Coastal Hunter-gatherers Research Articles

The use and context of fiber plants during the middle preceramic: evidence from La Yerba II and III, south coast of Peru

Bast fiber artifacts from the Pacific coast of South America are among the earliest evidence of fabric manipulation and the foundation of the millennial Andean textile tradition. Recent examinations of plant macro remains and plant fiber artifacts from La Yerba II (7570–6674 cal BP) and La Yerba III (6485–5893 cal BP) sites provide insight into how plant fabric technologies and pre-loom textile traditions unfolded over the Middle Preceramic (or Middle Archaic; 8000–5000 BP) on the south coast of Peru. Using light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM), we conduct comparative analyses of modern and archaeological plants to assess the taxonomy and morphological distinctions between them to discriminate species. We identify materials from wild-gathered plants in the Cyperaceae, Typhaceae, and Apocynaceae families and show how they were used to make fishing nets, looped bags, mats, and other artifacts. Evidence from tools and cut marks also enabled us to reconstruct parts of the chaîne opératoire of the fiber production. We discuss the significance of plants from wetland and estuarine habitats in the interrelated dimensions of fabric manufacture and food consumption among these coastal hunter-gatherers.

Stable isotope analyses of amino acids reveal the importance of aquatic resources to Mediterranean coastal hunter-gatherers.

Determining the degree to which humans relied on coastal resources in the past is key for understanding long-term social and economic development, as well as for assessing human health and anthropogenic impacts on the environment. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers are often assumed to have heavily exploited aquatic resources, especially those living in regions of high marine productivity. For the Mediterranean, this view has been challenged, partly by the application of stable isotope analysis of skeletal remains which has shown more varied coastal hunter-gatherer diets than in other regions, perhaps due to its lower productivity. By undertaking a more specific analysis of amino acids from bone collagen of 11 individuals from one of the oldest and best-known Mesolithic cemeteries in the Mediterranean, at El Collado, Valencia, we show that high levels of aquatic protein consumption were achieved. By measuring both carbon and nitrogen in amino acids, we conclude that some of the El Collado humans relied heavily on local lagoonal fish and possibly shellfish, rather than open marine species. By contrast to previous suggestions, this study demonstrates that the north-western coast of the Mediterranean basin could support maritime-oriented economies during the Early Holocene.

Site Context and the Spatial Organization of a Late Holocene Coastal Hunter-Gatherer Campsite in North-Central Chile, South America

We explored the site context of a late Holocene shell midden on the coast of Los Vilos in north-central Chile (31°51′ S, South America) to better understand the spatial organization of short-term, small-sized hunter-gatherer campsites. The Dunas de Agua Amarilla (LV 007) site comprises 14 separate surf clam refuse deposits. Extensive stratigraphic excavations of the shell middens and the areas free of residue allowed interpretation of potential activity areas bounded by hearths, the shell middens, and a possible dwelling space. Late Holocene campsites in the area correspond to brief occupational events framed within littoral residential mobility, in which predictable coastal resources became a staple for groups residing and circulating over long periods in the area. Data on shell midden composition and the spatial distribution of site features shed light on the organizational dynamics of dwelling and activity spaces of coastal hunter-gatherers of the South Pacific.

Climatic changes cause synchronous population dynamics and adaptive strategies among coastal hunter-gatherers in Holocene northern Europe

AbstractSynchronized demographic and behavioral patterns among distinct populations is a well-known, natural phenomenon. Intriguingly, similar patterns of synchrony occur among prehistoric human populations. However, the drivers of synchronous human ecodynamics are not well understood. Addressing this issue, we review the role of environmental variability in causing human demographic and adaptive responses. As a case study, we explore human ecodynamics of coastal hunter-gatherers in Holocene northern Europe, comparing population, economic, and environmental dynamics in two separate areas (northern Norway and western Finland). Population trends are reconstructed using temporal frequency distributions of radiocarbon-dated and shoreline-dated archaeological sites. These are correlated to regional environmental proxies and proxies for maritime resource use. The results demonstrate remarkably synchronous patterns across population trajectories, marine resource exploitation, settlement pattern, and technological responses. Crucially, the population dynamics strongly correspond to significant environmental changes. We evaluate competing hypotheses and suggest that the synchrony stems from similar responses to shared environmental variability. We take this to be a prehistoric human example of the “Moran effect,” positing similar responses of geographically distinct populations to shared environmental drivers. The results imply that intensified economies and social interaction networks have limited impact on long-term hunter-gatherer population trajectories beyond what is already proscribed by environmental drivers.

