The Use of Ancient DNA to Investigate Change in Vole Populations during the Past 7,000 years: Implications for Past Land Management Practices

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The integration of genetic research on contemporary and ancient organisms into archaeological studies represents a novel approach in the analysis of long-term landscape management practices by small-scale societies. Our project employs methods in genetics (aDNA, phylogeographic research on contemporary populations) that are underutilized in archaeological studies. We analyzed vole aDNA (Microtus californicus) from four archaeological sites that date from the mid-Holocene to the contact period. Through the analysis of vole aDNA, we investigate potential shifts in open coast prairie to closed chaparral and forest environments associated with changes in land use practices that began with European colonization. We expect that the change from indigenous to European land use would have caused large effects on rodent population shifts, with closed country species gaining ascendancy over grassland species. By integrating these archaeological aDNA samples into existing large-scale contemporary sampling of voles across their range, we hope to pinpoint population movement and estimate demographics at a high degree of precision. Data produced through this component of the project will improve our understanding of the long-term responses of voles to changes in climate, human use, and landscape disturbance regimes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Current Insights into Pyrodiversity and Seascape Management on the Central California Coast   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 25398