IV. Traversing Past Landscapes and Human-Environment Interactions

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Zooarchaeology provides valuable insights into human impacts on past landscapes, especially when untangling questions of overhunting and resource depression. These processes require multiple targeted analyses to understand the individual influences of human and environmental factors on animals. Mule deer in the late pre-Hispanic central Mesa Verde region offer an excellent case study for understanding the importance of using zooarchaeological methods to isolate signatures of (un)sustainable resource use. Mule deer are culturally and dietarily significant, making their scarcity in the archaeological record from Pueblo I–III (750–1350 CE) a potential indicator of overhunting. While overhunting has been hypothesized as a cause of mule deer decline, supported by multiple strong case studies and relative abundance data (and indices), this interpretation warrants careful evaluation. Multiple analytical tools should be used to evaluate claims of unsustainable resource use. This study reevaluates the overhunting hypothesis using body size and mortality profile analyses, aiming to clarify hunting practices and their ecological impacts through time.

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The Haynie site (5MT1905), an Ancestral Pueblo village in southwest Colorado, was intermittently occupied from approximately 700 to 1280 CE. Since 2017, the Crow Canyon Archaeological Center has investigated its role within local and regional networks, its function as a community center, and its interactions with the surrounding landscape. Excavations in 10th- and 11th-century CE contexts uncovered five bison (Bison bison) specimens, a notable find for the Mesa Verde region during this time. These remains, found across different stratigraphic levels, represent a Minimum Number of Individuals (MNI) of one, raising questions about how many individuals are represented. Were these remains locally procured or acquired through long-distance networks? This research uses AMS radiocarbon dating of bison and plant specimens and stable isotopic (δ¹³C) modeling to assess depositional rates and provenance. These analyses reveal patterns of resource acquisition, depositional practices, and the site’s integration into broader environmental and cultural landscapes.

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Many cave deposits in the western U.S. are rich in late Pleistocene vertebrate fossils.  These caves are usually deep, dry, and located in arid environments where preservation of organic remains is highest. Many of these same caves were used by prehistoric peoples for hunting camps, shelters, or ceremonial purposes as evinced by cultural features, artifact assemblages and/or pictographs. Radiocarbon dating can reveal chronological differences between human artifacts and Pleistocene fossils, both of which are often found in the same layers and appear contemporaneous. Here I describe several cases of caves with apparent associations of human artifacts with Pleistocene fossils that resulted from taphonomic processes during a climatic transition from late Pleistocene to Holocene environments.  Real associations also occur in some caves and may relate to recognition by prehistoric peoples of ‘ancestral animals’ in bones and fecal remains of species no longer present in the region by the early Holocene.

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Generations of ethnographers have documented many rituals that contribute to Andean food production, from subtle coca offerings to community-scale canal cleaning festivals. Here, we discuss rituals conducted annually in the community of Chiripa on the Taraco Peninsula, Bolivia to predict and to temper crop production. From two seasons of ethnographic work, we have learned about signals that exist across the landscape predicting moisture levels, how to protect springs, along with rituals to protect the agricultural lands and yields. We present the evidence of these actions, how they link to agricultural practice and the well-being of the landscape. These actions reveal the local understanding of where risk comes from and how to mitigate it. We will consider some of the ways this ethnographic case study can inform our understandings of past ritual ecologies in this landscape.

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Archaeological data from coastal shell midden sites can have important implications for understanding long-term variations in ecosystem health and resource abundance. Our work in Cabo Pulmo National Park, Baja California Sur, Mexico, has allowed us to trace long-term patterns of change, with human occupation of the region beginning as early as 7,000 years ago and increasing over the most recent 2,500 years. Like many regions of the southern end of the Baja California Peninsula, Cabo Pulmo and the surrounding East Cape are at imminent risk of development and loss of natural and cultural resources. Our international research team has focused on public outreach and involving the local community to maximize the potential for conservation. In this talk, we will present the results of our archaeological research, including ethnobiological implications, and our community outreach activities, including our outlook for the future of this internationally recognized coastal ecosystem.

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Seabirds are important sentient beings in Unangax̂/Aleut ontologies. Seabird skins were used for everyday parkas as well as magical guises that facilitated transformations of people into birds in ancestral times. The relationships among Unangax̂/Aleuts and seabirds were not uniform across the archipelago; and little is known about relational variation across distinct cultural island groups. Additionally, we expect local ecosystems and oceanographic conditions to influence the histories of people and seabirds on the landscape. We use oral history and ethnohistory accounts of seabirds to complement zooarchaeology and bulk stable isotope analyses in a holistic study of the cultural and ecological relationships that bound the Unangax̂/Aleut and seabirds between Sanak Island and Agattu Island. This study highlights how human interactions with seabirds may have been differently shaped by cultural preferences, influence from neighboring cultural groups, and local environmental conditions on either end of the Aleutian Archipelago.

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The bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) is an iconic North American mammal that is often the focus of intensive conservation programs. These conservation programs typically judge success against historical data--often range maps dating to the 1850s, which coincide with the United States assuming possession of the Southwest from Mexico. Notably, commonly cited 1850s range maps indicate that northeastern Arizona, today largely the Diné (Navajo) Reservation, was devoid of bighorn sheep, even though this region is ecologically suited to the species. One explanation for this incongruity is population decline caused by the transmission of diseases like pneumonia (Mycoplasma ovipneumoniae) from domestic sheep (Ovis aries) introduced to the region by the Spanish as much as 250 years earlier, and prior to accounts written in English. We examine this idea by documenting the distribution and relative frequency of archaeological bighorn sheep remains and assess whether notable declines occurred prior to the 1850s.