Archaeobotanical Evidence for Indigenous Burning Practices and Foodways at CA-SMA-113

Abstract

On the central California coast, the low incidence of lightning fires, coupled with a relatively predictable regional vegetation succession pattern, leads to the expectation that in the absence of regular anthropogenic burning, the landscape would have been dominated by dense woody shrubland and forest cover with few plant food resources. Assessment of historical vegetation change in the Quiroste Valley research area supports this hypothesis. Archaeobotanical research at site CA-SMA-113 indicates that during the late Holocene (ca. cal AD 1000–1300), site inhabitants relied heavily on grassland seed foods, producing archaeobotanical assemblages much like those in contemporaneous interior central California sites. The CA-SMA-113 assemblage also contains several culturally or ecologically fire-associated plants in proportions higher than would be expected in the absence of anthropogenic burning. The CA-SMA-113 wood charcoal assemblage is composed mostly of taxa that are compatible with low intensity fire, in sharp contrast to the fire-susceptible trees and shrubs that dominate the landscape today. A synthetic interpretation of the CA-SMA-113 botanical data supports the hypothesis of frequent anthropogenic landscape burning around Quiroste Valley during the late Holocene.