alternatehistory.com

Celilo Falls in Oregon along the Columbia River, known as Wyam in the native languages of the area, was the oldest inhabited town in the Americas until flooded by a dam in 1957. The falls had salmon numbering into the tens of millions climbing up the falls to spawn along with bears, sea lions, and a very large trading community. As a reference the expedition of Lewis and Clark found the population density there higher than anything else they had seen on their trip, later it was referred to by another explorer as 'The Wall Street of the West'. We know between 7,000 and 10,000 people lived there when Lewis and Clark passed through and prior to that over 5,000 gathered for religious purposes. A permanent population lived in the area for over 10,000 years. Could this trading center have become the nucleus for a civilization, perhaps even an empire, and if so how far could it plausibly go? Please note that artifacts in the area are known to range from at least Montana to British Columbia to California.
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