Tecnología lítica de cazadores-recolectores costeros: el análisis funcional de un conjunto de raspadores del sitio Alero 4 (costa norte de Santa Cruz, Argentina).

En el marco de los análisis de las ocupaciones prehistóricas registradas en abrigos rocosos de la costa norte de Santa Cruz, se efectuaron estudios estratigráficos en el sitio Alero 4. En este sentido, se realizó una excavación en una superficie de aproximadamente 2m2, la cual presentó una potencia estratigráfica de aproximadamente 40 cm. Se registró una alta frecuencia de artefactos líticos, entre los que se diferenciaron principalmente productos de talla. Asimismo, resulta interesante resaltar la identificación de una alta frecuencia de raspadores, la cual constituye un hallazgo de relevancia en virtud de los estudios realizados hasta el momento en el área. Las tendencias observadas previamente en el estudio tecno-morfológico de las piezas indicarían la existencia de ciertas restricciones geográficas en cuanto al aprovisionamiento y explotación de las rocas empleadas para confeccionar y utilizar los raspadores. En el presente trabajo se pretende complementar y discutir dicha información en virtud de los datos generados en el análisis funcional de las piezas, los cuales de alguna manera contradicen dicha afirmación. Asimismo, los estudios permitirán evaluar la funcionalidad del sitio en el marco del sistema de asentamiento y movilidad de los grupos humanos que ocuparon el área y generar nuevas discusiones en cuanto a los alcances de la tecnología de los cazadores-recolectores costeros.

Estrategias de aprovisionamiento de guanacos y uso del bosque Magallánico por cazadores-recolectores costeros

Se discuten las pautas de aprovisionamiento de guanacos (Lama guanicoe) por cazadores-recolectores costeros que habitaron bahía Moat (costa sur de Tierra del Fuego, Argentina) durante el Holoceno tardío. El conjunto estudiado corresponde al sitio Heshkaia 35 (ca. 500-650 años AP) y es analizado a la luz de distintos modelos y marcos de referencia comúnmente empleados para evaluar las modalidades de explotación de camélidos. Los resultados indican el ingreso más asiduo de unidades anatómicas con baja utilidad económica y el frecuente descarte de vértebras y costillas fuera del sitio. Esta información en conjunto con las evidencias de procesamiento, sugieren una estrategia orientada al transporte de elementos con contenido medular. Se evalúan las implicancias de estos datos para discutir aspectos relacionados con la movilidad y uso del bosque Magallánico por parte de grupos cazadores-recolectores costeros.

Bipolar Reduction and Behavioral Variability During the Mid-Late Holocene at Eagle's Nest, Mount Sinai Harbor, New York

ABSTRACTRecent syntheses for the Long Island Sound region argue for long-term cultural continuity amongst Holocene coastal hunter-gatherers. These notions derive primarily from studies of quartz lithic assemblages, which archaeologists argue show structural stasis over time. The remaining variability is explained with a ‘distance to source' model in which near-coastal sites tend to show a lack of quartz conservation while interior sites show quartz recycling. Under this model, technological strategies traditionally associated with raw material conservation (e.g., bipolar reduction) should not occur at near-coastal sites. We test the ‘distance to source’ model by reexamining a quartz lithic assemblage from Eagle's Nest-Long Island's richest Holocene coastal hunter-gatherer site. We find conclusive evidence for bipolar reduction in the site's “block/shatter” materials. Toolmakers used bipolar reduction to conserve raw material. Toolmakers also used anvils and bipolar reduction to open quartz cobbles, to stabilize freehand cores, to efficiently access cutting edges, and possibly to create crushed coarse quartz temper for pottery production. Our results point to previously unrecognized aspects of behavioral variability in the Eagle's Nest lithic assemblage and to possible revision of the ‘distance to source’ model. Similar variability may be present at other North American sites with quartz “block/shatter” material.

