Fertility in Ancient California: Life History Strategies and Implications for Demographics, Resource Intensification, and Social Organization

Summary

Human behavioral ecology predicts that individuals alter reproductive strategies in response to environmental and social conditions. I consider stable isotope measures (δ15N and δ13C) of weaning age, parental provisioning, and child foraging derived from human tissues as proxies for the reproductive strategies employed by prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations from Central California over a 6,000-year period. Shifts in weaning age and childhood diet over time suggest reduced parental investment associated with the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA) (1100-700 BP), a period noted for severe episodic droughts and general environmental and social disruption. The decline in mean weaning age and associated shortening of inter-birth intervals during the MCA is consistent with the hypothesized offspring quantity-quality trade-off. This change in life history strategy initiated a cycle of population growth and resource intensification that drove adaptive shifts in settlement patterns and socio-political structure, ultimately resulting in native Californian’s high population density and unique tribelet organization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Ancient California: Reconstructing Lifeways with Behavioral Ecology Models

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15158