Thinking outside the box: A new perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the Prearchaic Great Basin

Abstract

The archaeological record of the Pleistocene/Holocene transition (PHT) demonstrates that the technology and mobility of Prearchaic hunter-gatherers differed dramatically from later Holocene foragers, suggesting a hunting-oriented subsistence. However, meager PHT faunal assemblages imply a generalized, broad-spectrum diet. Ethnographic analogy fails to provide a behavioral framework for understanding this discrepancy because the resource structure of the PHT differed utterly from the ethnographic present. Palaeoenvironmental data alone are incapable of retrodicting ancient diets without an understanding of foraging costs in extinct resource landscapes. This paper reviews recent studies using behavioral ecology as a theoretical framework for simulating foraging behavior in a PHT resource landscape. The simulation for Railroad Valley, Nevada, suggests the explanation for the diversity of subsistence remains in PHT records lies in different foraging strategies for men and women, rather than risk aversion alone. Furthermore, the simulation suggests that Prearchaic hunter-gatherers enjoyed a narrower diet breadth than later foragers, prompting the mobility and technological profiles evinced in the PHT archaeological record.