Patch choice model predictions for jackrabbit processing at Antelope Cave, Arizona

Summary

Zooarchaeological research conducted under the conceptual realm of behavioral ecology has generally focused on the decision-making processes made during and immediately after hunting activities, at the cost of studies that explicitly attempt to predict culinary processing according to ecological or social conditions. It is critical that archaeologists develop tools for predicting and identifying culinary processing methods if our goal is to fully understand prehistoric foraging decisions. Since an individual animal is a clumped resource, a patch-choice model may be used to determine the amount of time a processor should spend on extracting nutritional benefits through cooking. The predictions from the patch choice model are tested using the faunal assemblage from Antelope Cave, northwestern Arizona. The assemblage is strongly dominated by jackrabbits with a high level of preservation that allowed for the building of inferences regarding acquisition, butchering, cooking, and consumption activities. As predicted by the patch choice model, the occupants of the site were maximizing the extraction of nutritional benefits from jackrabbits during a period of relatively poor environmental conditions.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Antelope Cave: A Dry Ancestral Puebloan (Virgin Anasazi) Site in Northwestern Arizona

Keywords

Spatial Coverage