Climate Change and Subsistence Exchange in Southern California

Was Western Sea-Purslane a Channel Island Trade Good

Bibliographic Data

ID2095866
AuthorsMikael Fauvelle (0000-0002-0228-9245, University of California San Diego, corresponding author), Ellen Esch (0000-0002-4253-0910, University of California San Diego), A D Somerville (0000-0003-4839-2739, University of California San Diego), Andrew Somerville
Year2017
Volume82
Issue1
Pages183-188
Publication date2017-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7316 • E-ISSN: 2325-5064
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/aaq.2016.3
OpenAlexW2585855723
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited14

A popular model for social evolution in the Santa Barbara Channel region holds that, during times of resource stress, islanders would trade with mainlanders for plant foods in order to supplement island diets. Recently, western sea-purslane (Sesuvium verrucosum) has been suggested as a primary food product involved in this exchange. This report presents new caloric values forSesuvium verrucosumand other plant foods that have been indicated as possible cross-channel trade goods. We argue that western sea-purslane is unlikely to have been a major trade item and suggest an alternate possibility for the presence of sea-purslane seeds in archaeological middens on Santa Cruz Island. While climate change may indeed have impacted social histories in the Channel Region, we argue that current data do not support the transportation of plant foods as having been a major component in this process

Agriculture · Archaeology · Biology · Channel (broadcasting) · Climate change · Geography · Product (mathematics) · Resource (disambiguation) · Subsistence agriculture · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies · Ecology · Geology and Paleoclimatology Research · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

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