The Mine Island Aboriginal stone arrangements: spiritual responses to late Holocene change on the central Queensland coast

The Mine Island stone arrangement complex is a large ceremonial complex on the central Queensland coast. The arrangements are in excess of 2 km of looping and U-shaped aligned stones. A series of middens, directly adjacent to the stone arrangements, was recently excavated, providing potential chronological insights into the construction and ceremonial use of the stone arrangement. We posit that these stone arrangements represent a shared spirituality linking coastal peoples for over 300 km of coastline, the inception of which was possibly linked to a range of broader changes impacting coastal hunter-gatherers on the central Queensland coast after around 500 BP.

Identity signalling in shields: how coastal hunter-gatherers use rock art and material culture in arid and temperate Australia

This paper explores inter-group signalling behaviour of hunter-fisher-gatherers living in arid and temperate coastal regions in Holocene Australia. We examine shield designs in the rock art of two visually similar engraved art provinces on opposite sides of the Australian continent: Port Hedland and Sydney. We explore the question of inter-group social signalling behaviour in arid versus fertile environments by testing the stylistic heterogeneity of shield designs in both art provinces. We examine the stylistic diversity of historically-collected and illustrated shields from both regions, and compare these with the engraved repertoires of the two style provinces. One of the precepts of information exchange theory (IET) is that publicly-displayed items/artefacts will provide the best vehicles for projecting cultural identity information. We assume that shields, as items of material culture which are carried publically, would have been ideally suited to signal individual, local and broader group identity. In more fertile areas it is usually argued that hunter-gatherers demonstrate increased territoriality and social boundedness as a result of demographic packing and focused resources, compared to groups in arid areas where there are widely ramified social networks. We test the hypothesis that a greater degree of stylistic heterogeneity should be displayed by engraved Sydney shields compared with those found in Port Hedland. However, our analyses demonstrate the reverse of this prediction. We suggest some alternative explanations for how style has been used in the arid coastal Pilbara, and suggest refinement is needed of some expectations in information exchange theory in arid zones where there is focalised resource availability and extreme language hybridity.

Retention of hunter–gatherer economies among maritime foragers from Caleta Vitor, northern Chile, during the late Holocene: evidence from stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of skeletal remains

On the basis of stable carbon and nitrogen isotope analysis of human remains, this paper provides evidence for the retention of hunter–gatherer economies among coastal inhabitants in northern Chile during the late Holocene – at the same time that inland populations were adopting agricultural economies. Coastal diets from the Caleta Vitor region of the Atacama Desert were dominated by marine-based foods, predominantly from upper trophic levels. The focus on reliable marine food resources is interpreted as a risk minimisation strategy in this marginal arid environment. Although these coastal hunter–gatherers adopted other goods and traditions from agricultural populations, their participation in this larger interregional exchange network did not affect their basic subsistence economies.Associated new radiocarbon dates from the site are also discussed. Skeletal remains and artefacts associated with the Caleta Vitor shell middens generally originate from sites with dates ranging from c. 9000–476 BP. However, the human remains that are the subject of this research cover the time period c. 4000–476 BP.

Emergence of social complexity among coastal hunter-gatherers in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile

The emergence of complex cultural practices in simple hunter-gatherer groups poses interesting questions on what drives social complexity and what causes the emergence and disappearance of cultural innovations. Here we analyze the conditions that underlie the emergence of artificial mummification in the Chinchorro culture in the coastal Atacama Desert in northern Chile and southern Peru. We provide empirical and theoretical evidence that artificial mummification appeared during a period of increased coastal freshwater availability and marine productivity, which caused an increase in human population size and accelerated the emergence of cultural innovations, as predicted by recent models of cultural and technological evolution. Under a scenario of increasing population size and extreme aridity (with little or no decomposition of corpses) a simple demographic model shows that dead individuals may have become a significant part of the landscape, creating the conditions for the manipulation of the dead that led to the emergence of complex mortuary practices.

