California Prehistory

California Prehistory

Author: Terry L. Jones

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2007-07-16

Total Pages: 410

ISBN-13: 0759113742

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Some forty scholars examine California's prehistory and archaeology, looking at marine and terrestrial palaeoenvironments, initial human colonization, linguistic prehistory, early forms of exchange, mitochondrial DNA studies, and rock art. This work is the most extensive study of California's prehistory undertaken in the past 20 years. An essential resource for any scholar of California prehistory and archaeology!


California Maritime Archaeology

California Maritime Archaeology

Author: Raab

Publisher: Rowman Altamira

Published: 2009-08-16

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 0759113181

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San Clemente Island is a microcosm of California coastal archaeology from prehistoric through historic times—not only because of the extensiveness of its archaeological remains but because those remains have been so well preserved. In California Maritime Archaeology, the authors use the island as a platform to explore evidence of early seafaring, colonization, paleoenvironmental change, and cultural interaction along the California coast. They make a strong case that San Clemente island should be seen as a kind of "California archaeological Galapagos," offering an extraordinary variety of ancient life as well as surprising information about prehistoric hunter-gatherers of the northern Pacific. The authors' two decades of research have resulted in this rich cultural history that defies widespread assumptions about California's ancient maritime history.


The Ecology of Marine Fishes

The Ecology of Marine Fishes

Author: Dr. Larry G. Allen

Publisher: Univ of California Press

Published: 2006-02-15

Total Pages: 1353

ISBN-13: 0520932471

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Marine fishes have been intensively studied, and some of the fundamental ideas in the science of marine ecology have emerged from the body of knowledge derived from this diverse group of organisms. This unique, authoritative, and accessible reference, compiled by 35 luminary ecologists, evolutionary biologists, and ichthyologists, provides a synthesis and interpretation of the large, often daunting, body of information on the ecology of marine fishes. The focus is on the fauna of the eastern Pacific, especially the fishes of the California coast, a group among the most diverse and best studied of all marine ecosystems. A generously illustrated and comprehensive source of information, this volume will also be an important launching pad for future research and will shed new light on the study of marine fish ecology worldwide. The contributors touch on many fields in biology, including physiology, development, genetics, behavior, ecology, and evolution. The book includes sections on the history of research, both published and unpublished data, sections on collecting techniques, and references to important earlier studies.


Prehistoric California

Prehistoric California

Author: L. Mark Raab

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 314

ISBN-13:

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IN THIS ANTHOLOGY, Mark Raab and Terry Jones present a series of research articles that dispel lingering mythologies about California's prehistory. They begin with the most enduring notion--that of an essentially stable, benign climate--presenting evidence that prehistoric climate flux played a significant role in culture change. From there, Raab and Jones assault the myth of California as a natural cornucopia. They show that prehistoric foragers themselves had the capacity to negatively affect their animal food supplies, and that what is often considered the premier vegetal food, the acorn, appeared much later than many suppose in the diets of native peoples. This collection effectively summarizes the major debates surrounding California archaeology and provides a solid basis for a new, more nuanced view of the state's prehistory.


Early Hunter-Gatherers of the California Coast

Early Hunter-Gatherers of the California Coast

Author: Jon M. Erlandson

Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media

Published: 2013-11-11

Total Pages: 340

ISBN-13: 1475750420

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Based on detailed excavation data, the author reconstructs the paleography of the Santa Barbara coast ca. 8500 years ago, makes comparisons to other early California sites, and applies his findings to current theories of hunter-gatherers and coastal environments. With an emphasis on paleographic reconstructions, site formation processes, chronological studies, and integrated faunal analyses, the work will be of interest to a wide range of scholars working in shell middens, hunter-gatherer ecology, geoarchaeology, and coatal or aquatic adaptations.


Foundations of Chumash Complexity

Foundations of Chumash Complexity

Author: Jeanne E. Arnold

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Published: 2005-12-31

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 1938770196

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This volume highlights the latest research on the foundations of sociopolitical complexity in coastal California. The populous maritime societies of southern California, particularly the groups known collectively as the Chumash, have gone largely unrecognized as prototypical complex hunter-gatherers, only recently beginning to emerge from the shadow of their more celebrated counterparts on the Northwest Coast of North America. While Northwest cultures are renowned for such complex institutions as ceremonial potlatches, slavery, cedar plank-house villages, and rich artistic traditions, the Chumash are increasingly recognized as complex hunter-gatherers with a different set of organizational characteristics: ascribed chiefly leadership, a strong maritime economy based on oceangoing canoes, an integrative ceremonial system, and intensive and highly specialized craft production activities. Chumash sites provide some of the most robust data on these subjects available in the Americas. Contributors present stimulating new analyses of household and village organization, ceremonial specialists, craft specializations and settlement data, cultural transmission processes, bead manufacturing practices, watercraft, and the acquisition of prized marine species.


Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis

Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis

Author: Michael Glassow

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Published: 2012-12-31

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1938770536

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How does the practice of archaeology benefit from faunal analysis? Michael Glassow and Terry Joslin's Exploring Methods of Faunal Analysis: Insights from California Archaeology addresses this question. Contributors to this volume demonstrate how faunal remains can be used to elucidate subsistence, settlement, technological systems, economic exchange, social organization, adaptation to variability in resource distribution and abundance, and the impacts of historic land use. The sheer prevalence of faunal remains in California archaeological sites means that most archaeologists working in the state inevitably must give these resources their close attention-and yet methodological challenges remain. The chapters in this thoughtfully edited volume tackle these challenges, providing strategies for identifying and mitigating sample bias and recommending quantitative techniques borrowed from a variety of disciplines. The volume also presents examples that illustrate the use of faunal data to test hypotheses derived from microeconomic theory, the applicability of bone and shell chemistry to faunal analysis, and the relevance of faunal data to addressing issues in biology.


Catalysts to Complexity

Catalysts to Complexity

Author: Jon Erlandson

Publisher: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press

Published: 2003-07-01

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 1938770676

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When the Spanish colonized it in AD 1769, the California Coast was inhabited by speakers of no fewer than 16 distinct languages and an untold number of small, autonomous Native communities. These societies all survived by foraging, and ethnohistoric records show a wide range of adaptations emphasizing a host of different marine and terrestrial foods. Many groups exhibited signs of cultural complexity including sedentism, high population density, permanent social inequality, and sophisticated maritime technologies. The ethnographic era was preceded by an archaeological past that extends back to the terminal Pleistocene. Essays in this volume explore the last three and one half millennia of this long history, focusing on the archaeological signatures of emergent cultural complexity. Organized geographically, they provide an intricate mosaic of archaeological, historic, and ethnographic findings that illuminate cultural changes over time. To explain these Late Holocene cultural developments, the authors address issues ranging from culture history, paleoenvironments, settlement, subsistence, exchange, ritual, power, and division of labor, and employ both ecological and post-modern perspectives. Complex cultural expressions, most highly developed in the Santa Barbara Channel and the North Coast, are viewed alternatively as fairly recent and abrupt responses to environmental flux or the end-product of gradual progressions that began earlier in the Holocene.