The Importance of Plants in Prehistory on California's Channel Islands: Theoretical Considerations and Paleoethnobotanical Data

This research examines subsistence and the relative importance of plants among prehistoric maritime hunter-gatherer-fishers living on the Channel Islands off the coast of southern California. While it is clear that island populations had a decidedly maritime focus, ethnographic and archaeological data indicate that plants were used in a variety of ways. Paleoethnobotanical research in particular has a crucial role to play in subsistence and settlement analysis, yet to date is limited in Channel Islands research. The purpose of this poster is to briefly summarize the extant paleoethnobotanical research conducted on the northern islands, and present some theoretical considerations for contextualizing the role of plants. Using ethnographic, archaeological, and archaeobotanical evidence, I argue that plants were of considerable importance in subsistence, even among strongly maritime-oriented people.