Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-m6dg7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-07T20:31:47.053Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Physical anthropological evidence for the evolution of social complexity in coastal Southern California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Phillip L. Walker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara CA 93106, USA

Extract

In this paper we use osteological data to evaluate theories about the rise of chiefdoms in southern California. To do this, we examine skeletal evidence for changes in diet, disease and violence in Santa Barbara Channel area populations. These collections date from before and after the development of large, sedentary coastal villages and a political system that facilitated inter-village economic interaction. Our data show that the health consequences of the development of these chiefdoms are comparable to those seen with the development of complex agricultural societies. They also provide insights into the causes of social complexity in non-agricultural societies.

Type
Special section
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1991

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

Armelagos, G.J. 1990. Health and disease in prehistoric populations in transition, in Swedlund & Armelagos (ed.): 127–44.Google Scholar
Armelagos, G.J. & Dewey, J.R. 1970. Evolutionary responses to human infectious diseases, Bio-Science 20(5): 271–5.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. 1987. Craft specialization in the prehistoric Channel Islands, California. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press. University of California Publications in Anthropology 18.Google Scholar
Arnold, J. 1990. The emergence of a complex political economy and linkage to environmental stress in prehistoric coastal California, Abstracts of the 55th Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Las Vegas.Google Scholar
Black, F.L. 1975. Infectious disease in primitive societies, Science 187: 515–18.Google Scholar
Blitz, J.H. 1988. Adoption of the bow in prehistoric North America, North American Archaeologist 9(2): 123–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breschini, G.S., Haversat, T. & Erlandson, J. 1990. California radiocarbon dates, sixth edition. Salinas (CA): Coyote Press.Google Scholar
Carneiro, R.L. 1970. Atheory of the origin of the state, Science 169: 733–8.Google Scholar
Cohen, M.N. 1977. The food crisis in prehistory. New Haven (CT): Yale University.Google Scholar
Cohen, M.N. 1977. 1981. Pacific coast foragers: affluent or overcrowded? Senri Ethnological Studies 9: 275–95.Google Scholar
Cohen, M.N. 1985. The meaning of social complexity, in Price & Brown (ed.): 99119.Google Scholar
Cohen, M.N. 1989. Health and the rise of civilization. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, M.N. & Armelagos, G.J. 1984. Paleopathology at the origins of agriculture. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Cook, D.C. 1976. Pathologic states and disease process in Illinois Woodland population: an epidemiological approach. Ph.D dissertation, University of Chicago.Google Scholar
Cybulski, J.S. 1980. Possible pre-Columbian trepone-matosis on Santa Rosa Island, California, Canadian Review of Physical Anthropology 2: 1925.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J.M. 1988. Of millingstones and molluscs: the cultural ecology of Early Holocene hunter-gatherers on the California Coast. Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J.M. 1991a. Early maritime adaptations on the Northern Channel Islands, in Erlandson, & Colten, (ed.): 101–11.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J.M. 1991b. Shellfish and seeds as optimal resources: early Holocene subsistence on the Santa Barbara coast, in Erlandson, & Colten, (ed.): 89100.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J.M. In press. The evolution of maritime economies on the southern California coast, in Blukis-Onat, A.R. (ed.), The development of hunting-fishinggathering maritime societies along the West Coast of North America. Pullman (WA): Washington State University Press.Google Scholar
Erlandson, J.M. & Colten, R. (ed.). 1991. Perspectives in California Archaeology 1: Hunter gatherers of Early Holocene coastal California. Los Angeles (CA): Institute of Archaeology, University of California.Google Scholar
Eyre-Brook, A.L. 1984. The periosteum: its function reassessed, Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research 189: 300307.Google Scholar
Glassow, M.A. 1991. Early Holocene adaptations on Vandenberg Air Force Base, Santa Barbara County, in Erlandson, & Colten, (ed.): 113–24.Google Scholar
Glassow, M., Wilcoxon, L.R. & Erlandson, J.M. 1988. Cultural and environmental change during the Early period of Santa Barbara Channel prehistory, in Bailey, G.N. & Parkington, J. (ed.), The archaeology of prehistoric coastlines: 6477. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haas, J. 1982. The evolution of the prehistoric state. New York (NY): Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haas, J. 1990. The anthropology of war. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hodges, D.C. 1987. Health and agricultural intensification in the prehistoric valley of Oaxaca, Mexico, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 73(3):323.Google Scholar
Hoyme, D.C. 1970. On the origins of New World paleopathology, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 31: 295302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, J.R. 1988. Chumash social organization: an ethnohistoric perspective. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Santa Barbara.Google Scholar
Kent, S. 1991. Abstract: a hematological study of !Kung Kalahari foragers: an eighteen year comparison, American Journal of Physical Anthropology: Supplement 12 to the American Journal of Physical Anthropology Annual Meeting Issue: 104.Google Scholar
King, C. 1971. Chumash inter-village economic exchange, Indian Historian 4(1):3143.Google Scholar
