Evidence of Specialization and Intensification of Small Seed Exploitation on Santa Cruz Island, California

Summary

This paper reconstructs shifts in botanical foraging behavior on Santa Cruz Island, California and quantitatively demonstrates specialization and intensification in the exploitation of small oily and starchy seeds from the terminal Early Period (ca. 3000 cal. BP) through the late Middle Period (ca. 1000 cal. BP). This shift accompanied an increased reliance on terrestrial food resources overall. A recently recognized climatic transition (2800 cal. BP-1800 cal. BP) likely altered the geographic distribution and productivity of marine and terrestrial resources across the Northern Channel Islands of California. The data presented in this paper suggests that increased reliance on terrestrial plant food resources reflects adaptation to decreased productivity of the nearshore marine environment and increased productivity terrestrial food resources.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Evolution of Intensive Plant Use by Complex Hunter-Gatherers: Archaeobotanical Records from California

Keywords

Spatial Coverage