Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-26T23:06:08.080Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Identifying Specialized 19th Century Fishing Camps on California's Northern Channel Islands: Applying AMS Radiocarbon Dating to Historical Sites

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 February 2016

Todd J Braje  and
Torben C Rick
Todd J Braje
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA
Torben C Rick
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, USA
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

California's Northern Channel Islands have long been an epicenter of specialized fishing economies dating from 13,000 yr ago to the mid-19th century. With thousands of well-preserved shell middens, some dominated by single shellfish species and little to no material culture, it can be difficult to distinguish between specialized prehistoric and historical deposits at some site types. Beginning at least in the Early Holocene and continuing into the Historic period, California mussels, turban snails, and abalone were targeted for specialized collection and processing by Native Americans and later Chinese and Euro-American fishers. Here, we demonstrate how selective accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating of specialized abalone processing camps can help distinguish between prehistoric and historical sites. While unconventional, our case study demonstrates the utility of 14C dating at sites less than 300 yr old.

Type
Articles
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 57 , Issue 5 , 2015 , pp. 909 - 916
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 The Arizona Board of Regents on behalf of the University of Arizona 

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

Armentrout-Ma, LE. 1981. Chinese in California's fishing industry, 1850–1941. California History 60:142–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Axford, M. 1984. Four years of archaeological investigations on San Clemente Island, California [manuscript on file]. San Diego: Natural Resource Office, North Island Naval Reservation.Google Scholar
Axford, M. 1987. Late historic Chinese abalone collectors on San Clemente Island [manuscript on file]. San Diego: Natural Resource Office, North Island Naval Reservation.Google Scholar
Bentz, L. 1996. Chinese abalone collectors of Santa Rosa Island [manuscript on file]. Ventura Park: Channel Islands National Park.Google Scholar
Bentz, L, Schwemmer, R. 2002. The rise and fall of the Chinese fisheries in California. In: Cassel, SL, editor. The Chinese in America: A History from Gold Mountain to the New Millennium. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press. p 140–55.Google Scholar
Berryman, JD. 1995. Archival information, abalone shell, broken pots, hearths, and windbreaks: clues to identifying nineteenth century California abalone collection and processing sites, San Clemente Island: a case study [PhD dissertation]. University of California, Riverside.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ. 2007. Geographic and temporal variability of middle Holocene red abalone middens on San Miguel Island, California. Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology 27:153–64.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ. 2010. Modern Oceans, Ancient Sites: Archaeology and Marine Conservation on San Miguel Island, California. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Bentz, L. 2015. The archaeology of overseas Chinese abalone fishermen on Santa Rosa Island, Alta California. Journal of Chinese Overseas 11(1):87–103.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Erlandson, JM. 2006. Historical abalone fishers of San Miguel Island, California. Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 19:21–6.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Erlandson, JM. 2007. Measuring subsistence specialization: comparing historic and prehistoric abalone middens on San Miguel Island, California. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 26:474–85.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Erlandson, JM. 2009. Molluscs and mass harvesting in the middle Holocene: prey size and resource ranking on San Miguel Island, Alta California. California Archaeology 1(2):269–89.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Erlandson, JM, Rick, TC. 2007. A historic abalone fishery on California's Northern Channel Islands. Historical Archaeology 25:115–25.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Rick, TC, Erlandson, JM. 2012. A trans-Holocene ecological record of shellfish harvesting on California's Northern Channel Islands. Quaternary International 264:109–20.Google Scholar
