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Archaeologists have long emphasized the importance of large-scale excavations and multi-year or even decades-long projects at a single site or site complex. Here, we highlight archaeological field strategies, termed coring, profiling, and trenching (CPT), that rely on relatively small-scale excavations or the collection of new samples from intact deposits in previously excavated trenches (aka test units or pits). Examples from multiple sites in Africa, Asia, and North America demonstrate that CPT is highly effective for obtaining high-resolution archaeobiological and geoarchaeological samples (e.g., faunal and botanical remains, sediments) and artefacts from areas that have seen limited or no archaeological research, little systematic application of archaeological science methods, or research only on a relatively narrow time period or geographic scale. Designed to complement large-scale excavations at single sites, CPT is ideal for multi-scalar research that works in tandem with remote sensing techniques, providing samples for detailed laboratory analyses and offering a bridge between surface surveys and large-scale excavation. Given the threats facing archaeological sites around the world from climate change and human development, as well as financial, training and infrastructure constraints, and concerns from many Indigenous communities about large excavations, we argue that CPT is an important method for addressing 21st century human-environmental research questions., peer-reviewed

The island laboratory concept has long been an important construct in island archaeology, with an emphasis on human biogeography and issues of isolation, connectivity, interaction, evolution, and e...

Historical ecology has revolutionized our understanding of fisheries and cultural landscapes, demonstrating the value of historical data for evaluating the past, present, and future of Earth’s ecosystems. Despite several important studies, Indigenous fisheries generally receive less attention from scholars and managers than the 17th–20th century capitalist commercial fisheries that decimated many keystone species, including oysters. We investigate Indigenous oyster harvest through time in North America and Australia, placing these data in the context of sea level histories and historical catch records. Indigenous oyster fisheries were pervasive across space and through time, persisting for 5000–10,000 years or more. Oysters were likely managed and sometimes “farmed,” and are woven into broader cultural, ritual, and social traditions. Effective stewardship of oyster reefs and other marine fisheries around the world must center Indigenous histories and include Indigenous community members to co-develop more inclusive, just, and successful strategies for restoration, harvest, and management. Results - Indigenous fisheries of abundance. - Oysters in monuments and ritual landscapes. - Not all forgotten: Indigenous use of oysters. Indigenous - Capitalist commercial fisheries and ecological collapse. Discussion Methods

Forty years ago, Knut Fladmark (1979) argued that the Pacific Coast offered a viable alternative to the ice-free corridor model for the initial peopling of the Americas—one of the first to support a “coastal migration theory” that remained marginal for decades. Today, the pre-Clovis occupation at the Monte Verde site is widely accepted, several other pre-Clovis sites are well documented, investigations of terminal Pleistocene subaerial and submerged Pacific Coast landscapes have increased, and multiple lines of evidence are helping decode the nature of early human dispersals into the Americas. Misconceptions remain, however, about the state of knowledge, productivity, and deglaciation chronology of Pleistocene coastlines and possible technological connections around the Pacific Rim. We review current evidence for several significant clusters of early Pacific Coast archaeological sites in North and South America that include sites as old or older than Clovis. We argue that stemmed points, foliate points, and crescents (lunates) found around the Pacific Rim may corroborate genomic studies that support an early Pacific Coast dispersal route into the Americas. Still, much remains to be learned about the Pleistocene colonization of the Americas, and multiple working hypotheses are warranted.

Coastal archaeology is vulnerable to climate change, making the development of new techniques for the rapid recovery of information from the most threatened sites essential. The authors report a systematic kayak survey of a Chesapeake Bay sub-estuary undertaken during the winter months, when low tides and reduced vegetation maximise the visibility of archaeological material. Locations in the vulnerable intertidal zone were targeted for survey. Data were collected for 24 archaeological sites, illuminating local settlement chronology. This technique could be used for the survey of endangered coastal archaeology in other regions of the world.

