Zooarchaeological Data, Habitat Suitability Models, and Game Management in the Intermountain West

Summary

This is an abstract from the "*Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Research on the impact of climate on artiodactyls in the western United States is still unfolding. Modern datasets on the impact of climatic variables on these animals often span no more than several decades and remain limited in number. Given these temporal constraints, archaeological and paleoecological data provide a promising avenue for viewing long-term the ways that temperature and precipitation condition artiodactyl demographics. Utilizing prey model logic, archaeological data, and the idea of habitat suitability, this project examines the relationships between climatic variables and artiodactyl abundances across the Holocene to build climate envelope models for large game in the Wyoming and Bonneville Basins. We discuss these findings and their implications for the health of artiodactyls in the context of current predictions for the effects of climate change on this region. Understanding the impact of these variables on artiodactyls in the past will allow wildlife managers, government organizations, and conservation groups to make more informed decisions regarding the management of animal populations in the coming decades of climate change.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• *Behavioral Ecology in the Mountain West   •
• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52122