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Humans at the End of the Ice Age chronicles and explores the
significance of the variety of cultural responses to the global
environmental changes at the last glacial-interglacial boundary.
Contributions address the nature and consequences of the global
climate changes accompanying the end of the Pleistocene
epoch-detailing the nature, speed, and magnitude of the human
adaptations that culminated in the development of food production
in many parts of the world. The text is aided by vital maps,
chronological tables, and charts.
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.
Explore the remarkable history of one of the jewels of the US
National Park system California's Northern Channel Islands,
sometimes called the American Galapagos and one of the jewels of
the US National Park system, are a located between 20 and 44 km off
the southern California mainland coast. Celebrated as a trip back
in time where tourists can capture glimpses of California prior to
modern development, the islands are often portrayed as frozen
moments in history where ecosystems developed in virtual isolation
for tens of thousands of years. This could not, however, be further
from the truth. For at least 13,000 years, the Chumash and their
ancestors occupied the Northern Channel Islands, leaving behind an
archaeological record that is one of the longest and best preserved
in the Americas. From ephemeral hunting and gathering camps to
densely populated coastal villages and Euro-American and Chinese
historical sites, archaeologists have studied the Channel Island
environments and material culture records for over 100 years. They
have pieced together a fascinating story of initial settlement by
mobile hunter-gatherers to the development of one of the world's
most complex hunter-gatherer societies ever recorded, followed by
the devastating effects of European contact and settlement. Likely
arriving by boat along a "kelp highway," Paleocoastal migrants
found not four offshore islands, but a single super island,
Santarosae. For millennia, the Chumash and their predecessors
survived dramatic changes to their land- and seascapes, climatic
fluctuations, and ever-evolving social and cultural systems.
Islands Through Time is the remarkable story of the human and
ecological history of California's Northern Channel Islands. We
weave the tale of how the Chumash and their ancestors shaped and
were shaped by their island homes. Their story is one of adaptation
to shifting land- and seascapes, growing populations, fluctuating
subsistence resources, and the innovation of new technologies,
subsistence strategies, and socio-political systems. Islands
Through Time demonstrates that to truly understand and preserve the
Channel Islands National Park today, archaeology and deep history
are critically important. The lessons of history can act as a guide
for building sustainable strategies into the future. The resilience
of the Chumash and Channel Island ecosystems provides a story of
hope for a world increasingly threatened by climate change,
declining biodiversity, and geopolitical instability.
Humans at the End of the Ice Age chronicles and explores the
significance of the variety of cultural responses to the global
environmental changes at the last glacial-interglacial boundary.
Contributions address the nature and consequences of the global
climate changes accompanying the end of the Pleistocene
epoch-detailing the nature, speed, and magnitude of the human
adaptations that culminated in the development of food production
in many parts of the world. The text is aided by vital maps,
chronological tables, and charts.
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.
Archaeological data now show that relatively intense human
adaptations to coastal environments developed much earlier than
once believed - more than 125,000 years ago. With our oceans and
marine fisheries currently in a state of crisis, coastal
archaeological sites contain a wealth of data that can shed light
on the history of human exploitation of marine ecosystems. In
eleven case studies from the Americas, Pacific Islands, North Sea,
Caribbean, Europe, and Africa, leading researchers working in
coastal areas around the world cover diverse marine ecosystems,
reaching into deep history to discover how humans interacted with
and impacted these aquatic environments and shedding new light on
our understanding of contemporary environmental problems.
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