The Island of Fogs at the end of the Age of Ice: Clear Evidence for fully developed Maritime Adaptations by the end of the Pleistocene in Baja California

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Placing people in particular spots in time and space gives only part of the evidence that we need to understand human history. With such limited information, we are adrift as to where populations may have come from and what decisions they were making in a world structured by human knowledge and technological capacity. In Greenland, Viking and Inuit populations occupied overlapping landscapes, but their engagement with their respective worlds were very distinct. We here present evidence from recent investigations of Terminal Pleistocene sites on Isla Cedros, Baja California that demonstrates an overwhelmingly dominant focus on marine resources as early as 13,400 CalBP. An examination of archaeological evidence for knowledge systems and material technologies can lead to a more robust comprehension of the ‘how’ and ‘why’ for the population movements that fall under the umbrella term ‘Peopling of the New World,’ a complex geographic and demographic process that may directly link Pacific Rim populations of the Pleistocene. Among the most salient items of material culture from early Isla Cedros sites are single-piece shell fishhooks that bear an uncanny resemblance in design, material, and function, to hooks from even earlier Pleistocene sites in Indonesia and Okinawa, Japan.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Late Pleistocene Archaeology of the Northern Pacific Rim

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 53540