Dietary Variation, Population Aggregation, and Foraging Strategies on Santa Rosa Island during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly

Summary

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

We examine dietary change on northern Santa Rosa Island, California, at the mouth of Cañada Verde, the location of the historically documented village of Silimihi, the third-largest village on the island by baptisms. There is evidence of a human presence at this location from the middle Holocene (4560–4140 95% cal BP) through the period of Spanish contact. Early occupation is at CA-SRI-41 to the west of the drainage mouth, before moving to CA-SRI-40 and -502 to the east after the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (1150–600 cal BP). Dietary diversity and faunal density increase through time, including fish and sea mammal bone. We compare the faunal record at these sites to that from CA-SRI-97 (Nawani), the smallest village site on the island, located along the southwest coast at the mouth of Acapulco Canyon. While both sites include a high diversity and density of fish bone and shellfish, both are higher at the larger village site of Silimihi. These findings are consistent with ecological models that indicate the north coast was wetter providing greater marine productivity. Results of this analysis provide important information about the context of population aggregation to villages among coastal hunter-gatherers and how it may differ between habitats.

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): 37426.0