House Societies among Coastal Hunter-Gatherers: A Case Study of Stone Age Ostrobothnia, Finland

In this article I discuss a concept that can be useful for cross-scale comparative research on the origin and evolution of social inequality. Lévi-Strauss' ‘House Society’ concept is theoretically and methodologically useful because of its open and diachronic character. House Societies, used as a framework for explanation, allow comparative research across large temporal and spatial scales. I apply the House Society – adaptive cycle model to the complex hunter-gatherer context from Stone Age Ostrobothnia, Finland. Population aggregation and increased population density, due to environmental circumscription around 6500–6000 cal. bp led to increasing social differences between Houses in Ostrobothnian communities. In the long run, we find a core of large, successful Houses and a second group of smaller less successful Houses. By the end of Stone Age, c. 4000 cal. bp, increasing institutionalization of social differences resulted in population dispersal and a weakened position for Ostrobothnian House Societies in relation to larger entities (trade, exchange).

Coastal Archaeology and Hunter-Gatherers in Southeastern Tierra del Fuego

Fil: Zangrando, Atilio Francisco Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Cientificas y Tecnicas. Centro Austral de Investigaciones Cientificas; Argentina

Weathering the storm: Coastal subsistence and ecological resilience on Late Holocene Santa Rosa Island, California

Archaeological research on California’s Channel Islands has significantly enhanced understanding of the diversity and variability of coastal hunter-gatherers and the shell middens these people left behind. On the Channel Islands, the Late Holocene was a time of substantial population growth, territoriality, and the emergence of social hierarchies. The role of marine and terrestrial climate change, population growth, human environmental impacts, and other variables in driving Late Holocene cultural and ecological developments is a subject of considerable debate. Analysis of faunal remains (especially finfish and shellfish), complemented by human skeletal and stable isotope analyses, from a massive shell midden and village complex (CA-SRI-2) on Santa Rosa Island provides insight into Late Holocene human responses to coastal resource stress and environmental change. Despite significant population growth, the emergence of social stratification, and increased pressure on local resources and ecosystems, these data demonstrate that there is significant continuity in the coastal resources Channel Island peoples exploited through time. These results document the long-term resilience and adaptability of coastal hunter-gatherers, the marine resources they harvested, and Channel Island ecosystems.

Opportunistic Subsistence Strategies among Late Holocene Coastal Hunter-Gatherers, Elands Bay, South Africa

ABSTRACT Hunting and gathering was practiced for many hundreds of thousands of years in South Africa's Western Cape region, until ceramics and a stock-keeping economy first appeared c. 2,000 years ago, and in the Elands Bay and Lamberts Bay areas 200 years later. Subsistence and settlement patterns in this part of the West Coast of South Africa changed dramatically after this date, but the nature of interactions between indigenous groups engaging with these two types of subsistence practices is still poorly understood. The cultural-contact scenarios so far proposed view this interaction as basically competitive, with forager groups living at the margins of herder society and compelled to change their subsistence and settlement choices by focusing on small food parcels and having to move to less accessible areas. Observations from Borrow Pit Midden and other sites in the study area do not support this scenario. Instead, their records suggest flexible adaptive responses among foragers when at coastal and pericoastal locations. Overall, an opportunistic subsistence strategy was practiced mostly within the immediate surrounding environment of camps with high mobility, characterizing forager settlement. The components of a new cultural-contact model are emerging, but much remains to be done before it is established on a reliable empirical foundation.

