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Human settlement has often centered around coastal areas and waterways. Until recently, however, archaeologists believed that marine economies did not develop until the end of the Pleistocene, when the archaeological record begins to have evidence of marine life as part of the human diet. This has long been interpreted as a postglacial adaptation, due to the rise in sea level and subsequent decrease in terrestrial resources. Coastal resources, particularly mollusks, were viewed as fallback resources, which people resorted to only when terrestrial resources were scarce, included only as part of a more complex diet.
Recent research has significantly altered this understanding, known as the Broad Spectrum Revolution (BSR) model. The contributions to this volume revise the BSR model, with evidence that coastal resources were an important part of human economies and subsistence much earlier than previously thought, and even the main focus of diets for some Pleistocene and early Holocene hunter-gatherer societies.
With evidence from North and South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia, this volume comprehensively lends a new understanding to coastal settlement from the Middle Paleolithic to the Middle Holocene.
List of contents
Introduction.- Trekking the shore, harvesting the sea changing coastlines and the antiquity of coastal settlement.- Part I: North America and Eurasia. The North American Paleocoastal Concept Reconsidered.- Prehistoric Archaeology Underwater: A Nascent Subdiscipline Critical to Understanding Early Coastal Occupations and Migration Routes.- Early Environments and Archaeology of Coastal British Columbia.- Blessing the Salmon: Archaeological Evidences of the Transition to Intensive Fishing in the Final Paleolithic, Maritime Region, Russian Far East.- Early Technological Organization along the Eastern Pacific Rim of the New World: A co-continental view.- Technology, mobility, and adaptation among early foragers of the southern Northwest Coast: The view from Indian Sands, southern Oregon coast, USA.- Of Clams and Clovis: Isla Cedros, Baja California, Mexico.- Changes in the molluscan exploitation patterns during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene in the eastern Cantabria (Spain).- Paleolithic seascapes along the west coast of Portugal.- Small-game and marine resource exploitation by Neanderthals: The evidence from Gibraltar.- Prying new meaning from limpet harvesting at Vale Boi during the Upper Paleolithic.- Surf and Turf: The use of marine and terrestrial resources in the Early Neolithic of costal southern Portugal.- Part II: South America, Africa and Oceania.- Sea lions and human populations in Southern Patagonia.- The Use of the Space in Pampean Atlantic Coast (Argentina, South America): A Comparative View.- Coastal Resources and the Early Holocene Las Vegas Adaptation of Ecuador.- Initial investigations into the exploitation of coastal resources in North Africa during the Late Pleistocene at Grotte des Contrebandiers, Morocco.- Shellfishing and the interpretation of shellfish sizes in the Middle and Later Stone Ages of South Africa.- Coastal South Africa and the co-evolution of the modern human lineage andcoastal adaptations.- Coastal Foragers on Southern Shores: Marine Resource Use in Northeast Australia since the Late Pleistocene.- The role of marine resources in the diet of pre-colonial Aboriginal people and land use patterns around Port Jackson, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
About the author
Nuno Bicho received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from Southern Methodist University in 1992. He is currently an Associate Professor of Archaeology at the Universidade do Algarve, Portugal. He was Dean between 1998 and 2001 and 2005-2007. In addition, Bicho is the Director of the Center of Archaeology and Paleoecology of the University (NAP) and a researcher at the Archaeological Research Center at the University of Lisbon (UNIARQ). He specializes in Paleolithic technology and his research focuses on prehistoric costal hunter-gatherers of southern Iberia.Jonathan Haws is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Louisville. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His research emphasizes a landscape approach to the Paleolithic occupation of central Portugal. Currently, he is directing a multidisciplinary project that includes a geoarchaeological survey of the Quaternary deposits of coastal Estremadura, Portugal, and the excavation of a multicomponent Upper Paleolithic cave site, Lapa do Picareiro. Loren Davis is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at Oregon State University. In addition, Davis is the Executive Director of the Keystone Archaeological Research Fund, and the Director of the Pacific Slope Archaeological Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Alberta. His research focuses on the Pleistocene prehistory and geoarchaeology of western North America, with particular emphasis on the Pacific Northwest and the Baja California peninsula.
Summary
Coastal resources, particularly mollusks, were viewed as fallback resources, which people resorted to only when terrestrial resources were scarce, included only as part of a more complex diet.
Additional text
From the reviews:
“Trekking the Shore is a welcome addition to the literature on the archaeology of coastal adaptations and the challenges involved in discovering and interpreting early coastal sites given the vagaries of Quaternary sea level changes, shifting shorelines, and coastal erosion. … The book does an admirable job of that–virtually every chapter explicitly recognizing the importance of situating sites and assemblages within the dynamic landscapes and seascapes in which people lived.” (Jon M. Erlandson, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 68, 2012)
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From the reviews:
"Trekking the Shore is a welcome addition to the literature on the archaeology of coastal adaptations and the challenges involved in discovering and interpreting early coastal sites given the vagaries of Quaternary sea level changes, shifting shorelines, and coastal erosion. ... The book does an admirable job of that-virtually every chapter explicitly recognizing the importance of situating sites and assemblages within the dynamic landscapes and seascapes in which people lived." (Jon M. Erlandson, Journal of Anthropological Research, Vol. 68, 2012)
