Synthesis of faunal collections from several archaeological sites on the three southernmost California Channel Islands and one in the Cape Region of Baja California reveals a distinctive maritime adaptation more heavily reliant on the capture of pelagic dolphins than on near-shore pinnipeds. Previous reports from other Southern California coastal sites suggest that dolphin hunting may have occurred there but to a lesser extent. While these findings may represent localized adaptations to special conditions on these islands and the Cape Region, they call for reassessment of the conventionally held concept that pinnipeds were invariably the primary mammalian food resource for coastal peoples. Evidence of the intensive use of small cetaceans is antithetical to the accepted models of maritime optimal foraging which assume that shore-based or near-shore marine mammals (i.e., pinnipeds) would be the highest-ranked prey because they were readily encountered and captured. While methods of dolphin hunting remain archaeologically invisible, several island cultures in which dolphin were intensively exploited by people using primitive watercraft and little or no weaponry are presented as possible analogs to a prehistoric Southern California dolphin-hunting technique. These findings also indicate that dolphin hunting was probably a cooperative endeavor among various members of the prehistoric community.

Bones of the flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi) from 14 archaeological sites along the California coast indicate that humans hunted the species for at least 8,000 years before it was driven to extinction. Direct 14 C dates on Chendytes bones show that the duck was exploited on the southern California islands as early as Ϸ11,150 -10,280 calendar years B.P., and on the mainland by at least 8,500 calendar years B.P. The youngest direct date of 2,720 -2,350 calendar years B.P., combined with the absence of Chendytes bones from hundreds of late Holocene sites, suggests that the species was extinct by Ϸ2,400 years ago. Although the extinction of Chendytes clearly resulted from human overhunting, its demise raises questions about the Pleistocene overkill model, which suggests that megafauna were driven to extinction in a blitzkrieg fashion by Native Americans Ϸ13,000 years ago. That the extermination of Chendytes was so protracted and archaeologically visible suggests that, if the terminal Pleistocene megafauna extinctions were primarily the result of human exploitation, there should also be a long and readily detectable archaeological record of their demise. The brief window now attributed to the Clovis culture (Ϸ13,300 -12,900 B.P.) seems inconsistent with an overhunting event.flightless birds ͉ overhunting T he late Quaternary extinction of North America's large fauna has been a topic of intense scientific interest for decades, focused primarily on the Pleistocene overkill hypothesis, which suggests that 35 genera of megafauna were driven to extinction in a blitzkrieg fashion by Native Americans Ϸ13,000 years ago (1). This hypothesis has been challenged because of the paucity of supporting archaeological evidence for human hunting of most of the extinct taxa (2), while aspects of the extinctions have also been portrayed as inconsistent with climate change explanations (3). Added to this mix is a recent suggestion that an extraterrestrial impact Ϸ12,900 calendar years B.P. contributed to the megafauna extinctions (4). Here we challenge the overkill hypothesis based on the archaeological record of one of the few North American animals** demonstrably driven to extinction by Native Americans during the Holocene (6, 7)-the often overlooked flightless sea duck (Chendytes lawi).Flightless birds are evolutionary oddities that developed almost exclusively in settings without major populations of terrestrial predators. On many Pacific islands, archaeological findings show that flightless birds were highly vulnerable to human hunting and were quickly decimated soon after humans arrived (8, 9). On the North American mainland many species of birds last disappear from the fossil record near the end of the Pleistocene, but their demise cannot be confidently attributed to human overhunting because their remains are absent from terminal Pleistocene archaeological sites (10). Indeed, a longstanding problem with the overhunting hypothesis is the fact that most genera that went extinct during the late Pleistocene have never been foun...