Braje, TJ, Costello, JG, Erlandson, JM, DeLong, R. 2014a. Of seals, sea lions, and abalone: the archaeology of an historical multiethnic base camp on San Miguel Island, California. Historical Archaeology 48:122–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Braje, TJ, Rick, TC, Reeder-Myers, L, Campbell, B, Minas, K. 2014b. Defining the historic landscape on eastern Santa Rosa Island: archaeological investigations at Qshiwqshiw. Western North American Naturalist 7:135–45.Google Scholar
Bronk Ramsey, C, Lee, S. 2013. Recent and planned developments of the program OxCal. Radiocarbon 55(2–3):720–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, I. 2003. The Chinese in America: A Narrative History. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Chen, J. 1981. The Chinese of America. San Francisco: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Culleton, BJ, Kennett, DJ, Ingram, BL, Erlandson, JM, Southon, JR. 2006. Intrashell radiocarbon variability in marine mollusks. Radiocarbon 48(3):387–400.Google Scholar
Erlandson, JM, Rick, TC, Vellanoweth, RL, Kennett, DJ. 1999. Marine subsistence at a 9300 year old shell midden on Santa Rosa Island, California. Journal of Field Archaeology 26:255–65.Google Scholar
Erlandson, JM, Rick, TC, Kennett, DJ, Walker, PL. 2001. Dates, demography, and disease: cultural contacts and possible evidence for Old World epidemics among the Protohistoric Island Chumash. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quaternary 37(3):11–26.Google Scholar
Erlandson, JM, Rick, TC, Batterson, MR. 2004. Busted Balls shell midden (CA-SMI 606): an early coastal site on San Miguel Island, California. North American Archaeologist 25:251–72.Google Scholar
Erlandson, JM, Rick, TC, Braje, TJ, Casperson, M, Culleton, B, Fulfrost, B, Garcia, T, Guthrie, DA, Jew, N, Kennett, DJ, Moss, ML, Reeder, L, Skinner, C, Watts, J, Willis, L. 2011. Paleoindian seafaring, maritime technologies, and coastal foraging on California's Channel Islands. Science 331(6021):1181–5.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hart, D. 2014. Cultural resources memo for the relocation of 35 sites on San Nicolas Island, Ventura County, California. Report prepared for the Naval Facilities Engineering Command Southwest.Google Scholar
Ingram, BL, Southon, JR. 1996. Reservoir age in eastern Pacific coastal and estuarine waters. Radiocarbon 38(3):573–82.Google Scholar
Jazwa, CS, Kennett, DJ, Hanson, D. 2012. Late Holocene subsistence change and marine productivity on western Santa Rosa Island, Alta California. California Archaeology 4(1):69–98.Google Scholar
Kennett, DJ. 2005. The Island Chumash: Behavioral Ecology of a Maritime Society. Berkeley: University of California Press CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kennett, DJ, Ingram, BL, Erlandson, JM, Walker, P. 1997. Evidence for temporal fluctuations in marine radiocarbon reservoir ages in the Santa Barbara Channel, southern California. Journal of Archaeological Science 24(11):1051–9.Google Scholar
Lightfoot, KG. 1995. Culture contact studies: redefining the relationship between prehistoric and historical archaeology. American Antiquity 60:199–217.Google Scholar
Morris, DP. 1994. Santa Rosa Island survey. Paper presented at the Fourth California Islands Symposium. Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, CA.Google Scholar
Raab, LM. 1992. An optimal foraging analysis of prehistoric shellfish collecting on San Clemente Island, California. Journal of Ethnobiology 12:63–80.Google Scholar
Reimer, PJ, Bard, E, Bayliss, A, Beck, JW, Blackwell, PG, Bronk Ramsey, C, Buck, CE, Cheng, H, Edwards, RL, Friedrich, M, Grootes, PM, Guilderson, TP, Haflidason, H, Hajdas, I, Hatté, C, Heaton, TJ, Hoffman, DL, Hogg, AG, Hughen, KA, Kaiser, KF, Kromer, B, Manning, SW, Niu, M, Reimer, RW, Richards, DA, Scott, EM, Southon, JR, Staff, RA, Turney, CSM, van der Plicht, J. 2013. IntCal13 and Marine13 radiocarbon age calibration curves 0–50,000 years cal BP. Radiocarbon 55(4):1869–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rick, TC, Vellanoweth, RL, Erlandson, JM, Kennett, DJ. 2002. On the antiquity of the single-piece shell fish-hook: AMS radiocarbon evidence from the southern California coast. Journal of Archaeological Science 29(9):933–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rick, TC, Reeder, LA, Cox, CJ, Sperling, ST, Jansen, A, Hines, AH. 2014. Shell middens, cultural chronologies, and coastal settlement on the Rhode River sub-estuary of Chesapeake Bay, Maryland, USA. Geoarchaeology 29(5):371–88.Google Scholar
Sandmeyer, EC. 1973. The Anti-Chinese Movement in California. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, SJ, Rossbach, KA. 1993. A preliminary survey of historic sites on San Nicolas Island. Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology 6:189–98.Google Scholar
Stuiver, M, Reimer, PJ, Reimer, RW. 2013. CALIB 7.0 manual [WWW document]. URL: http://calib.qub.ac.uk/calib/.Google Scholar
Wheeler, ED, Kallman, RE. 1984. Shipwrecks, Smugglers, and Maritime Mysteries. Ventura: Pathfinder Publishing.Google Scholar