The whale beneath the Barnacle: Rare Taxa in the analysis of Marine Invertebrates from the Tse-Whitzen Village Site

Summary

In faunal analysis, rare taxa can potentially provide valuable biogeographic or socioeconomic information, but are inherently difficult to interpret and to integrate with quantitative measures. Working with extremely large assemblages highlights these issues. Among the half million specimens of shell identified from the Tse-Whitzen village site are more than 20 taxa represented by less than 30 specimens. There is no single explanation for the presence of taxa in very low numbers, and the interpretive significance of their presence varies as well. In this assemblage, some taxa are present only as modified artifacts, i.e., ornaments (jingle shell, abalone, scallop), and others are non-food taxa which are likely to have been brought in by non-cultural processes (small chitons, gastropods). On the other hand, two taxa that have potentially large economic significance may be rare because of preservation and processing factors (Coronula diadema, an obligate whale barnacle, and geoduck). To what extent can these taxa be brought into discussions of past behavior otherwise dominated by measures of relative abundance?

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Preliminary Results from the Tse-whit-zen Project: Zooarchaeology and Geoarchaeology of a 2000 yr old Lower Elwha Klallam Village on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington State

Keywords

Spatial Coverage