Adaptive Cycles of Coastal Hunter-Gatherers

Along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Georgia, hunter-gatherer groups substantially altered the landscape for more than three millennia (ca. 4,200-1,000 B.P.) leaving behind a distinct material record in the form of shell rings, middens, and burial mounds. During this time, these groups experienced major changes in sea level and resource distribution. Specifically, we take a resilience theory approach to address these changes and discuss the utility of this theory for archaeology in general. We suggest that despite major destabilizing forces in the form of sea-level lowering and its concomitant effects on resource distribution, cultural systems rebounded to a structural pattern similar to the one expressed prior to environmental disruption. We propose, in part, the ability for people to return to similar patterns was the result of the high visibility of previous behaviors inscribed on the landscape in the form of shell middens and rings from the period preceding environmental disruption. Finally, despite a return to similar cultural formulations, hunter-gatherers experienced some fundamental changes resulting in modifications to existing behaviors (e.g., ringed villages) as well as the addition of new ones in the form of burial-mound construction.

ON ISOTOPES AND OLD BONES*

This review charts the developments and progress made in the application of stable light isotope tools to palaeodietary adaptations from the 1970s onwards. It begins with an outline of the main principles governing the distribution of stable light isotopes in foodwebs and the quality control issues specific to the calcified tissues used in these analyses, and then proceeds to describe the historical landmark studies that have marked major progress, either in their archaeological applications or in enhancing our understanding of the tools. They include the adoption of maize agriculture, marine‐focused diets amongst coastal hunter–gatherers, trophic level amongst Glacial‐period modern humans and Neanderthals, and the use of savannah resources by early hominins in Africa. Particular attention is given to the progress made in addressing the challenges that have arisen out of these studies, including issues related to the routing of dietary nutrients. I conclude with some firm, and some more speculative, pointers about where the field may be heading in the next decade or so.

Shell Mounds and Mounded Landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Integrated Approach

ABSTRACT Current understanding of the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, now almost completely destroyed due to urban expansion, is summarized. After interpretations of how and why coastal hunter-gatherers created these sites are discussed, salient characteristics of shell mounds from the area are outlined. Because core questions concerning the meaning and function of these sites remain unresolved, a new project that integrates the results of re-analyses of older museum collections with archival records and CRM work is discussed, an approach that may have applicability in other developed coastal areas. Results of a regional analysis that relies on an assessment of site type drawn from many site records are then presented. First-time discovery of site type throughout the past 100 years is then analyzed across 20 topographic quadrangles; we conclude that the region's earliest archaeologists captured a surprising range of site type diversity, especially with respect to shell-bearing sites. A north-south pattern of shell-bearing sites is identified, micro-regional differences are characterized, and a subset of the sample is analyzed through GIS to investigate the nature of site clustering. Finally, in light of the site clustering, we present models that may help to explain shell mound occupancy and function.

Diet, Mobility, and Settlement Pattern among Holocene Hunter‐Gatherers in Southernmost Africa

Integration of new biological information (stable isotope analyses of archaeological human skeletons) with the archaeological sequence of southernmost Africa and with wider sociocultural studies of hunters and gatherers shows that between 4,500 and 2,000 BP coastal huntergatherers buried on the Robberg Peninsula and adjacent Plettenberg Bay ate large quantities of hightrophiclevel marine protein. This contrasts with more mixed diets reflected in skeletons from Matjes River Rock Shelter, only 14 km along the shore. Assuming that the burials represent the populations that inhabited the sites, such clear economic separation could have come about only if these were two separate groups of people who lived in clearly demarcated, mutually exclusive territories. Such a settlement pattern directly contradicts ethnographic studies of southern African huntergatherers, all derived from inland areas. Later Stone Age material culture, including the assemblages from these sites, shows many similarities to that of twenti...

Reflections on North American Pacific Coast prehistory

The Pacific Coast of North America was occupied by many distinctive groups of coastal hunter-gatherers at the times of early contacts with Europeans. Despite significant cultural diversity, Pacific Coast peoples shared lifeways oriented toward generally similar marine, nearshore, littoral, and estuarine habitats. In this paper, we examine some major issues that guide much of the archaeology done along the Pacific Coast, then discuss some of the theoretical and methodological problems that limit the efficacy of archaeological reconstructions. Most archaeological research conducted on North America's Pacific Coast has been oriented toward the search for the origins and development of a variety of cultural patterns. A comparative review of California and Northwest Coast sequences provides interesting parallels and discrepancies in the approaches taken in studying some of the major issues in Pacific Coast prehistory.