Where’s the Cod?: Toward a Predictive Model of Prehistoric Land-use and Migration in the Aleutian Islands

Summary

This study explores human/environment interactions in the Aleutian archipelago by pairing eco-niche modeling of cod (Gaddus sp.), a primary subsistence species, with prehistoric archaeological site distribution using a GIS platform. The distributions of site locations and cod habitat simulated using GARP software at multiple time slices through the Holocene show strong spatial and temporal correlation. Both site location and cod distribution are time transgressive with a pattern of westward expansion across the island chain through the Holocene. These data suggest that ecological resilience was an adaptive strategy practiced throughout the Holocene by hunter-gatherers in the Aleutian Islands. This study highlights the analytical potential of using eco-niches of subsistence species in conjunction with the geographic distribution of resources critical to survival such as fresh water and lithic material in developing predictive models of land-use and for formulating and testing hypotheses about the adaptive strategies of coastal hunter-gatherers.

SAA 2015 abstracts made available in tDAR courtesy of the Society for American Archaeology and Center for Digital Antiquity Collaborative Program to improve digital data in archaeology. If you are the author of this presentation you may upload your paper, poster, presentation, or associated data (up to 3 files/30MB) for free. Please visit http://www.tdar.org/SAA2015 for instructions and more information.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• Current Problems in Arctic Research

Keywords

Spatial Coverage