Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Anthropological Archaeology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaa From local to regional and back again: Social transformation in a Coast Salish settlement, 1500–1000 BP ☆ Morgan Ritchie a, ⁎ , Dana Lepofsky b a Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, 6303 NW Marine Drive, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1, Canada b Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, 8888 University Drive, Burnaby, British Columbia V5A 1S6, Canada ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Social Organization Social change Settlement patterns Household Pithouse Plank house Status Northwest coast Coast Salish Sts'ailes ABSTRACT Households link micro and macro scales of social interactions, and both refect and initiate social transforma- tions, from the scale of the house to the region. Despite their potential interpretive efcacy, few studies scale up from interpretations of household dynamics to that of the larger social landscape. We examine local and regional social changes by documenting changing interactions between households at the large Sts’ailes-Coast Salish settlement of Hiqelem on the Harrison River. We focus on the period 1500 to 1000 years ago – a transformative period across the Pacifc Northwest Coast and Interior Plateau marked by changes in burial practices, the in- tensifcation of warfare, new technologies, and by larger settlements exhibiting ranked social status. Shifts in house(hold) and settlement structure at Hiqelem reveal how these region-wide changes were manifest in social groupings at the local level and how social changes at the local level in turn reverberate throughout the nested social networks characteristic of the region. We detect several related changes at Hiqelem including an increased number of houses, the formation of local groups, the co-occurrence for the frst time of pithouses and plank houses, the relocation of houses, increasing segmentation and autonomy of households, and signifcant difer- ences among house sizes. 1. Introduction Tracking the ways in which past social groups interact and are confgured and reconfgured over varying temporal and spatial scales is a fundamental goal of archaeology. However, recognizing such social groupings in the archaeological record can present considerable chal- lenges. For this reason, many archaeologists are drawn to studies of the socially recognizable unit of the household and its archaeological cor- relate, the house. Houses are sensitive markers of social patterns, sig- naling change and continuity in how people related to others and to the land and resources in their local environments and beyond (Flannery, 1972; Lee and Bale, 2016; Parkinson, 2006; Sahlins, 1972). Households, especially high status ones, integrate micro and macro scales of social interactions and serve as conduits through which regional patterns are manifest, enhanced, reifed, and modifed (Ames, 2006; Lee and Bale, 2016; Parkinson, 2006). Local and regionally integrated and inter- secting networks of commerce, ceremonies, and marriages in turn re- produce and transform houses, along with their physical and social landscapes (e.g., Lopiparo, 2007:76-80). A diachronic study of houses and house groupings, then, is a logical place to initiate research into the process of social change at both local and regional scales (Blake, 2010). Despite the potential interpretive efcacy of houses and households, however, few studies scale up from interpretations of household dynamics to that of the larger social landscape (Kahn, 2016; Souvatzi, 2017). Furthermore, when studies do encompass social units other than the household, they are often limited in their interpretive breadth by the difculty of examining how con- temporaneous changes were enacted at diferent social scales (Ames, 2006; Lopiparo, 2007; Parkinson, 2006). In some regions, such local to regional inferences are facilitated by rich ethnohistoric records that can fll in the context-specifc gaps about how various social units were inextricably linked and mutually constitutive (e.g., Lopiparo, 2007; Parkinson, 2006). On the Northwest Coast of North America (Fig. 1), the archae- ological and ethnohistoric records indicate that the interconnectedness of households across great distances make houses a useful starting point for understanding chronologically and geographically extensive social patterns. Northwest Coast households were enmeshed in, and sustained, complex and multiple intersecting webs of relationships through which they were integrated or excluded from social, economic, and political https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2020.101210 Received 1 August 2019; Received in revised form 20 July 2020 ☆ Dedicated to Ken Ames, whose insights about household interactions at local and regional scales inspired countless scholars. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: morgan.ritchie@alumni.ubc.ca, mritchie@alumni.ubc.ca (M. Ritchie), dlepofsk@sfu.ca (D. Lepofsky). Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 60 (2020) 101210 0278-4165/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. T