Paleoindian Seafaring, Maritime Technologies, and Coastal Foraging on California’s Channel Islands

Abstract

Three archaeological sites on California's Channel Islands show that Paleoindians relied heavily on marine resources. The Paleocoastal sites, dated between ~12,200 and 11,200 years ago, contain numerous stemmed projectile points and crescents associated with a variety of marine and aquatic faunal remains. At site CA-SRI-512 on Santa Rosa Island, Paleocoastal peoples used such tools to capture geese, cormorants, and other birds, along with marine mammals and finfish. At Cardwell Bluffs on San Miguel Island, Paleocoastal peoples collected local chert cobbles, worked them into bifaces and projectile points, and discarded thousands of marine shells. With bifacial technologies similar to those seen in Western Pluvial Lakes Tradition assemblages of western North America, the sites provide evidence for seafaring and island colonization by Paleoindians with a diversified maritime economy.

Environmental productivity predicts migration, demographic, and linguistic patterns in prehistoric California

“…The first people to settle California, the ancestors of Chumash and Yukian speakers, occupied some of the most productive habitats, likely traveling to the region along the coast via boats (32). These findings provide ancillary support for a coastal colonization model for the Americas showing that the earliest migrants into the region settled along highly productive shorelines with adjacent productive terrestrial resource patches.…”

“…Given patterns in continental NPP, our findings highlight the potential of coastal habitats (42), which itself lends support for a coastal corridor as one of the first entry routes into the Americas (32,43). Applied elsewhere, this approach may aid in the explanation of prehistoric hunter-gatherer migrations across the globe, including the initial spread of people out of Africa into Europe, Asia, and across to Sahul (Australia/New Guinea) (17,44,45).…”

Fire history on the California Channel Islands spanning human arrival in the Americas

“…The most recent direct date comes from [75] (10 960 + 80 radiocarbon years BP) and is recalibrated here using the most recent international calibration curve, IntCal13 [76,77], equivalent to 13 020-12 700 cal yrs BP (2s range). Archaeological material is widespread and abundant on the Northern Channel Islands, including evidence early in the record from Daisy Cave and Cardwell Bluffs on San Miguel Island and sites 512 and 706 from the northwest side of Santa Rosa Island (shown in figure 1) [78][79][80][81][82]. In summary, the archaeological record of California's Channel Islands has become an important source of information for understanding these earliest coastal peoples [82].…”

“…The marine samples (shells) required calibration using the Marine13 radiocarbon calibration curve [76], with an additional local marine reservoir correction ('Delta_R') of 225 + 35 years [81]. The Bayesian statistical software OxCal v. 4.2 [74] was used and, for the archaeological samples, a simple single 'Phase' model was applied for each of the individual human occupation sites, thus providing a 'Start' Boundary for the human occupation at each individual site.…”

Early human use of anadromous salmon in North America at 11,500 y ago

“…In a broad review of taxa exploited by early Paleoindians (33), only two sites (Aubrey and Shawnee-Minisink) had evidence of fish (with no further taxonomic identification) in strong association with human occupation, though abundance values were low. Recently, Erlandson et al (34) reported 78 specimens (1.4% of total) of various fish taxa (none are salmon) at three Paleoindian sites on the Channel Islands, California.…”