Archaeobotanical remains recovered from a large ∼8000-year-old-shell midden (CA-SRI-666) on Santa Rosa Island provide the first ancient plant data from this large island, shedding light on ...

Powerful hurricanes in 2017—Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria—were stark examples of how these previously rare catastrophes are becoming increasingly normal due to climate change, with dire consequences for cultural resources. These storms, sometimes called megastorms or superstorms, were the first in which high-resolution satellite imagery was available in the immediate aftermath, providing a new tool for rapidly evaluating damage to archaeological sites. Using Hurricane Harvey as a case study, we examined two recent spatial models of archaeological site vulnerability to long-term climate change to determine whether these models are also adequate for predicting the impacts of short-term climate catastrophes. We further examined a number of individual variables that we expected to be useful in predicting which sites would be most vulnerable to flooding, such as proximity to rivers, the coast, or the floodplain. Neither the models nor the individual variables correlated well to increased risk to archaeological sites, with the exception of land use. Sites located within developed areas benefited from measures to protect property and were less often flooded. We suggest that strategies for responding to megastorms would be most effective through a combination of preparedness, analysis of remote sensing data, and existing field research methods.

During the last 10 years, we have learned a great deal about the potential for a coastal peopling of the Americas and the importance of marine resources in early economies. Despite research at a growing number of terminal Pleistocene archaeological sites on the Pacific Coast of the Americas, however, important questions remain about the lifeways of early Paleocoastal peoples. Research at CA-SRI-26, a roughly 11,700 year old site on California's Santa Rosa Island, provides new data on Paleoindian technologies, subsistence strategies, and seasonality in an insular maritime setting. Buried beneath approximately two meters of alluvium, much of the site has been lost to erosion, but its remnants have produced chipped stone artifacts (crescents and Channel Island Amol and Channel Island Barbed points) diagnostic of early island Paleocoastal components. The bones of waterfowl and seabirds, fish, and marine mammals, along with small amounts of shellfish document a diverse subsistence strategy. These data support a relatively brief occupation during the wetter "winter" season (late fall to early spring), in an upland location several km from the open coast. When placed in the context of other Paleocoastal sites on the Channel Islands, CA-SRI-26 demonstrates diverse maritime subsistence strategies and a mix of seasonal and more sustained year-round island occupations. Our results add to knowledge about a distinctive island Paleocoastal culture that appears to be related to Western Stemmed Tradition sites widely scattered across western North America.

The productive woodlands, estuaries, and coastlines of the Middle Atlantic region of North America have been home to Native Americans from the Paleoindian period to the modern day. Inhabitants of this region adapted to broad environmental changes, including the emergence of Chesapeake Bay when rising seas drowned the Susquehanna River valley around 8000 years ago. Estuarine conditions expanded throughout the Holocene, alongside the establishment of a rich and diverse forest environment. Much of the evidence for human harvesting of coastal resources has likely been obscured by sea level rise and modern development, but first appears around 5000 years BP. By the Middle Woodland (2500 to 1100 BP), people were harvesting oysters, clams, fish, and other bay resources as part of a broad foraging subsistence. When Europeans arrived, at least some of the people living around Chesapeake Bay were practicing agriculture while also harvesting oysters and other resources. Oyster harvesting was remarkably consistent and sustainable through time, with minimal impact on oyster populations or other environmental conditions. This long history of sustainable fishing practices in the face of persistent sea level rise and climate change suggests that reduced harvest pressure may be a key component to restoring modern Chesapeake ecosystems.

From the icy shores of Labrador to the warm mangroves of the Florida Keys, North America’s Atlantic Coast was a magnet for human subsistence and settlement for millennia. North America’s Atlantic Coast is a land of diversity united by rich coastal and terrestrial ecosystems that were home to a wide variety of Native American societies and distinct cultural adaptations and systems. This introductory chapter synthesizes the coastal archaeology as well as historical ecology and paleography of North America’s Atlantic Coast, focusing on major research developments of the last 30 years. It also provides the context and framework for the rest of the volume.

