California’s Channel Islands as a Model System for Understanding the Historical Ecology of Islands

Author(s): Torben Rick; Todd Braje; Leslie Reeder-Myers; Courtney Hofman; Jon Erlandson

Year: 2016

Summary

Islands around the world have served as important model systems for understanding a host of cultural and environmental issues. Here we synthesize our long-term research program on the historical ecology and archaeology of California’s Channel Islands. Drawing on zooarchaeological, paleoethnobotanical, genetic, stable isotope, and other datasets we document a 13,000 year sequence of human environmental interactions from coastal foragers to early historical ranchers and modern conservationists. These data underscore the value of island archaeology for helping better understand contemporary environmental issues and the conservation, management, and sustainability of island cultures and ecosystems.

Cite this Record

California’s Channel Islands as a Model System for Understanding the Historical Ecology of Islands. Torben Rick, Todd Braje, Leslie Reeder-Myers, Courtney Hofman, Jon Erlandson. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Orlando, Florida. 2016 ( tDAR id: 403150)

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Keywords

General
Coastal Archaeology • Environmental Archaeology • historical ecology

Geographic Keywords
North America - California

Spatial Coverage

min long: -125.464; min lat: 32.101 ; max long: -114.214; max lat: 42.033 ;