Macro and Micro Scale Signatures of Hunter-Gatherer Organization at the Coastal Sites of Point St. George, Northwestern Alta California

Abstract

Richard Gould's classic 1966 monograph, Archaeology of the Point St. George Site and Tolowa Prehistory, provided an important source of information on settlement and subsistence systems on the north coast of California. This article provides a quantitative assessment of two key ideas set forth in the study: (1) that there was profound variation in hunter-gatherer land use between the Middle and Late period components of the site, where marine foods were initially largely ignored and only later became a major focus; and (2) that the Late Period component was largely analogous to the ethnographic Tolowa, thus supporting an ethnoarchaeological approach. Drawing on previously unpublished quantitative macro-scale data from Gould's excavations at CA-DNO-11 and new micro-scale data from CA-DNO-13, we conclude that the components reflect two fundamentally different adaptive strategies: a more mobile foraging system in the Middle Period where people were targeting almost exclusively highly ranked taxa (regardless of whether they were marine or terrestrial foods), and a sedentary village-based system in the Late Period, when mass extractive methods, storage, and the logistical procurement of resources became important strategies. Identified dietary remains include all major staples used by ethnographic Tolowa, but certain interior resources (salmon and acorns) may have been less of a focus on the coast than previously portrayed.