Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-20T17:49:25.235Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Medieval Climatic Anomaly and Punctuated Cultural Evolution in Coastal Southern California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

L. Mark Raab  and
Daniel O. Larson
L. Mark Raab
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, Northridge, CA 91330
Daniel O. Larson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, California State University, Long Beach, CA 90840
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Only in the last few years have high-resolution paleoclimatic data become available from coastal southern California. Recent research in the California Channel Islands, drawing on some of these data, attributes settlement disruptions, disease, and violence to maritime subsistence distress attendant to elevated sea temperatures in the period from A.D. 1150 to 1300. A broad range of paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and human osteological data suggest that these stress indicators are more convincingly correlated with severe late Holocene drought episodes during a portion of the medieval climatic anomaly (ca. A.D. 800 to 1400). Based on these data, cultural changes in coastal southern California, including violence, declining health, and emergent social complexity, are similar to events documented in the American Southwest. Cultural adaptations in both regions appear to have been responding to persistent drought conditions during the late Holocene.

Datos paleoclimáticos de aha resolución para la costa sur de California han aparecido solamente en los últimos años. Investigaciones recientes en Channel Islands, California, utilizan algunos de estos datos para atribuir disturbios, enfermedad, y violencia a los desastres en la subsistencia marítima ocasionados por altas temperaturas marinas en el periodo de 1150 a 1300 d.C. Un amplio rango de datos paleoambientales, arqueológicos, y osteológicos humanos sugieren que estos indicadores están más bien relacionados a episodios de sequía severa en el Holoceno tardío durante una porción de la Anomalía Climática Medieval (ca. 800 a 1400 d.C). En base a estos datos, cambios culturales en la costa sur de California, incluyendo violencia, enfermedad, y complejidad social emergente, son eventos similares a aquéllos ocurridos en el Suroeste norteamericano. Adaptaciones culturales en ambas regiones parecen haber respondido a condiciones de sequía persistentes durante el Holoceno tardío.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , April 1997 , pp. 319 - 336
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Ames, K. M. 1995 Chiefly Power and Household Production on the Northwest Coast. In Foundations of Social Inequality, edited by Price, T. D. and Feinman, G.M. pp. 155–187. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. E. 1987 Craft Specialization in the Prehistoric Channel Islands, California. Publications in Anthropology No. 18. University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. E. 1992 Complex Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers of Prehistoric California: Chiefs, Specialists and Maritime Adaptations of the Channel Islands. American Antiquity 57: 60–84.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. E. 1995 Social Inequality, Marginalization, and Economic Process. In Foundations of Social Inequality, edited by Price, T. D. and Feinman, G.M. pp. 87–103. Plenum Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, J. E., and O'Shea, J. M. 1993 Review of “The Evolution of Chumash Society: A Comparative Study of Artifacts Used in Social System Maintenance in the Santa Barbara Channel Region before A.D. 1804” by C. D. King. American Antiquity 58: 770.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arnold, J. E., and O'Shea, J. M. 1992 Prehistoric Subsistence and Settlement in the Ballona. In Life in the Ballona: Archaeological Investigations at the Admiralty Site (CA-LAN-47) and the Channel Gateway Site (CA-LAN-1596-h), pp. 365–376. Technical Series No. 33. Statistical Research, Tucson, Arizona.Google Scholar
Basgall, M. E. 1987 Resource Intensification among Hunter-Gatherers: Acorn Economies in Prehistoric California. Research in Economic Anthropology 9: 21–52.Google Scholar
Bean, L. J., and Lawton, H. 1976 Some Explanations of the Rise of Cultural Complexity in Native California with Comments on Proto-Agriculture and Agriculture. In Native Californians: A Theoretical Perspective, edited by Bean, L. J. and Blackburn, T.C. pp. 19^8. Ballena Press, Ramona, California.Google Scholar
