Refining Ideal Free Distribution Predictions Using Paleoenvironmental and Zooarchaeological Data on California’s Northern Channel Islands

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

I examine the potential for using higher resolution environmental records to expand on existing Ideal Free Distribution (IFD) model applications on California’s Northern Channel Islands. In this project, I take advantage of recent advances in paleoenvironmental research and higher resolution proxy methods (e.g., sclerochronology) since previous applications and consider how IFD model applications within archaeology have been applied in the last decade. I then apply patterns in dietary diversity and settlement chronology in the context of multiproxy environmental data, which can be used to refine patterns in site suitability beyond what broader climate records in previous applications allowed. Informing climatic data is a synthesized set of proxy records (e.g., speleothem and coral records) using data archives sourced from Climate Data Online, PANGEA, and outside publications. Sclerochronology samples are sourced from two sites on Santa Rosa Island—namely, CA-SRI-19 and -138, two trans-Holocene dated sites. Faunal data is sourced and compiled from outside publications, supplementing CA-SRI-19 and -138. To ensure internal consistency of datasets for comparability, I review data for inconsistencies (e.g., nonunique primary identifiers) and differences in resolution (e.g., differing organization/ schema) prior to application within models. Results of this analysis provide important information about the continued calibration of IFD.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40083.0