Spatial economies of precontact exchange in the Greater Monterey Bay Area, California

This study investigates economic strategies among middle-range, hunter-gatherer societies living in environmentally unpredictable contexts. These societies' subsistence choices, exchange relationships, territoriality, and specialization of production created opportunities for differing inter-community relationships. Such creative social and economic interactions may have allowed hunter-gatherers of the central coast of California from the Middle Period (600 BC-AD 1000) through Middle-Late Transition (AD 1000-1250) to endure the onset of environmental stresses of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (AD 950-1150).;This project investigates material remains from 53 sites in a 115 km x 65 km transect from the Monterey Bay inland to the Santa Clara Valley. It takes a multiscalar approach by integrating high-resolution zooarchaeological analyses and that of local and exotic artifacts with spatial analysis of site catchments and intersite relationships. By studying multiple material categories, it highlights the interconnectedness of fauna, botanicals, lithics, and shell beads in the systemic economy. Project methods include: analysis of food remains and evidence for pelt or leather production, direct radiocarbon dating of faunal remains for temporal control of economic decisions, source determination of shell beads and obsidian, and spatial analysis of resource distribution and use.;The project monitors initial responses of these Central Californian populations to environmental stress at a new level of spatiotemporal resolution. Economic strategies, particularly exchange, shifted over time: long-distance obsidian exchange decreased, short-distance chert tool exchange and production increased, and shell bead circulation increased. Exchange likely maintained valuable trading partnerships, alleviated stress, and negotiated commodity values.;Economic strategies jointly impacted the value of goods and opportunities for individual wealth accumulation in Central California. By investigating these dynamics, the dissertation articulates the prehistory of this area with broader discussions of social inequality among coastal-adapted hunter-gatherers. The study provides a comparative case to the emergence of complexity and aggrandizing elites during the same time period in the Santa Barbara Channel. It addresses an enduring stereotype of California, the Myth of Paradise, by suggesting that this region did not always have stable and comfortable climatic conditions, but rather may have had stressful climatic events that had significant impacts on culture change.