In this project, Dr. Diane Gifford-Gonzalez and students will undertake detailed analysis of fauna from one large and about 18 smaller archaeological sites on the Monterey Bay, in central coastal California. The aim of the study is to evaluate whether and how environmental processes affected people living along the coast over the last 6000 years. Today, global climate change threatens the livelihoods of people and the continued survival of animal species, along the Pacific Rim. Archaeological sites contain records of past climatic events and human responses to them. They are thus repositories of crucial evidence on how extreme swings in ocean and land productivity were in pre-industrial times. We know that, just as today, global climate change affected life on both land and sea. Although a major agricultural powerhouse in the United States and a tourist destination for those seeking abundant marine life, the Monterey Bay area's deeper history is as yet poorly understood. For about six years, Dr. Gifford-Gonzalez and colleagues from the Department of Earth Sciences have been researching the history of marine temperatures and productivity, as well as shedding light on the disappearance of northern fur seals from coastal California about 1000 bp. The present project follows a three-year NSF-funded collaborative project that indicated that northern fur seals - a presently threatened species -- have radically changed their breeding and migratory behavior. Radiocarbon dates on their bones show their breeding colonies were not abandoned simultaneously along the entire Pacific margin. Research results indicate that NFS disappearance in central California did not coincide with changes in marine upwelling patterns that could have affected their food base, strengthening the odds that ancient people had a hand in their regional extirpation. However, so far, we have no detailed evidence that people were driven to wipe out fur seals due to hunger, whether the severe droughts during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (800-1350 AD) could have affected NFS colonies themselves, or whether the droughts drove people to drive these animals extinct.
Dr. Gifford-Gonzalez, graduate students in archaeology, and undergraduates chosen for special skills development will explore these questions with faunal remains from regional archaeological sites. One of these sites, the Moss Landing Site (CA-MNT0234) is a virtual untapped "Rosetta Stone" for regional archaeology, with components dating from 8500 years ago to Spanish contact. This site was well excavated and curated during FEMA-funded rebuilding of the Moss Landing Marine Laboratories after the Loma Prieta Earthquake. However, time demands of contract archaeology precluded the close analysis that the site deserves, to tell its full story of climate change, human resource use, and animal geography. This study will provide insights into the pre-modern human land use and interactions with food species over time. Our data on historical human and animal ecology will be available to wildlife and conservation biologists making management decisions about such species. It will provide excellent professional training for graduate students in archaeology and extraordinary, on-site research opportunities for undergraduates.
