Late Holocene Coastal Intensification, Mass Harvest Fishing, and the Historical Ecology of Marine Estuaries

The View from the Manila Site (CA-HUM-321), Humboldt Bay, Northwestern Alta California

Bibliographic Data

ID12986199
AuthorsTushingham (0000-0001-8454-3755, Washington State University, corresponding author), Janet P Eidsness, Tiffany J Fulkerson (0000-0002-9553-9548, Washington State University), Justin Hopt (Washington State University), Colin Christiansen (Washington State University), Angela Arpaia (American Anthropological Association), Julielani Chang (University of California, Davis)
Year2016
Volume8
Issue1
Pages1-35
Publication date2016-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCalifornia Archaeology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1947-461X • E-ISSN: 1947-4628
PublisherManey Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/1947461x.2016.1176359
OpenAlexW2438808472
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited24

The Manila site (CA-HUM-321) is a stratified prehistoric midden site with a long history of use by the Wiyot people. The site is located on Humboldt Bay on the North Coast of California, a major estuary system of the Pacific Northwest, and is unique for its excellent preservation, depth and integrity of deposits, and its strategic location, with ready access to both open coast and estuarine resources. In this article, we report our constituent analysis of excavated materials—the first study of its kind from Humboldt Bay—involving identification and quantification of dietary and material residues, including shellfish, fish, bird, and mammal bone, paleoethnobotanical seeds and wood, and lithics. The research establishes that the site dates to over 1,300 cal BP—predating deposits excavated by Loud (1918) Loud, Llewellyn L. 1918 Ethnography and Archaeology of the Wiyot Territory. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 14:221–436, Berkeley. [Google Scholar] at Tuluwat village on Gunther (Indian) Island (CA-HUM-67) by several hundred years—as well as the earliest evidence to date of the mass harvest of fish (especially smelt) and intensive shellfish procurement on the North Coast of California. The study contributes to our understanding of the historical ecology of northern California estuaries and provides insight into the emergence of bulk storage, mass capture techniques, and the development of plank house villages in the region

Archaeology · Bay · Biology · Estuary · Fishery · Geography · Holocene · Midden · Prehistory · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Ecology · Geology · Oceanography

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