Highly fragmented, mainly indeterminate mammal bone from two sites on the inland margins of the Northwest Coast are analyzed in terms of size and fracture characteristics and interpreted as the result of bone grease rendering. Methodological approaches to the determination of this activity are discussed, and it is argued that multiple lines of evidence that include these characteristics in combination with interspecies comparisons of fragmentation levels and site processing facilities are most convincing. Predictions based on intra-skeletal grease yields, or utility indices, are not supported in this case, and similar arguments based on optimal behavior models which strictly relate grease rendering to resource stress are criticized. It is argued in this case that bone grease was routinely exploited as a supplement to the staple, dried salmon, and had advantages over the better known eulachon oil in this regard.
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