern. This description serves as the object of comparison with the archaeological developments that are our main subject.