Tracing Long-Term Human-Fish Interactions in Hokkaido, Japan, through Ancient DNA Analysis of Pacific Cod (Gadus macrocephalus) Remains

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 88th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Pacific cod (Gadus macrocephalus) was historically an important subsistence item for many Indigenous peoples along the North Pacific Rim including the Ainu of Hokkaido in northern Japan. However, relative to salmon, little archaeological research has been conducted on this taxon. Ethnographic records and oral traditions are also limited as many Ainu were unable to fish freely after Wajin—the ethnic majority Japanese—exercised control over the fishery in the eighteenth century. Thus, the nature of the long-term interactions between Ainu and cod remains unclear. In this paper, we investigate Pacific cod population history by conducting ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis on archaeological remains from various ancestral Ainu sites across Hokkaido that span four millennia. We sequenced variable regions of the mitochondrial genome to explore temporal changes in genetic diversity. Our research demonstrates how aDNA analysis can be used to shed light on the historical ecology of the Pacific cod and the effects of fisheries and marine environmental changes.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2023: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 88th Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (2023)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 36903.0