The Study of Indigenous Landscape and Seascape Management Practices in Central California: A Synthesis of Recent Findings

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This paper synthesizes the results of our recent investigation of indigenous landscape and seascape management practices in Central California in ancient and historical times. The project involves a collaborative team of scholars from the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, Amah Mutsun Land Trust, California State Parks, and the University of California campuses at Berkeley and Santa Cruz who are implementing an inter-disciplinary approach to the study of terrestrial (anthropogenic burning) and coastal management practices using multiple data sets drawn from tribal histories, archaeological and aDNA research, ecological studies, and ethnohistorical sources. The specific goals of the second phase of this project are to provide a better understanding of when people initiated sustained anthropogenic burning and seascape management practices, how they may have modified and developed these practices over time, and to address the scale at which people implemented these practices. These goals are being addressed through the investigation of sites in several study areas along the Santa Cruz Coast that date to Middle Holocene (7000-3000 BP), Late Holocene (3000-500 BP), and Historical times (500-200 BP).

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25996