Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T06:13:33.476Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Drought-Related Changes in Two Hunter–Gatherer California Populations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Elizabeth Weiss
Elizabeth Weiss*
Affiliation:
Environmental Dynamics Program, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, 72701
*
1Mailing address: E-mail: [email protected]. 1265 Richmond Street, Suite 1710, London, Ontario N6A 3M1, Canada.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Skeletal remains from two California cemeteries bracketing a severe drought that began around 1200 yr B.P. are analyzed to determine drought-related quality of life changes in Native Americans. Cemetery 1 predates the drought at 2895±160 yr B.P. to 1845±90 yr B.P. and Cemetery 2 dates it at 1100±90 yr B.P. to 1220±200 yr B.P. Quality of life was assessed through femoral computerized tomography scan measures of cortical thickness, age at adult death, and pathology/trauma frequency. After controlling for age and sex differences, changes from Cemetery 1 to Cemetery 2 showed decreases in cortical thickness and age at death and increases in pathology and trauma frequency.

Type
Short Paper
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 58 , Issue 3 , November 2002 , pp. 393 - 396
Copyright
University of Washington

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

Cohen, M.N. Health and the Rise of Civilization. (1989). Yale Univ. Press, New Haven.Google Scholar
Bettinger, R.L. Commentary on Jones et al.'s Environmental imperatives reconsidered: Demographic crises in western North America during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. Current Anthropology 40, (1999). 137 170.Google Scholar
Dewey, J.R., Armelagos, G., and Bartley, M. Femoral cortical involution in three Nubian archaeological populations. Human Biology 41, (1969). 13 28.Google ScholarPubMed
Hague, R. A physical and cultural analysis with a paleo-ecological reconstruction of an indigenous Indian population of the northern Sacramento and San Joaquin Valley Delta regions. (1977). California State UniversityDepartment of Anthropology, Sacramento.Google Scholar
Holmes, J.A., Street-Perrott, F., Allen, M., Fothergill, P., Harkness, D., Kroon, D., and Perrott, R. Holocene palaeolimnology of Kajemarum Oasis, Northern Nigeria: An isotopic study of ostracodes, bulk carbonate and organic carbon. Journal of the Geological Society, London 154, (1997). 311 319.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ivanhoe, F. Secular decline in cranioskeletal size over two millennia of interior central California prehistory: Relation to calcium deficit in the reconstructed diet and demographic stress. International Journal of Osteoarchaeology 5, (1995). 213 253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, T.L., Brown, G., Raab, L., McVikar, J., Spaulding, W., Kennett, D., York, A., and Walker, P. Environmental imperatives reconsidered: Demographic crises in western North America during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. Current Anthropology 40, (1999). 137 170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lambert, P.M. Health in prehistoric populations of the Santa Barbara Channel Islands. American Antiquity 58, (1993). 509 521.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver-Smith, A. Anthropological research on hazards and disasters. Annual Review of Anthropology 25, (1996). 303 328.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owsley, D. Temporal variation in femoral cortical thickness of North American Plains Indians. Ortner, D., and Aufderheide, A. Human Paleopathology: Current Syntheses and Future Options. (1991). Random House (Smithsonian Inst. Press), New York. 105 111.Google Scholar
Schulz, P.D., and Johnson, J. An early acorn cache from Central California. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 2, (1980). 127 128.Google Scholar
Seldonmridge, J.S. The relative health of the human interments from 4-Sjo-91 and 4-Sjo-155 (sic CA-SJO-165). (1976). California State UniversityDepartment of Anthropology, Sacramento.Google Scholar
Stine, S. Extreme and persistent drought in California and Patagonia during Medieval time. Nature 369, (1994). 546 549.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wait, J, Anderson, R, Hibbard, C, and Johnson, J. 1994, CA-SJO-91 collection catalog verification report: Accession number 81-5, Department of Anthropology, Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Studies California State University, Sacramento.Google Scholar
Walker, P.L. An overview of California Indian history before the arrival of Europeans. Journal of Human Ecology 2, (1991–1992). 359 370.Google Scholar
Weiss, E. Sexual differences in activity patterns in a Central Californian hunter–gatherer population. California Anthropologist 25, (1998). 1 7.Google Scholar