Complex Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers of Prehistoric California: Chiefs, Specialists, and Maritime Adaptations of the Channel Islands

1992 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeanne E. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
New World ◽  
Channel Islands ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Maritime Adaptations ◽  
Channel Region ◽  
Lines Of Evidence

The Chumash of the Santa Barbara Channel region were among the most economically and politically complex hunter–gatherer cultures of the New World. In recent decades, rich ethnohistorical documents pertaining to Chumash culture were analyzed, thus providing an excellent foundation for understanding the simple chiefdom that was in place as explorers and missionaries arrived in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. Current archaeological research on the Channel Islands focuses on the emergence of ranked society in Chumash prehistory, with special emphasis on political developments and environmental stresses that contributed to cultural evolution. A wide range of data acquired from the Channel Islands illuminates a new model of the rise of complexity. This model of chiefdom emergence is based on population-resource imbalances, political opportunism, and the manipulation of labor by rising elites. Diverse lines of evidence must be employed to evaluate the timing, causes, and consequences of increasing complexity.

Prehistoric Marine Mammal Hunting on California's Northern Channel Islands

1998 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 679-701 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger H. Colten ◽  
Jeanne E. Arnold
Keyword(s):  
Marine Mammal ◽  
Marine Mammals ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Channel Islands ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Relative Contribution ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Northern Channel Islands ◽  
Technological Developments

Prehistoric marine mammal hunting is of interest to archaeologists worldwide because these animals were exploited by a wide range of coastal societies. Sorting out the roles of particular groups of fauna in prehistoric economies requires detailed attention to the analysis of the entire faunal assemblage. Although marine mammals typically provided large quantities of fat and protein and were desirable prey, they were not always central to the diets of the groups that exploited them, particularly in temperate zones. To evaluate effectively the importance of marine mammal exploitation, scholars should calculate the relative contribution of these animals to the economy, identify changes in hunting techniques, determine the relationship between fauna and other aspects of society, assess changing environmental conditions, and consider alternate explanations for those relationships. A large body of research on the northern Channel Islands of California demonstrates that fishing was relatively more important than marine mammal exploitation in subsistence and in stimulating sociopolitical and technological developments. Recent attempts to credit marine mammal hunting as a driving force in the invention of the plank canoe and the evolution of a chiefdom in the Santa Barbara Channel area misunderstand environmental factors and site histories in this region. Rather than assuming that a pan-Pacific Coast set of traditions existed to exploit these taxa, we see evidence of local and regional differences rooted in variable cultural settings, physiographic and oceanographic conditions, and available technologies. Data from the Santa Barbara Channel are used to explore the relationships among marine mammal use, sociological change, and environmental change.

An Introduction to the Archaeology of Francophone Communities in the Americas

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth M. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Native American ◽  
New World ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Archaeological Research ◽  
Treaty Of Versailles ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
French Colonial ◽  
Successive Generations ◽  
Ancien Régime

This chapter provides a historical and geographical background and situates the volume’s contributions in the context of previous archaeological research into the French in the New World. The chapter discusses the ways in which French settlers made their presence felt on the landscape and on Native groups through a wide range of settlement types, economic and social networks, and successive generations of habitation. The chapter reviews both the well-studied French colonial period and the lesser known post-Conquest period, after the Treaty of Versailles and after the ancien régime fell, during which communities of Francophone peoples (ethnic French, Native American, and African) continued to live in the New World.

scholarly journals Intrashell Radiocarbon Variability in Marine Mollusks

Radiocarbon ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 48 (3) ◽  
pp. 387-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan J Culleton ◽  
Douglas J Kennett ◽  
B Lynn Ingram ◽  
Jon M Erlandson ◽  
John R Southon
Keyword(s):  
Deep Ocean ◽  
Mytilus Californianus ◽  
Ocean Water ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Complex Product ◽  
Deep Ocean Water ◽  
San Miguel Island ◽  
Ams Dating ◽  
Channel Region

