Traps, Weirs, Ponds, and Gardens: Exploring the Social and Ecological Significance of Aquatic Subsistence Features

Part of: Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

Aquatic subsistence features are used cooperatively by cultural groups around the world; common examples include fish traps and weirs, clam gardens, and fish ponds. Aquatic foraging and aquaculture practices such as these are highly varied and operate in different dimensions that are structured by both social and environmental parameters. This perspective comes to us via multi-method anthropological approaches incorporating ethnography, oral history, and archaeology. As archaeological treatments have shifted towards aspects of practice, history, landscape, ontology, sociality, and human-environment interactions, our knowledge of customary fishing and shell fishing practices is now positioned to inform on much more beyond subsistence strategies. Recent topics include labor and community organization, ownership, territoriality, religion, ritual, technology, identity, landscape modification, resource management and long-term change and continuity in practices. Also, in light of growing concerns regarding climate change and the potential loss of archaeological resources along the coast, there has been an increase in multidisciplinary research highlighting local indigenous knowledge and the role that maritime subsistence practices play in social resiliency and sustainability. This session explores the global diversity and the social and ecological significance of past and present aquatic subsistence features and practices, linking together common anthropological and archaeological themes in a holistic manner.

Other Keywords
Political economy • Ritual • Fish Traps • Fish Weirs • Woodland period • Identity • Settlement patterns • Aquaculture • historical ecology • Northwest Coast

Geographic Keywords
North America (Continent) • United Mexican States (Country) • Yukon Territory (State / Territory) • Republic of El Salvador (Country) • Belize (Country) • Republic of Guatemala (Country) • Alaska (State / Territory) • Republic of Vanuatu (Country) • Oceania • Midway Islands (Country)

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  • Documents (8)
Documents
  • Ancient Clam Gardens and Ecological Enhancement on Northern Quadra Island, BC (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ginevra Toniello. Dana Lepofsky. Kirsten Rowell.

    Clam gardens, anthropogenic rock-walled terraces built at the lowest intertidal, are part of an ancient system of mariculture of the Indigenous people of the Northwest Coast of North America. The construction of clam gardens increased shellfish production by increasing ideal clam habitat and creating substrate preferred for clam growth. On Northern Quadra Island, where there is a dense concentration of clam gardens, we assess bivalve productivity of clam gardens by 1) calculating how much clam...

  • Ecological, Archaeological, and Social Perspectives of Northern Coast Salish Marine Resource Management Systems (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Megan Caldwell. Dana Lepofsky. Robert Losey.

    Coastal peoples around the world have complex systems of marine management that are situated within and influenced by a myriad of social and ecological actions and contexts. On the Northwest Coast of North America, as elsewhere, understanding the physical and non-tangible aspects of these systems requires using diverse kinds of knowledge and data. In this presentation, we bring together traditional ecological knowledge of Tla’amin First Nation elders with archaeological data to understand the...

  • Fishponds and Aquaculture in the Ancient Hawaiian Political Economy (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Patrick Kirch.

    The political economy of ancient Hawai'i, prior to European contact in 1778-79, has often been characterized as based primarily on a "staple economy" with highly intensified forms of both irrigated and dryland agriculture. Less appreciated is the role of intensive aquaculture of two species (milkfish and mullet) using several kinds of often extensive fishponds. This paper explores the role and significance of such aquaculture in the late pre-contact Hawaiian political economy, drawing especially...

  • Investigating the Impact of Fish Weirs from the Bottom Up: A Perspective from the Southeast (USA) (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ginessa Mahar.

    Archaeological approaches to fish weirs in the southeastern United States have traditionally focused around issues of social complexity and resource intensification in the Mississippian period (post cal A.D. 1000). This pairing has limited our view of the antiquity of fish weirs and their socio-cultural impact beyond economics, subsistence, and politics—the assumption being that weirs were an answer to a problem of economic demand from the top down. However, a recent look into regional...

  • Mapping Island 'Moka': Assessing the Spatial Patterns of Customary Fishing Weirs in the Fiji Island Group (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Damion Sailors.

    Customary Fijian fishing weirs, known locally as 'moka', are an archaeological feature type that can be readily identified due to their large size, uniform shape, and conspicuous location on the tidal flats and shorelines of both high and low islands. Recent advances in remote sensing technology have allowed for an improved survey of Fijian fishing weirs adding to the existing inventory and informing upon early settlement patterns in the Fiji Island group. While 'moka' do not play a major part...

  • Medieval fishweirs in Britain and Ireland: exploring practice, power, and identity amongst fishing communities (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Aidan O'Sullivan.

    Medieval wooden and stone fishweirs are amongst the most spectacularly preserved evidence for fishing practices amongst riverine and estuarine communities in Britain and Ireland. Recent archaeological surveys and excavations have traced their types of construction, forms, uses and biographies across time, and increasingly sophisticated means of dating them has enabled us to identify patterns in their repair over relatively short periods of time (i.e. years and decades). This paper will use...

  • Tlingit "Streamscaping" as Landesque Capital Formation (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Steve Langdon.

    The Tlingit heen sati ("stream master") was responsible for establishing and maintaining respectful relations with salmon as a trustee for his clan. The portfolio of obligations included both pragmatic duties controlling access and harvests and ritual responsibilities, such as greeting the arrival of salmon each year with welcoming ceremonies, practices anchored to the Salmon Boy mythic charter that identified the fundamental similarity of humans to salmon as persons. Another dimension of...

  • "Why those old fellas stopped using them?" Spiritual and ritual dimensions of stone-walled fish trap use amongst the Yanyuwa of northern Australia (2017)
    DOCUMENT Citation Only Ian McNiven. John Bradley.

    Archaeological approaches to stone-walled tidal fish traps of Indigenous Australians focus on the technology and subsistence, with chronological development linked to demands of increased food production associated with demographic change and social intensification. For the Yanyuwa ‘Saltwater People’ of tropical northern Australia, old stone-walled fish traps found within the intertidal zone are associated with the creative acts of ancestral spirit beings. As such, these fish traps are imbued...