Bowen, R. 1982 Surface Water. Applied Science, London.Google Scholar
Carbone, L. A. 1991 Early Holocene Environments and Paleoecological Contexts on the Central and Southern California Coast. In Hunter-Gatherers of Early Holocene Coastal California, edited by Erlandson, J. M. and Colten, R.H. pp. 11–17. Perspectives in California Archaeology, vol. 1. Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. 1985 Coping with Risk: Reciprocity among the Basarwa of Northern Botswana. Man 20: 454–474.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. 1987 Trade and Its Origins on the Boteti River, Botswana. Journal of Anthropological Research 43: 121–138.Google Scholar
Cashdan, E. 1990 Information Costs and Customary prices. In Risk and Uncertainty in Tribal and Peasant Economies, edited by Cashdan, E., pp. 259—278. Westview Press, Boulder.Google Scholar
Cole, K. L., and Webb, R. H. 1985 Late Holocene Vegetation Changes in Greenwater Valley, Mojave Desert, California. Quaternary Research 23: 227–235.Google Scholar
Colson, E. 1979 In Good Years and in Bad: Food Strategies of Self- Reliant Societies. Journal of Anthropological Research 35: 18–29.Google Scholar
Colten, R. H. 1992 Preliminary Analysis of Faunal Remains from Four Sites on Santa Cruz Island. In Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 5: 247–267. San Diego, California.Google Scholar
Colten, R. H. 1994 Prehistoric Animal Exploitation, Environmental Change, and Emergent Complexity on Santa Cruz Island, California. In The Fourth California Islands Symposium: Update on the Status of Resources, edited by Halvorson, W. L. and Maender, G.J. pp. 201–214. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Cordell, L. S. 1984 Prehistory of the Southwest. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Davis, M. 1995 Los Angeles after the Storm: The Dialectic of Ordinary Disaster. Antipode 27: 221–241.Google Scholar
Davis, O. K. 1992 Rapid Climatic Change in Coastal Southern California Inferred from Pollen Analysis of San Joaquin Marsh. Quaternary Research 37: 89–100.Google Scholar
Deacon, J. E., and Minckley, W. L. 1974 Desert Fishes. In Desert Biology: Special Topics on the Physical and Biological Aspects of Arid Regions, pp. 385–488. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
de Garine, I., and Harrison, G. A. 1988 Coping with Uncertainty in Food Supply. Clarendon Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Dirks, R. 1980 Social Responses during Severe Food Shortage and Famine. Current Anthropology 21: 21–44.Google Scholar
Douglass, A. E. 1929 The Secret of the Southwest Solved by Talkative Tree-rings. National Geographic 54: 737–770.Google Scholar
Enzel, Y, Cayan, D. R., Anderson, R. Y, and Wells, S. G. 1989 Atmospheric Circulation During Holocene Lake Stands in the Mojave Desert: Evidence of Regional Climate Change. Nature 341: 44–47.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J. M. 1993 Summary and Conclusions. In Archaeological Investigations at CA-SBA-1731: A Transitional Middle-to- Late Period Site on the Santa Barbara Channel, edited by Gerber, J. L., pp. 187–196. Dames and Moore. Report prepared for Exxon Company, Goleta, California. Copies available from Dames and Moore, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J. M. 1994 Early Hunter-Gatherers of the California Coast. Plenum Press, New York.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J. M. 1997 The Evolution of Maritime Societies on the California Coast. In Western North American Maritime Prehistory, edited by Blukis-Onat, A. R.. Simon Fraser University Press, Burnaby, British Columbia, in press.Google Scholar
Fagan, B. M. 1995 Ancient North America. Thames and Hudson, New York.Google Scholar
Fishman, J. 1996 California Social Climbers: Low Water Prompts High Status. Science 272: 811–812.Google Scholar
Ford, M. J. 1982 The Changing Climate: Responses of the Natural Fauna and Flora. George, Allen and Unwin, Boston.Google Scholar
Foster, M. S., Carter, J. W., and Shiel, D. R. 1983 The Ecology of Kelp Communities. In The Effects of Waste Disposal on Kelp Communities, edited by Bascom, W., pp. 53–69. Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, and the Institute of Marine Resources, University of California, La Jolla, California.Google Scholar
Glassow, M. A. 1996 Purisimeno Chumash Prehistory. Harcourt Brace, New York.Google Scholar
Glassow, M. A., and Wilcoxon, L. R. 1988 Coastal Adaptations near Point Conception, with Particular Regard for Shellfish Exploitation. American Antiquity 53: 36–51.Google Scholar
