History of the Coast Salish peoples

The history of the Coast Salish peoples is united by shared cultural traditions, kinship ties and related languages that connected this large group of indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, going back several millennia. Artifacts in the early stages of these cultures' formation are of great uniformity, and have a recognizable continuity that goes back in some places more than seven millennia.

In the area where today's Coast Salish reside, in a wide coastal strip of South Coast of British Columbia and in the Puget Sound are of the U.S. state of Washington, and in certain coastal areas of Oregon, traces of human presence date back over ten thousand years.