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Don Day
Anthropology

John Erlandson, Mentor

Plank Housing of Cedar

Indigenous people of the Northwest used many types of materials in the construction of their housing. A few of these were willow and skin, reeds, Douglas fir, redwood, and red cedar. All were used along the northwest coast from Alaska to California. In Oregon, red cedar was the main material used for plank house construction. Archaeological discoveries throughout the northwest have revealed many sites where cedar plank houses once stood. At most of these locations researchers have found tools that were used to split planks, including wedges manufactured from stone, bone, antler or yew wood. Lewis and Clark, in their journals, mention many split plank style lodges or houses that they observed on their travels down the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. This research project will help to reestablish the lost technologies of plank manufacturing. This involves manufacturing wedges from wood and antler, then using these tools to split planks from cedar logs. Results of this research will be applied to the construction of a long house on the Grand Ronde Reservation.