Using Barn Owl (Tyto alba) Pellets to Build Environmental Profiles: A 1,500-Year-Old Record from Barn Owl Cave, Santa Barbara Island, California, USA

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Palaeoeconomic and Environmental Reconstructions in Island and Coastal Archaeology" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Archaeology has a long history of applying proxy data to reconstruct past environmental conditions. Archaeological deposits, however, represent an anthropocentric view of the past, one biased by human selection and decision-making. This research focuses on excavation and analysis of owl-generated, non-cultural deposits in Barn Owl Cave, located on the northeast coast of Santa Barbara Island. The goals of our research are twofold: 1) to understand predator (owls) and prey (mice, lizards, and seabirds) availability and dynamics through time; and 2) to use these data as proxies for reconstructing wet/dry cycles potentially linked to broader oceanographic conditions. Our results suggest that periodic prey switching is linked to wet/dry cycles and changes in relative sea surface temperature. The relative abundance of mice, lizards, and passerines from components dated to the Medieval Climate Anomaly (dry) and the Little Ice Age (wet) confirm these anomalies affected the terrestrial biota of the island. These data contribute to regional climatic and environmental reconstructions used to interpret the archaeological record and document local island extinctions of at least three breeding avifauna, which were likely caused by historic introduction of domestic animals and subsequent overgrazing.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)   •
• Palaeoeconomic and Environmental Reconstructions in Island and Coastal Archaeology

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25950