Human use of estuarine shellfish and other coastal marsh resources began on California's Santa Rosa Island at least 11 800–11 100 years ago. Productive estuaries in California and elsewhere in the Americas were present by the Late Pleistocene, providing shellfish, waterfowl, fish and seaweeds that attracted some of the First Americans.

The submersion of Late Pleistocene shorelines and poor organic preservation at many early archaeological sites obscure the earliest effects of humans on coastal resources in the Americas. We used collagen fingerprinting to identify bone fragments from middens at four California Channel Island sites that are among the oldest coastal sites in the Americas (~12,500-8,500 cal BP). We document Paleocoastal human predation of at least three marine mammal families/species, including northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), eared seals (Otariidae), and sea otters (Enhydra lutris). Otariids and elephant seals are abundant today along the Pacific Coast of North America, but elephant seals are rare in late Holocene (

Chesapeake Bay is home to highly productive marine ecosystems that were a key part of Native American subsistence for millennia. Despite a number of archaeological projects focused on Chesapeake Bay prehistory, key questions remain about the nature of human use of the estuary through time and across space. Recent work at 7 shell middens on the Rhode River Estuary, MD, provides insight into human subsistence and estuarine res ource exploitation from ∼3200 years ago through the mid-19th century. This is an important diachronic sequence of coastal land use and subsistence for the Chesapeake and helps fill a gap in our understanding of coastal adaptations along North America's Atlantic Coast. Despite climate change, fluctuating sea levels, and the likely appearance of maize agriculture in the area ∼1000 years ago, Native American exploitation of oysters and estuarine resources remained fairly consistent across the Early to Late Woodland. These data stand in contrast to the mid-1800s assemblage, which...

Previous research on agriculture in the American Southwest focuses overwhelmingly on archaeological survey methods to discern surface agricultural features, which, in combination with climatological, geological, and geographical variables, are used to create models about agricultural productivity in the past. However, with few exceptions, the role of floodplain irrigation and floodwater farming in ancestral Pueblo agriculture is generally downplayed in scholarly discourse. Using a variety of methods, including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), satellite imagery, pedestrian survey, and supervised classification of remotely sensed imagery, we examine this issue through a consideration of how ancestral Ohkay Owingeh (Tewa) people solved the challenges of arid land farming in the lower Rio Chama watershed of New Mexico during the Classic period (A.D. 1350–1598). Based on acreage estimates, our results indicate that runoff and rainwater fields in terrace environments would have been insufficient to supply the nutritional needs of an ancestral Tewa population exceeding 10,000 individuals. Based on these observations, we present a case for the substantial role of subsistence agriculture in the floodplain of the Rio Chama and its associated tributaries.

Since the collapse of the Clovis-first model of the peopling of the Americas some 30 years ago, there has been growing interest in the Pacific Coast as a potential early human dispersal corridor. With postglacial eustatic sea level rise inundating most New World paleoshorelines older than ~7000 years, however, locating terminal Pleistocene sites along modern coastlines is challenging. Using the distribution and archaeology of subaerial Paleocoastal archaeological sites on California’s Northern Channel Islands as a guide, we developed a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) predictive model to locate and map submerged high probability landforms, which might contain Paleocoastal sites. Our results illustrate how archaeologists can narrow targets in their search for evidence of the first Americans along submerged Pacific Coast paleoshorelines.

Worldwide, prehistoric hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists translocated a variety of animals and plants to islands. Translocations enhanced island ecosystems, introducing animals and plants used for food or raw materials. We review recent zooarchaeology, genetics, and stable isotope data to evaluate the evidence for ancient translocations to the islands of Baja and Alta California. Native peoples likely translocated foxes, mice, ground squirrels, domesticated dogs, iguanids, and possibly skunks to some California Islands. Although some animal translocations were for subsistence or broader environmental enhancement, others were either unintentional (mice) or more closely associated with ritual and other cultural practices. The dearth of translocations tied directly to subsistence suggests that marginal island food sources were not a primary factor driving translocation.

Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and is famous for its once extensive and now severely degraded eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) populations, along with a number of other important fisheries including crabs, rockfish, and menhaden. Here we explore the historical ecology of Native American subsistence and land use strategies in the Fishing Bay area of Maryland's Eastern Shore, building on our broader bay-wide analyses of oyster fisheries and human-environmental interactions. Archaeological analysis of faunal remains from shell middens dated between AD 500 to 1500, along with analysis of locally collected modern oysters, help reconstruct Fishing Bay's evolution during the late Holocene, and document shellfish harvest strategies and predation pressure. These data suggest a stable and sustainable prehistoric oyster fishery in Fishing Bay, likely due to: 1) seasonal harvest and local consumption; 2) intertidal harvest that allowed replenishment from subtidal populations; and 3) ...

Twenty-first-century global warming poses a significant threat to the cultural heritage of coastal regions, but the effects of sea-level rise and changing weather patterns will not be evenly distributed. In addition, continued urban, agricultural, and industrial development concentrated in coastal areas contributes to the destruction of cultural resources. Mitigation of these threats requires rapid action on the part of archaeologists and public land managers. This study presents a method for quickly evaluating relative resource vulnerability at national, regional, and local scales, using data that is available for all United States coastlines, as well as many other coastlines around the world. Three regional case studies—the mountainous coast of California's Santa Barbara Channel, the wetlands and sandy shores of Texas, and the protected estuarine shores of Virginia's Chesapeake Bay—are compared to shoreline vulnerability for the United States as a whole. In each of these regions, sites have alre...

Blue crabs (Callinectes sapidus), an important commercial and ecological species in the eastern United States, are a key part of Chesapeake Bay culture, tourism, and fisheries. Blue crab remains are rare in Middle Atlantic North American archaeological sites, however, leading to speculation that Native Americans did not eat crabs, that taphonomic processes and/or excavation strategies are not suitable to crab preservation or recovery, or that seasonal use of estuarine foods limited blue crab exploitation. We explore these hypotheses through examination of archaeological blue crab remains, analysis of allometric relationships to investigate changes in crab size, and experiments (soil pH, animal scavenging, etc.) focused on the preservation and recovery of blue crab remains. These data demonstrate that blue crab remains are fragile and that their preservation and recovery is strongly influenced by taphonomic processes, excavation strategies, and perhaps seasonal exploitation. Despite these potential biases, blue crabs have been identified in 93 Chesapeake Bay archaeological sites from at least 3200 years ago through the 20th century. Blue crabs were an important food source for Native Americans, EuroAmerican colonists, and African Americans, with size estimates demonstrating that a range of crab sizes were harvested in the past, including a higher proportion of large crabs than those found in the Bay today under the intense modern fishery. Our experimental and archaeological analyses provide an approach that can be used generally by archaeologists working in marine environments and on other species around the world.

Sea-level rise during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene inundated nearshore areas in many parts of the world, producing drastic changes in local ecosystems and obscuring significant portions of the archeological record. Although global forces are at play, the effects of sea-level rise are highly localized due to variability in glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) effects. Interpretations of coastal paleoecology and archeology require reliable estimates of ancient shorelines that account for GIA effects. Here we build on previous models for California's Northern Channel Islands, producing more accurate late Pleistocene and Holocene paleogeographic reconstructions adjusted for regional GIA variability. This region has contributed significantly to our understanding of early New World coastal foragers. Sea level that was about 80-85 m lower than present at the time of the first known human occupation brought about a landscape and ecology substantially different than today. During the late Pleistocene, large tracts of coastal lowlands were exposed, while a colder, wetter climate and fluctuating marine conditions interacted with rapidly evolving littoral environments. At the close of the Pleistocene and start of the Holocene, people in coastal California faced shrinking land, intertidal, and subtidal zones, with important implications for resource availability and distribution.

