With National Science Foundation support Dr. Jack Broughton will analyze faunal remains recovered from archaeological excavation at the Emeryville Shellmound located the shoreline of San Francisco Bay. This deeply stratified site was first occupied ca. 2,600 years ago and it records human habitation and use of local resources over a roughly 2,000 year period. Prehistoric Native Americans lived at the site and the faunal remains they discarded provide detailed insight into their hunting and subsistence practices. Such materials are both abundant and extremely well preserved. In his doctoral dissertation work, also funded by NSF, Dr. Broughton analyzed fish and mammalian faunas. In this current project he will extend his study to avian materials. From prior work it is clear that people hunted birds extensively and large numbers of both individuals and species are present in the archaeological collections. Dr. Broughton will identify materials to a species level. He will also develop a method to determine the age at which cormorants were harvested and thus be able to examine the age structure of the population. Given the stratified nature of the site it will be possible to determine how harvesting practices changed over time. Both archaeologists and paeloecologists wish to understand the effect of Native American hunter-gatherers on the prey they hunted. Paleoecologists wish to know whether the environment which the first colonists observed was `natural` and essentially unaffected by humans or whether, in fact, hunter and gatherers at relatively low population densities had a significant impact. Archaeologists want to determine whether such populations were affected by human-induced resource scarcities and thus needed to change their subsistence strategies over time. Dr. Broughton's research should provide important insight into this question. Through the use of models derived from optimum foraging theory one can predict how species composition and age structure change when bird populations are stressed and their numbers decrease. Thus, this analysis will provide direct insight on human impact on the environment and, in turn, the effect this change had on subsequent human behavior.