Decades ago the Diablo Canyon site (CA-SLO-2) on the central California mainland revealed one of the oldest and longest sequences (ca. 9400 radiocarbon years ago to contact) of coastal occupation on the shore of the northeastern Pacific. The artifacts from these important deposits were reported in detail by Greenwood (1972), but only a fraction of the site's faunal collections was analyzed in the original site report. Acquisition of 30 additional radiocarbon dates and analysis of the complete vertebrate fauna have produced a coarse-grained record of human foraging on the California mainland from 8300 cal B.C. to cal A.D. 1769. The temporally controlled faunal matrix, constituting one of the largest trans-Holocene records from western North America, speaks in a meaningful way to two significant issues in hunter-gatherer prehistory: early Holocene foraging strategies and economic intensification/resource depression over time. The site’s earliest component suggests a population invested in watercraft and intensely adapted to the interface of land and sea along the northeastern Pacific coastline. While boats were used to access offshore rocks, terrestrial mammals (e.g., black-tailed deer) were also of primary importance. Dominance of deer throughout the Diablo occupations is inconsistent with recent generalizations about big-game hunting as costly signaling in western North American prehistory. Diachronic variation, correlated with superimposed burials that show growth in human populations through the Holocene, includes: (1) modest incremental changes in most taxa, suggesting resource stability and increasing diet breadth; (2) gradual but significant variation in a few taxa, including the flightless duck which was hunted into extinction and eventually replaced by sea otters; (3) punctuated, multidirectional change during the late Holocene related to historic contingencies of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and protohistoric disruptions.

Occupied from ca. 7040 B.C. to AD. 1400, the Eel Point Site (CA-SCLI-43) on San Clemente Island, California represents one of the longest sequences of near-continuous marine resource exploitation on the west coast of North America. Faunal remains suggest transitions from heavy exploitation of fur seals and sea lions during the early Holocene, to increased hunting of cetaceans at mid-Holocene, to a focus on sea otters and fish during the late Holocene. These trends are consistent with patterns of overexploitation and economic intensification on the California and Oregon mainland, but they also suggest watercraft-based hunting earlier on the island than elsewhere. Fur seal and sea lion bones mainly represent females and juveniles, indicating that exploitation of island rookeries was guided more by self-interest than by principles of game conservation. Two intervals of temporary site abandonment, ca. 6150-3970 B.C. and AD. 1020-1400, were both followed by periods of increased marine mammal exploi tation and may reflect intervals during which marine mammal populations rebounded. Broad scale diachronic trends in the zooarchaeological remains do not correlate with flux in paleo-sea temperatures and are best interpreted as products of overhunting and increased use of water craft over time.With the increasing application of opti ample, is commonly envisioned as a mal foraging and/or economic intensifica strictly natural or climatic phenomenon tion theories to models of hunter-gath routinely accommodated by simple adap erer subsistence (see Beaton 1991; Basgall tive adjustments and/or migrations by hu 1987; Broughton 1994, among others), mans (see Moratto 1984). These models long-standing cultural ecological interpre portray human/environmental relation tations of forager prehistory are coming ships as largely unidirectional; culture is under renewed scrutiny. Based on a perceived as being influenced by the nat premise of relentless human adaptation, ural environment, but there are often no many traditional cultural ecological inter catastrophes or violence and little consid pretations emphasize a limited rela eration of the possible impact of humans tionship between humans and their envi on their surroundings. In models in which ronment. Environmental change, for ex-the influence of hunter-gatherers on nat

Three main hypotheses are commonly employed to explain diachronic variation in the relative abun dance of remains of large terrestrial herbivores: (1) large prey populations decline as a function of anthro pogenic overexploitation; (2) large prey tends to increase as a result of increasing social payoffs; and (3) proportions of large terrestrial prey are dependent on stochastic fluctuations in climate. This paper tests predictions derived from these three hypotheses through a zooarchaeological analysis of eleven temporal components from three sites on central California's Pecho Coast. Specifically, we examine the trade-offs between hunting rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.) and deer (Odocoileus hemionus ) using models derived from human behavioral ecology. The results show that foragers exploited a robust population of deer through out most of the Holocene, only doing otherwise during periods associated with climatic trends unfavor able to larger herbivores. The most recent component (Late Prehistoric/Contact era) shows modest evidence of localized resource depression and perhaps greater social benefits from hunting larger prey; we suggest that these final changes resulted from the introduction of bow and arrow technology.Overall, results suggest that along central California's Pecho Coast, density independent factors described as cli matically-mediated prey choice best predict changes in the relative abundance of large terrestrial herbi vores through the Holocene.