We demonstrate variable radiocarbon content within 2 historic (AD 1936) and 2 prehistoric (about 8200 BP and 3500 BP) Mytilus californianus shells from the Santa Barbara Channel region, California, USA. Historic specimens from the mainland coast exhibit a greater range of intrashell variability (i.e. 180–240 14C yr) than archaeological specimens from Daisy Cave on San Miguel Island (i.e. 120 14C yr in both shells). δ13C and δ18O profiles are in general agreement with the up welling of deep ocean water depleted in 14C as a determinant of local marine reservoir correction (ΔR) in the San Miguel Island samples. Upwelling cycles are difficult to identify in the mainland specimens, where intrashell variations in 14C content may be a complex product of oceanic mixing and periodic seasonal inputs of 14C-depeleted terrestrial runoff. Though the mechanisms controlling ΔR at subannual to annual scales are not entirely clear, the fluctuations represent significant sources of random dating error in marine environments, particularly if a small section of shell is selected for accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dating. For maximum precision and accuracy in AMS dating of marine shells, we recommend that archaeologists, paleontologists, and 14C lab personnel average out these variations by sampling across multiple increments of growth.

Circulation in the Point Conception-Santa Barbara Channel region

1986 ◽  
Vol 91 (C1) ◽  
pp. 877 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. H. Brink ◽  
R. D. Muench
Keyword(s):  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Point Conception ◽  
Channel Region

The Origin of Island Mammoths and the Quaternary Land Bridge of the Northern Channel Islands, California

1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 204-225 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald Lee Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Late Quaternary ◽  
Channel Islands ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Land Bridge ◽  
Geological Evidence ◽  
Sea Levels ◽  
Environmental Setting ◽  
Northern Channel Islands ◽  
New Evidence

Pygmy proboscidean remains of Mammuthus exilis occur abundantly in late Quaternary deposits on the Northern Channel Islands, California. On the assumption that ancestral elephants could not have swum to the islands and must therefore have walked out, various land bridges have been hypothesized that link the northern islands to the mainland by a peninsula. Geological evidence for a land bridge, however, is lacking, and new evidence shows that elephants are excellent swimmers and skilled at crossing watergaps. The Santa Barbara Channel was narrowed to only 6 km during glacially lowered sea levels. Modern elephants swim much further, and at speeds ranging from 0.96–2.70 km/hr. Motives for California elephants to cross Pleistocene watergaps are inferred from motives that lead modern elephants in Asia and Africa to cross watergaps. These are the visual and olfactory sensing of islands and of insular food during times of drought or fire-induced food shortage. Diminutive size of M. exilis principally reflects lack of island predators, an adaption to periodic food stress in a finite forage area affected by periodic drought and fire, and an adaptation for keeping population numbers high to maintain genetic variability and to ensure survival despite accidents. A late Quaternary scenario describes the environmental setting of the Santa Barbara Channel and the conditions that led to proboscidean dispersal to the preexistent super-island Santarosae.

Our disappearing past: a GIS analysis of the vulnerability of coastal archaeological resources in California’s Santa Barbara Channel region

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 187-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leslie A. Reeder ◽  
Torben C. Rick ◽  
Jon M. Erlandson
Keyword(s):  
Gis Analysis ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Channel Region

The Wild Girl of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands

1944 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 59
Author(s):  
Rudolph Altrocchi
Keyword(s):  
Channel Islands ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara

Health in Prehistoric Populations of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands

1993 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 509-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia M. Lambert
Keyword(s):  
Protein Content ◽  
Skeletal Remains ◽  
Protein Deficiency ◽  
Intensive Agriculture ◽  
Channel Islands ◽  
Bone Lesions ◽  
Health Consequences ◽  
Santa Barbara Channel ◽  
Santa Barbara ◽  
Hunting And Gathering

Skeletal remains from the Santa Barbara Channel Islands, California were analyzed to evaluate the health consequences of an economic shift from a generalized maritime hunting-and-gathering adaptation to one focused increasingly on fishing. Changes in stature and in the frequency of inflammatory bone lesions suggest that health generally declined during this economic shift. This occurred despite an increase in the protein content of the diet. These data provide a basis for evaluating the significance of protein deficiency as a cause of the deterioration in health seen with the development of intensive agriculture.

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