Systematic radiocarbon dating of coastal shell middens is a useful method for obtaining basic chronological information about archaeological sites that are threatened by coastal erosion, or for conducting reconnaissance in an area where little is known about the settlement history. This study focuses on radiocarbon dating of archaeological sites across the marine terrace adjacent to Carrington Point, Santa Rosa Island, California. This area has seen limited archaeological research compared to other portions of the island. Results suggest that settlement of this area was not constrained by known environmental or cultural patterns. When compared to other areas where similar systematic radiocarbon dating has been performed, no single factor can explain settlement decisions throughout the Northern Channel Islands. Although resource use at a single site may be heavily determined by environmental factors and regional settlement patterns are influenced by broad cultural trends, mid-scale patterns may also be con...

s Hunter-gatherer decisions about where to live were influenced by many behaviors, some easier to see in the archaeological record (i.e. hunting or trapping vertebrates, gathering shellfish, quarrying and flint knapping) and some more difficult (i.e. gathering and processing plants, environmental variability, spiritual meaning, social relationships). Spatial modeling provides a tool to examine some of those decisions based on how they influenced the location of sites. This study uses the tenets of central place foraging theory to build a multi-scalar settlement model for the Santa Barbara Channel of southern California, where rising sea levels during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene erased a large portion of the existing archaeological record and studies of macrobotanical remains are limited. The model is evaluated through comparison with the archaeological record, and reveals a complex set of priorities in decisions about landscape use. People appear to have evaluated different resource categories—freshwater, protein, carbohydrates, and lithic raw materials—at different spatial scales depending in part on their importance to subsistence but also on the variable productivity and distribution of the resources themselves. Spatial modeling has considerable potential for both analyzing the existing record and generating hypotheses for future research.

North America's Atlantic Coast has been a focus of human settlement and subsistence for millennia, but sea-level rise, sedimentation, and other processes pose significant challenges for archaeological research. Radiocarbon dating of 31 shell middens near the Rhode River Estuary, Maryland provides an opportunity to evaluate human land use, settlement, and cultural chronologies on the Chesapeake Bay. Sixty calibrated radiocarbon dates on eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) shell and charcoal demonstrate that Native Americans, colonial, and historic peoples harvested oysters and other shellfish from at least 3200 years ago through the 19th century. The number of dated sites increases during the Late Woodland period after about 1000 cal yr B.P., a factor probably related to greater site visibility and preservation, as well as increased human exploitation of the watershed. Accumulation rates for five of the shell middens provide preliminary indications that some of the sites accumulated rapidly suggesting, along with other evidence, that many of the region's shell middens were logistical or perhaps seasonal camps. Our study demonstrates the importance of regional watershed surveys and radiocarbon dating programs to help build and refine cultural chronologies in coastal regions threatened by sea-level rise and other processes.

The Chumash village of Qshiwqshiw, located on eastern Santa Rosa Island, is described in ethnographic sources as one of the largest Chumash villages on the northern Channel Islands, with 4 chiefs and 119 baptisms according to mission records. The village is thought to correlate with 2 archaeological sites (CA-SRI-85 and CA-SRI-87) that contain large and dense shell-midden deposits. Despite the importance of these sites for helping understand Late (650–168 cal BP) and Historic (AD 1769–1830) Period Chumash lifeways, only limited surface collections, one small column sample, and 4 radiocarbon dates were previously available, leaving unanswered important questions about the chronology and structure of these sites. To help fill these gaps, we recently excavated, mapped, and obtained several new radiocarbon dates for CA-SRI-85 and CA-SRI-87. Radiocarbon dating and artifact analyses demonstrate that CASRI- 85 served as an important Late Period village that had continued occupation into the Historic Pe...

