Assessing Response of Tse-whit-zen's Large-bodied Fish to Environmental Change using Sampling to Redundancy

Summary

Tse-whitzen is one of the largest village excavations on the Northwest Coast; more than 1,400 features were documented and an estimated 234,563 fish bones were recovered from ¼" mesh alone. While research potential is great, the challenge of sampling such a huge assemblage is daunting. Previous research has focused on the >1/8" mesh matrix from "C" buckets, which emphasizes small-bodied fishes. To track changing representation of large-bodied fish through time and space, we devised a method of "sampling to redundancy" (STR), incrementally analyzing matrix collected in 10 L "S" buckets, screened through ¼" mesh. Analysis ceased when fish family proportional representation stabilized for a given chronostratigraphic zone within an excavation unit. To illustrate the power of STR, we review results from a study of S buckets from 8-1x1m2 units. Out of 441 buckets, remains from 272 buckets were analyzed, a savings of 38% in number of sample contexts studied. Fish family representation in the C (>1/4") and S buckets was compared to see if additional S bucket volume altered large-bodied fish representation. To track fish response to great earthquakes, we studied representation of greenlings (mainly lingcod) and dogfish (Squalidae), which should be differentially affected by nearshore disturbance.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Study of Human Ecodynamics at Tse-whit-zen, a 2,800-Year-Old Lower Elwha Klallam Coastal Village in Washington State, U.S.A.

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 14401