Explaining variability in Early Paleoindian foraging

Abstract

We have argued elsewhere [Cannon, M.D., Meltzer, D.J., 2004. Early Paleoindian foraging: examining the faunal evidence for large mammal specialization and regional variability in prey choice. Quaternary Science Reviews 23, 1955–1987] that the North American archaeofaunal record provides little support for the notion that Early Paleoindians across the continent practiced a uniform subsistence strategy focused on the specialized hunting of large mammals; rather, there is some evidence for regional variability in human subsistence during the Early Paleoindian period (ca. 11,500–10,800 14C yr BP). Here, we further explore the archaeofaunal evidence for regional variability in subsistence behavior, focusing in particular on diet breadth and on the degree to which diets were dominated by large-bodied mammals. We also show how geographic variability in Early Paleoindian foraging can be understood in relation to environmental variability by employing a foraging theory model of patch choice in fractal environments [Ritchie, M.E., 1998. Scale-dependent foraging and patch choice in fractal environments. Evolutionary Ecology 12, 309–330]. Broad-scale patterns of regional variability in Early Paleoindian prey choice are consistent with the explanation—derived from the fractal patch choice model in conjunction with paleoenvironmental data on the “grain-size” of terminal Pleistocene environments—that the subsistence strategies of early Americans were sensitive to the tradeoff between searching for and foraging in resource patches in a patchy environment, and that those strategies varied in response to the heterogeneity of the environments that different early American groups inhabited. We conclude by briefly critiquing the use of foraging theory in Early Paleoindian research and by presenting suggestions for future improvements in our understanding of Early Paleoindian subsistence.