We describe three Late Paleocoastal shell middens recently identified on Santa Cruz Island, dated between ∼8800 and 8450 cal yr BP. Exposed and threatened by coastal erosion, the sites are located along the front edge of a raised marine terrace, buried beneath 2–3 m of alluvium. Situated along a broad sandy beach today, the sites were situated ∼600 m from contemporary shorelines, with faunal assemblages dominated by rocky shore shellfish species.

The northern Pacific Coast is an important area for understanding human colonization of the Americas, but Late Pleistocene coastal sites are rare and interglacial sea level rise has inundated the continental shelf and the primary areas where Paleocoastal archaeological sites are likely to occur. Here we outline a terrestrial archaeological survey project designed to identify Paleocoastal sites on Santa Rosa Island, California. Using reconstructions of ancient shorelines and paleogeography, we predicted that sites might be found where lithic resources, freshwater springs, caves or rockshelters, and strategic vistas drew Paleocoastal peoples into the island interior. We identified nine new Paleocoastal sites, including four radiocarbon dated to >11,000 cal b.p. that are among the oldest sites on North America’s Pacific coast. Our targeted survey demonstrates an important technique for investigating island and coastal settings where sea level rise remains a significant challenge for locating early sites.

To evaluate coastal settlement and land use strategies among maritime hunter-gatherers, we analyzed oxygen isotope (δ18O) data from 131 marine carbonate samples from 21 California mussel (Mytilus californianus) shells obtained from a large ∼8,200-year-old shell midden (CA-SRI-666) on California’s Santa Rosa Island. Seasonal distributions of the isotopic data were assigned using a paleo-sea surface temperature model created by comparing modern sea surface temperatures (SST) to a fully profiled ∼8,200-year-old shell. For 20 additional shells, we used two sampling strategies to compare season-of-harvest inferences and explore whether the Early Holocene site occupants were sedentary. Estimated season-of-harvest differed by 35 % between the two sampling methods, corroborating recent isotope analysis of an 8,800-year-old shell midden on San Miguel Island. Shellfish appear to have been collected year-round at CA-SRI-666 from intertidal or subtidal water temperatures similar to modern SST in the vicinity of eastern Santa Rosa Island. The isotope results are consistent with other evidence from CA-SRI-666 that suggest that the site served as a residential base for relatively sedentary maritime people.

Estuaries around the world are in a state of decline following decades or more of overfishing, pollution, and climate change. Oysters (Ostreidae), ecosystem engineers in many estuaries, influence water quality, construct habitat, and provide food for humans and wildlife. In North America's Chesapeake Bay, once-thriving eastern oyster (Crassostrea virginica) populations have declined dramatically, making their restoration and conservation extremely challenging. Here we present data on oyster size and human harvest from Chesapeake Bay archaeological sites spanning ∼3,500 y of Native American, colonial, and historical occupation. We compare oysters from archaeological sites with Pleistocene oyster reefs that existed before human harvest, modern oyster reefs, and other records of human oyster harvest from around the world. Native American fisheries were focused on nearshore oysters and were likely harvested at a rate that was sustainable over centuries to millennia, despite changing Holocene climatic conditions and sea-level rise. These data document resilience in oyster populations under long-term Native American harvest, sea-level rise, and climate change; provide context for managing modern oyster fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere around the world; and demonstrate an interdisciplinary approach that can be applied broadly to other fisheries.

Patients undergoing chemotherapy and/or head and neck radiation treatment may have multiple side effects occurring simultaneously such as mucositis, candidiasis, herpetic stomatitis or xerostomia. It is important to make the diagnosis(es) and treat the patient as effectively as possible on the basis of the diagnosis(es). Therapeutic management is generated by the diagnosis (Table 2). The oral and dental care management should be individualized on a case by case basis as there are so many variables involved with the cancer patient.