Paleoethnobotany at the LSP-1 rockshelter, south central Oregon: Assessing the nutritional diversity of plant foods in Holocene diet

Abstract

This paper presents results of a paleoethnobotanical study using a nutritional ecology approach to investigate the contribution of plant foods to the diets of the occupants of LSP-1 (35HA3735), a modest rockshelter in Oregon's Warner Valley. Nutritional archeology offers an alternative to models derived from HBE for researchers interested in reconstructing prehistoric diet and understanding hunter–gatherer decision-making. Analysis of 7000+ individual seeds from archeological site deposits in the early (~10,000–7600BP), middle (~7600–4000BP), and late (~4000-contact) Holocene reveal temporal variations in the quantity of plant taxa targeted for consumption by visitors to LSP-1. Notably, the taxonomic and nutritional diversity of plant types present in the archeological deposits is elevated during late Holocene occupations of the rockshelter. Our results suggest that increases in dietary diversity correlate with periods of demographic expansion in Warner Valley and the northern Great Basin as a whole. These data contribute to a growing body of research proposing that the foraging pursuits of people participating in subsistence economies are not driven solely by caloric return rates.