King, C. 1981. The evolution of Chumash society. Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Davis. Ann Arbor (MI): University Microfilms.Google Scholar
King, C. 1990. Evolution of Chumash society. New York (NY): Garland Publishing.Google Scholar
King, L. 1982. Medea Creek cemetery: Late Inland Chumash patterns of social organization, exchange and warfare. Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar
Kroeber, A.L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. New York (NY): Dover Publications.Google Scholar
Lambert, P.L. n.d. Temporal variation in the health of the prehistoric population of The Santa Barbara Channel area. Unpublished paper.Google Scholar
Landberg, L.C.W. 1965. The Chumash Indians of southern California. Los Angeles (CA): Southwest Museum. Southwest Museum Papers 19.Google Scholar
Larson, D.O., Michaelson, J.& Walker, P.L. 1989. Climatic variability: a compounding factor causing culture change among prehistoric coastal populations. Paper presented at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Atlanta.Google Scholar
Martz, P.C. 1984. Social dimensions of Chumash mortuary populations in the Santa Monica Mountains region. Ph.D dissertation, University of California, Riverside.Google Scholar
Maschner, H. 1990. Circumscribed abundance: an evolutionary study of social inequality and political complexity on the northern Northwest Coast, in Precirculated papers & abstracts, CHAGS 6 1: 457–73. Fairbanks (AK): University of Alaska Fairbanks.Google Scholar
Moratto, M.J. 1984. California Archaeology. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ortner, D.J. & Putschar, W.G.J. 1985. Identification of pathological conditions in human skeletal remains. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Peebles, C.S. & Kus, S.M. 1977. Some archaeological correlates of ranked societies, American Antiquity 42(3): 42147.Google Scholar
Powell, M.L. 1988. Status and health in prehistory: a case study of the Moundville chiefdom. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Price, T.D. ɣ Brown, J.A. 1985a. Aspects of hunter-gatherer complexity, in Price & Brown (ed.): 320.Google Scholar
Price, T.D. 1985b. (ed.). Prehistoric hunter-gatherers: the emergence of cultural complexity. New York (NY): Academic Press.Google Scholar
Service, E. 1975. The Origins of the state and civilization. New York (NY): W.W. Norton.Google Scholar
Simpson, A.H.R.W. 1985. The blood supply of the periosteum, Journal of Anatomy 140(4): 697704.Google Scholar
Swedlund, A.C. & Armelagos, G.J. 1990. Disease in populations in transition. New York (NY): Bergin & Garvey.Google Scholar
Sweeney, E.A., Cabrera, J. Urrutia, H. & Mata, L. 1969. Factors associated with linear hypoplasia of human deciduous incisors, Journal of Dental Research 48:1275–9.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1978. A quantitative analysis of dental attrition rates in the Santa Barbara Channel area, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 48:101–6.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1985. Anemia among prehistoric Indians of the American Southwest, in Merbs, C.F. & Miller, R.J. (ed.), Health and disease in the prehistoric Southwest: 139164. Tempe (AZ): Arizona State University. Arizona State University Anthropological Papers 34.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1986. Porotic hyperostosis in a marine-dependent California Indian population, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 69: 345–54.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1989. Cranial injuries as evidence of violence in prehistoric southern California, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 80: 313–23.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. In press. Enamel hypoplasia during 5000 years of southern California prehistory, in Rhine, S. & Steinbock, R.T. (ed.), Disease in the Prehistoric Southwest II. Albuquerque (NM): University of New Mexico, Maxwell Museum. Maxwell Museum of Anthropology Papers.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. & Deniro, M.J. 1986. Stable nitrogen and carbon isotope ratios in bone collagen as indices of prehistoric dietary dependence on marine and terrestrial resources in southern California, American Journal of Physical Anthropology 71: 5161.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Walker, P.L. & Erlandson, J.M. 1986. Dental evidence for prehistoric dietary change on the northern Channel Islands, California, American Antiquity 51(2):375–83.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. & Hollimon, S.E. 1989. Changes in osteoarthritis associated with the development of a maritime economy among southern California Indians, International Journal of Anthropology 4(3): 171–83.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. & Johnson, J. In press. The effects of European contact on the Chumash Indians, in Verano, J. & Ubelaker, D. (ed.), Disease and demography in the Americas: changing patterns before and after 1492. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. & Lambert, P.M. 1989. Skeletal evidence for stress during a period of cultural change in prehistoric California, Advances in Paleopathology, Journal of Paleopathology: Monographic Publication No. 1. Chieti: Marino Solfanelli.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. 1990. Warfare and violence in pre-European California. Paper presented at the Sixth Annual California Indian Conference, California Indian Warfare Symposium, Riverside, CA.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L., Lambert, P.M. & Deniro, M.J. 1989. The effects of European contact on the health of Alta California Indians, inThomas, D.H. (ed.), Columbian consequences 1: Archaeological and historical perspectives on the Spanish Borderlands West: 349–64. Washington (DC): Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Webster, D. 1975. Warfare and the evolution of the state: a reconsideration, American Antiquity 40: 464–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Winters, H.D. 1974. Introduction to the new edition, in Webb, W.S. (ed.), Indian Knoll: v-xxvii. Knoxville (TN): University of Tennessee.Google Scholar