Cultural Evolution and Paleogeography on the Santa Barbara Coast: A 9600-Year ¹⁴C Record from Southern California

Abstract

Since 1984, a large multi-disciplinary archaeological team, under the direction of the author, has collected artifactual, ecofactual, and radiocarbon samples from a series of Native American sites spanning the past 9600 14C years. Occupied historically by the Chumash Indians, the Santa Barbara coast (Fig 1) has seen dramatic cultural and environmental change during the course of the Holocene. One of the goals of the research is to reconstruct patterns in the evolution of the local coastline, while examining the effects of environmental change on human adaptation along the Santa Barbara coast.

Radiocarbon dating and the “old shell” problem: direct dating of artifacts and cultural chronologies in coastal and other aquatic regions

“…To standardize our results and increase the accuracy of our interpretations, all dates presented in this paper were calibrated with Calib 4.3 [33,34], applying a DR of 225G35 years to compensate for local upwelling [35]. 13 C/ 12 C ratios were either determined by the radiocarbon labs, or an average of C430 years was applied [6]. The DR correction we used, an average value for the southern and central California Coast, has been confirmed by various researchers working in the Santa Barbara Channel area [6,8,18].…”

“…[2,5]), however, shells are sometimes viewed as a problematic dating material. To help surmount these problems, scientists working on the California Coast have investigated regional differences in the marine reservoir effect, isotopic fractionation, and other biases in marine shell dating [6,8,12,13,18]. With recent refinements in shell dating, when proper reservoir corrections and calibration techniques are used and multiple dates are obtained, dating of marine shells can be more accurate than dating charcoal (e.g., Ref.…”

Multi-scalar foraging decisions in the Santa Barbara Channel, southern California

“…, 2002, 2007). Only one mainland site occurs before 7000 BC at CA-SBA-2088 (Erlandson, 1988a(Erlandson, , 1994, although they rapidly increase in frequency after 7000 BC (Fig. 2).…”

“…Based on faunal remains, people throughout the SBC usually focused on the easily accessed rocky intertidal and subtidal marine communities, except when highly productive estuaries developed during the Early Holocene at the mouths of drainages along the mainland coast and at least one location on eastern Santa Rosa Island. These rich resources were strongly attractive to prehistoric populations, and site locations reflect their increased importance (Erlandson, 1985(Erlandson, , 1988a(Erlandson, , 1994Rick et al, 2005b).…”

Eolian processes, ground cover, and the archaeology of coastal dunes: A taphonomic case study from San Miguel Island, California, U.S.A.

“…Consequently, much of the archaeological material on the site surface is heavily deflated with obvious lag deposits of large mammal bones, stone tools, and highly fragmented shellfish covering much a All dates were calibrated using Calib 4.3 Reimer, 1993, 2000), and applying a ⌬R of 225 Ϯ 35 years for all shell samples (see Kennett et al, 1997). 13 C/ 12 C ratios were either determined by the radiocarbon labs, or an average of ϩ430 years was applied (Erlandson, 1988). of the surface.…”