Prehistoric Settlement in Island Interiors: Evidence From California's Santa Cruz Island

Abstract

ABSTRACTOn California's Channel Islands, a rich body of scholarship has emerged in which the focus has been marine resources and their roles in colonization and the development of complex societies. Although this orientation has been crucial to elucidating the cultural significance of the islands, the terrestrial dimensions of island occupation have been neglected by comparison. Our research on Santa Cruz Island, the largest of the Channel Islands, is an initial step in articulating the marine and terrestrial aspects of island subsistence and settlement off the California coast. Our study is based on the compilation of radiocarbon dates from 42 sites and excavation data from 17 of these. Commonalities in artifact and faunal constituents are evident among most interior sites, although there are significant differences relating to time period. The nature of interior settlement changed dramatically through time, shifting from what are interpreted as seasonal residential bases during the Middle Holocene to the byproducts of logistical forays during the Late Holocene, with an apparent gap in occupation from 1000 BC to AD 500. In this article we evaluate patterns in these data sets in terms of multiple hypotheses that invoke climatic and cultural factors to account for interior settlement. In doing so, we highlight the shifting importance of island interiors and their terrestrial resources to coastal societies through time.