Glassow, M. A., Wilcoxon, L. R., and Erlandson, J. M. 1988 Cultural and Environmental Change during the Early Period of Santa Barbara Channel Prehistory. In The Archaeology of Prehistoric Coastlines, edited by Bailey, G. N. and Parkington, J., pp. 64–77. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Graumlich, L. J. 1993 A 1000-Year Record of Temperature and Precipitation in the Sierra Nevada. Quaternary Research 39: 249–255.Google Scholar
Halstead, P., and O'Shea, J. (editors) 1989 Bad Year Economics: Cultural Responses to Risk and Uncertainty. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hitchcock, R. K. 1979 The Traditional Response to Drought in Botswana. In Proceedings of the Symposium on Drought in Botswana, edited by Hinchey, M. T., pp. 91–97. Clark University Press, Hanover, New Hampshire.Google Scholar
Johnson, J. R. 1988 Chumash Social Organization: An Ethnohistoric Perspective. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Jones, T. L. 1995 Transitions in Prehistoric Diet, Mobility, Exchange, and Social Organization along California's Big Sur Coast. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis.Google Scholar
Jones, T. L. 1996 Mortars, Pestles, and Division of Labor in Prehistoric California: A View from Big Sur. American Antiquity 61: 243–264.Google Scholar
Jones, T. L., Brown, G. M., Kennett, D. J., McVickar, J. L., 1996 The Medieval Climatic Anomaly in Western North American Prehistory. Manuscript on file, Northridge Center for Public Archaeology, California State University, Northridge.Google Scholar
King, C. D. 1976 Chumash Inter-Village Economic Exchange. In Native Califomians: A Theoretical Perspective, edited by Bean, L. J. and Blackburn, T.C. pp. 288–318. Ballena Press, Ramona, California.Google Scholar
King, C. D. 1990 The Evolution of Chumash Society: A Comparative Study of Artifacts Used in Social System Maintenance in the Santa Barbara Channel Region before A.D. 1804. Garland, New York.Google Scholar
King, C. D. 1994 Prehistoric Native American Cultural Sites in the Santa Monica Mountains. Report prepared for the Santa Monica Mountains and Seashore Foundation and National Park Service, Western Region. Report on file with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, Agoura Hills, California.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A. L. 1976 Handbook of the Indians of California. Reprint. Originally published in 1925 as Bulletin No. 78 of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Lambert, P. M. 1993 Health in Prehistoric Populations of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. American Antiquity 58: 509–522.Google Scholar
Lambert, P. M., and Walker, P. L. 1991 Physical Anthropological Evidence for the Evolution of Social Complexity in Coastal Southern California. Antiquity 65: 963–973.Google Scholar
Landberg, L. 1965 The Chumash Indians of Southern California. Southwest Museum Papers 19. Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Landberg, L. 1975 Fishing effort in the Aboriginal Fisheries of the Santa Barbara Region, California: An Ethnohistorical Appraisal. In Maritime Adaptations of the Pacific, edited by Casteel, R. W. and Quimby, G.T. pp. 145–170. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Larson, D. O., Johnson, J. R., and Michaelsen, J. C. 1994 Missionization among the Coastal Chumash of Central California: A Study of Risk Minimization Strategies. American Anthropologist 96: 263–299.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larson, D. O., and Michaelsen, J. 1989 Climatic Variability: A Compounding Factor Causing Culture Change among Prehistoric Coastal Populations. Unpublished manuscript on file, Department of Anthropology, California State University, Long Beach. Ambos 1996 Risk, Climatic Variability, and the Study of Southwestern Prehistory: An Evolutionary Perspective. American Antiquity 61: 217–241.Google Scholar
Lipe, W. D. 1995 The Depopulation of the Northern San Juan: Conditions in the Turbulent 1200s. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 14: 143–169.Google Scholar
McGinnies, W. G., Golman, B. J., and Paylore, P. (editors) 1968 Deserts of the World: An Appraisal of Research into Their Physical and Biological Environments. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.Google Scholar
McGuire, K. R., and Hildebrandt, W. R. 1994 The Possibilities of Women and Men: Gender and the California Milling Stone Horizon. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 16: 41–59.Google Scholar
Maclachlan, M. D. 1983 Why They Did Not Starve: Biocultural Adaptation in a South Indian village. Institute for the Study of Human Issues, Philadelphia.Google Scholar
