Evaluating Native American Bird Use and Bird Assemblage Variability along the Oregon Coast

Abstract

Native American use of birds on the Oregon coast is not well known and has never been synthesized to present a regional understanding. We rectify this by analyzing data from 26 zooarchaeological assemblages, including three previously unpublished bird assemblages: Umpqua/Eden (35DO83), Whale Cove (35LNC60), and the Dunes Site (35CLT27). We employ a series of non-parametric randomization tests to directly evaluate patterns of taxonomic diversity, correlations with nearby breeding colonies, and broader procurement strategies discussed in ethnohistorical accounts. We compare the assemblages to contemporary surveys of naturally beached birds as observed by COASST (Coastal Observation Seabird Survey Team) and evaluate whether archaeological specimens were scavenged from the beach. While 71% of the identified bird remains belong to just three families (Anatidae, Alcidae, and Procellariidae), closer analysis reveals the incredible diversity of birds used by Oregon coast Native Americans. The assemblages vary considerably in terms of taxonomic diversity and composition, leading us to conclude that people used birds opportunistically, likely incorporating multiple strategies, including hunting, collecting beached carcasses and targeting cormorant colonies. We hope that the methods and approaches employed here will inspire other archaeologists to devote more attention to bird assemblages, and how their study can inform conservation efforts.

Alutiiq Ancestors’ Use of Birds During the Ocean Bay Period at Rice Ridge (49-KOD-363), Kodiak Island, Alaska

“…To measure taxonomic diversity, we used the reciprocal of the Simpson Index (Krebs 1989), which focuses on the equitability of abundances across taxa. Across groups of sites, this measure is often performed at the taxonomic level of families in an attempt to regularize across the varying identification methods used by different investigators (e.g., Bovy et al 2019). Because the anatid family encompasses swans, several geese, and potentially more than three dozen ducks, lumping all of these as "anatid family" does not adequately capture the differences in taxonomic diversity across the Rice Ridge subassemblages.…”

Birds of Summer Solstice: World-Renewal Rituality on the Northern Gulf Coast of Florida

“…Certainly many species of wild birds were collected for food worldwide, for millennia (e.g. Avery & Underhill 1986; Bovy et al 2019; Lefèvre 1997; Prummel et al 2008), in some cases driven to extinction (e.g. Steadman 1989).…”