Collection: Directories and Documents > Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection

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Title: The Island Chumash, Behavioral Ecology of a Maritime Society Collection Type: Directories and Documents Collection Name: Tanis Thorne Native Californian & Nisenan Collection # of Pages: 6 Download PDF: User Login Required Download OCR Text: User Login Required

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260 Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology . Vol. 25. No. 2 (2005) they are straight-forward and not burdened with the jargon that sometimes pervades higher-level theoretical discussions. Second, he presents lists of radiocarbon dates and their site contexts that pertain to each of the three time divisions. The lists do not include every date obtained for northern Channel Islands sites, but they do include those associated with available site data. Significantly, many of the dates are a product of his own research on Santa Rosa Island and eastern Santa Cruz Island. Third, he includes a revision of the sea-surface temperature and marine productivity records presented in his dissertation. For the early and middle Holocene the new records are significantly different. These records will be of considerable interest to anyone concerned with environmental change along the California coast. Fourth, he includes a record of changes in shell fishhook design, which supports and adds a bit more detail to King’s (1990:231-232) synopsis. Finally, although Kennett’s book stands by itself as a significant contribution, those interested in the details of the data supporting some of his inferences will need to consult his dissertation. Kennett cites his dissertation frequently, so the instances in which the reader may find supporting data are clearly identified. Kennett’s use of theoretical perspectives from HBE, particularly aspects of Optimal Foraging Theory, is similar to, but more elaborate than, applications by other archaeologists working in coastal southern California and the Channel Islands. Changes in subsistence, for instance, are evaluated in terms of conformance to diet breadth and patch-choice expectations. However, he does not present the kind of quantitative analysis found in the more rigorous archaeological applications of theory derived from HBE (e.g., Broughton 1994a, 1994b, and Jones 2004). This observation is not meant to be a criticism of the book, as formal theory always should guide the identification and interpretation of data patterns, even if analysis does not entail formal quantitative evaluation of data in tests of specific hypotheses. A confusing aspect of Kennett’s theoretical stance, however, is his advocacy of a research focus on “individual behavioral strategies” (pp. 12-13). He states near the end of the book that his analysis “supports the conclusion that the social and political complexity evident at historic contact was ultimately a product of individual behavioral responses, both competitive and cooperative” (p. 236). Yet it is difficult to see in his analysis consideration of the actions of individuals, and indeed the implication is that selective pressures such as environmental change are operating on populations. Only when discussing the rise of sociopolitical elites during the Late Holocene is there mention of individual action, even though little in the archaeological record actually reflects the specific actions of elite individuals. Indeed, it is difficult to see how his analysis differs from the kind he dismisses, which is concerned with “group adaptation and..direct (causal) associations between cultural and environmental structure” (p. 12). Kennett’s analysis sometimes neglects consideration of viable alternatives to his arguments. He asserts, for instance, that “maritime foragers tend to position themselves centrally and collect resources logistically” (p. 30), and he defines “logistical encampments” of the Middle Holocene as sites from which resources such as shellfish were acquired and processed and then brought to a primary residential base (p.144,see also p.129). Although it is true that some Middle Holocene sites appear to be residential bases at which people spent substantial portions of the year, the small, shallow sites classified as logistical encampments may simply have been residential bases occupied at times during the year when populations were more mobile than they were at other times (Glassow 2004, 2005). Indeed, if a population is depending on shellfish as a major food resource, it makes little economic sense to collect and process them for return to a central base. Kennett’s interpretation is plausible nonetheless, but clearly alternative models of Middle Holocene settlement systems, still consistent with HBE theory, are possible and should have been considered. Kennett’s analysis of the determinants of patterning in the distribution of historically documented Island Chumash village locations also leaves out alternative possibilities. He posits that “[t]he settlement data from the northern Channel Islands suggest that villages were strategically positioned to control vital island resources, particularly fresh drinking water, and that islanders developed varied and innovative ways of monitoring the region surrounding these primary villages” (p. 182). He argues that strategic positioning entailed locating villages at defensive locations; ie., “on high seacliffs or on headlands” (p. 106). In fact, many historically documented Chumash village sites are not in such topographic situations; examples on Santa Cruz Island include Liyam, Xaxas, and probably Swaxil, all