| During the last 3500 years, hunter-gatherer toolkits in the Santa Barbara region of southern California were formal early on, increasing further after the bow and arrow arrived at approximately A.D. 500 and during a period of intensification shortly thereafter. Technological specializations (e.g., circular fishhook, decorated mortars and pestles, etc.) are evidence of large amounts of time spent making tools used in the intensive exploitation of acorns and marine foods. In contrast, hunter-gatherer toolkits over the last 3500 years in the San Diego region are informal throughout much of the Holocene, becoming more expedient after the bow arrives and during intensification at around A.D. 1400. Subsistence in the San Diego region is generalized, with a focus on terrestrial foods and underutilization of marine foods. Indeed, acorns and marine fisheries were of sufficient abundance and quality to support an intensified economy like hunter-gatherers in the Santa Barbara region. This research interprets the divergence in technological investment as evidence of vastly different evolutionary stable strategies that have divergent socioeconomic goals that are stabilized by social institutions. The Santa Barbara pattern approximates an energy maximizing (Emax) strategy in which a strong preference for more energy at the expense of free time results in more time devoted to making specialized subsistence tools (i.e., more time devoted to subsistence). In contrast the San Diego pattern approximates a time minimizing (Tmin) strategy in which time saving tactics are used to offset diminishing returns and satisfy a strong preference for non-subsistence time. In the time minimizing-energy maximizing model, both Tmin and Emax are strongly stable adaptive equilibria, with Tmin resistant to change that favors Emax behavior. The stability of a Tmin economy better accounts for the apparent long-term stability of adaptive strategy in the San Diego region despite environmental change. |