Manley, S. L. 1983 The Physiological Basis of Kelp Growth. In The Effects of Waste Disposal on Kelp Communities, edited by Bascom, W., pp. 38–52. Southern California Coastal Water Research Project, and the Institute of Marine Resources, University of California, La Jolla.Google Scholar
Martin, G. 1996 Keepers of the Oaks. Discovery 17: 44–50.Google Scholar
Mehringer, P. J. 1986 Prehistoric Environments. In Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 11, edited by D'Azevedo, W. L., pp. 45–50. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Moratto, M. J. 1984 California Archaeology. Academic Press, New York.Google Scholar
Moratto, M. J. 1978 Archaeology and California's Climate. Journal of California Anthropology 5: 147–161.Google Scholar
Noy-Meir, I. 1973 Desert Ecosystems: Environment and Producers. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4: 25–51.Google Scholar
Peterson, R. R. 1994 Archaeological Settlement Dynamics on the South Side of Santa Cruz Island. In The Fourth California Islands Symposium: Update on the Status of Resources, edited by Halvorson, W. L. and Maender, G.J. pp. 215–222. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, California.Google Scholar
Pielou, E. C. 1991 After the Ice Age. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.Google Scholar
Pisias, N. G. 1978 Paleoceanography of the Santa Barbara Basin during the Last 8000 Years. Quaternary Research 10: 366–384.Google Scholar
Pisias, N. G. 1979 Model for Paleoceanographic Reconstructions of the California Current for the Last 8,000 Years. Quaternary Research 11: 373–386.Google Scholar
Porcasi, J. F. 1995 Identification and Analysis of Mammalian and Avian Remains Recovered from 1994 Excavation at Eel Point, San Clemente Island, California. Unpublished Master's thesis, Department of Anthropology, California State University, Northridge.Google Scholar
Raab, L. M. 1995 The Dead at Calleguas Creek: A Study of Punctuated Cultural Evolution During the Middle-Late Period Transition in Southern California. Prepared for Environmental Division, Naval Air Weapons Station, Point Mugu, California. On file at Center for Public Archaeology, California State University, Northridge.Google Scholar
Raab, L. M. 1996 Debating Prehistory in Coastal Southern California: Political Economy vs. Resource Intensification. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 18: 64–80.Google Scholar
Raab, L. M., Bradford, K., Porcasi, J. F., and Howard, W. J. 1995 Return to Little Harbor, Santa Catalina Island, California: A Critique of the Marine Paleotemperature Model. American Antiquity 60: 287–308.Google Scholar
Raab, L. M., and Yatsko, A. 1990 Prehistoric Human Ecology of Quinquina, A Research Design for Archaeological Studies of San Clemente Island, Southern California. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 26: 10–37.Google Scholar
Service, E. R. 1975 Origins of the State and Civilization, The Process of Cultural Evolution. W. W. Norton, New York.Google Scholar
Spielmann, K. A. 1986 Interdependence among Egalitarian Societies. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 5: 279–312.Google Scholar
Stine, S. 1994 Extreme and Persistent Drought in California and Patagonia during Mediaeval Time. Nature 369: 546–549.Google Scholar
Tegner, M. J., and Dayton, P. K. 1987 El Nino Effects on Southern California Kelp Forest Communities. Advances in Ecological Research 17: 243–279.Google Scholar
True, D. L. 1990 Site Locations and Water Supply: A Perspective from Northern San Diego County, California. New World Archaeology 4: 37–60.Google Scholar
Walker, P. L. 1986 Porotic Hyperostosis in a Marine-Dependent California Indian Population. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 69: 345–354.Google Scholar
Walker, P. L. 1989a Cranial Injuries as Evidence of Violence in Prehistoric Southern California. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 80: 313–323.Google Scholar
Walker, P. L. 1989b The Effects of European Contact on the Health of Alta California Indians. In Columbian Consequences, vol. 1, edited by Thomas, D. H., pp. 349–364. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, D.C. Google Scholar
Walker, P. L., and Lambert, P. M. 1989 Skeletal Evidence for Stress during a Period of Cultural Change in Prehistoric California. In Advances in Paleopathology, Proceedings of the VII European Meeting of the Paleopathology Association, edited by Capasso, L., pp. 207–212. Marino Solfanelli, Chieti, Italy.Google Scholar
Wiessner, P. 1982 Risk, Reciprocity, and Social Influence on !Kung San Economics. In Politics and History in Band Societies, edited by Leacock, E. and Lee, R., pp. 61–84. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar