Ecology of sedentary societies without agriculture: Paleoethnobotanical indicators from native California

The Chumash of Coastal Southern California maintained a relatively high population density through reliance upon diverse terrestrial and aquatic resources. This dissertation investigates several lines of evidence in order to determine the extent to which plant resource management was employed to ensure reliable plant food production. Archaeological, ecological and botanical sampling techniques are integrated with historical information in a multifaceted approach to studying human impacts and disturbance regimes, in particular burning and clearing, in Southern Coastal California.; Archaeobotanical analysis indicated that important Chumash plant resources included acorns (Quercus sp.), walnuts (Juglans sp.) and islay (Prunus sp.) nutmeats, berries from manzanita (Arctostaphylos sp.), toyon (Heteromeles arbutifolia), and elderberry (Sambucus mexicana), several bulb, corm and tuber plants including members of the families Liliaceae (i.e. Chlorogalum sp., Yucca sp., and Calochortus sp.), Amaryllidaceae (Dichelostemma sp.) and small seeded plants including grasses (Phalaris sp. and Hordeum sp.), composites (Madia sp. and Hemizonia sp.), members of the Boraginaceae family (Amsinckia sp. and Plagiobothrys sp.) and Portulacaeae (Montia sp. and Calandrinia sp.).; Ecological investigation of important Chumash resource plant crops and investigation of growth habits and disturbance responses indicated that the food parts of many herbaceous and bulbous plants utilized by the Chumash did increase in frequency in the years immediately following fires. Large woody shrubs also responded to intermediate levels of disturbance with good fruit production within only a few years following a fire. Apparently no important Chumash plant crop suffered from periodic and moderately intense fires. Fires also would have served to reduce plant competition, to clear areas of tree and shrub plants prior to harvest, and to facilitate hunting.; Site areas selected for archaeological analysis include an interior woodland site, a coastal stabilized sand dune site, and a coastal estuary site. Archaeological and historical data from these sites provide evidence of the use of burning and clearing by the Chumash to intensify and enhance the effects of ongoing disturbance regimes within the region in order to increase and ensure reliability and productivity of important crops. This Chumash managed landscape was a "tessellation of patches" resulting from varied periods and intensities of burning and clearing.; Conversely, the Euroamerican policy was to intervene in the management practices of the Chumash and to halt, to the best of their abilities, the preexisting natural and cultural disturbance regimes. The contamination of the Native Californian landscape with introduced species of plants and animals, and the intervention of Euroamericans resulted in changes in the ecology of the area. Even over a hundred years later the legacy of these impacts is evident, although more remote areas of the landscape gradually are returning to previous environmental regimes.