Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Gender, Small Game, and Resource Depression on the Northwest Coast of North America

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Donald K. Grayson, Ms. Phoebe Anderson will analyze data from the archaeological sites of English Camp and Watmough Bay, San Juan Islands, WA. These sites were used as seasonal villages by hunter-gatherers from approximately 150-1450 BP and have provided rich, stratified samples of shell, animal bones, and artifacts. Ms. Anderson's analysis is focused on determining how and why hunter-gatherer exploitation of shellfish changed over time and what those changes indicate about the availability of shellfish and other animals during this period. Research focused on long-term subsistence strategies provides insight into the impacts that people have on their prey populations and into how people adjust those strategies to meet environmental challenges. Archaeologists have documented many instances in which prehistoric hunter-gatherers caused the decline of prey populations and then responded to such declines by including greater numbers of smaller animals in their diet. This project examines an alternative explanation for increases in the relative abundance of small animals to large ones in archaeological assemblages. It is well-known that there is a general sexual division of labor among small scale societies in which men pursue large prey while women hunt small game and gather other resources. As a result, it is possible that increases in the relative abundance of small animals in archaeological sites indicate an increase in women's subsistence efforts rather than a decrease in large animal availability. This project develops hypotheses to distinguish between male and female small game foraging strategies, using shellfish exploitation as a case study. These hypotheses are to be tested by identifying archaeological shell species represented in the archaeological assemblages, quantifying the relative abundances of those species, analyzing those abundances through time, and examining changes in shellfish size through time. Since environmental change can also affect both the availability of shellfish species and their growth, this research controls for changes in past sea surface temperatures and upwelling of deep ocean water through oxygen isotope analysis, Mg/Ca ratios, and paired charcoal-shell radiocarbon dating. The results of this research will contribute to an understanding of how human hunting effects animal populations and how men and women in hunter-gatherer societies respond to fluctuations in the availability of different animal resources. Beyond research questions of interest to social scientists, this research will have a broader impact by developing a long-term shellfish history for the Northwest Coast. Ecological studies have shown that human activities have dramatically reduced the abundances of several shellfish species. It is commonly believed that these declines are a result of modern practices, such as commercial harvesting, habitat destruction, and the introduction of exotic species. However before it can be assumed that these declines are the result of modern practices it must be shown that these declines are not rooted in the deeper past. The shellfish and environmental data derived for this project will determine how shellfish abundances fluctuated in the past due to human predation and/or environmental change, thus providing a background for understanding modern abundances.