The effects of resource depression on foraging efficiency, diet breadth, and patch use in southern New Zealand

While many studies have examined human impacts on prehistoric environments, few have explicitly examined how foragers adapt to the changing environmental situations that they have created. The goal of this analysis is to study the relationship between human foraging economies and human-related environmental change in southern New Zealand. Foraging theory is used to generate predictions about subsistence change resulting from the declining abundance of important resources such as moas and seals. In particular, these predictions examine changes in (1) the kind of resources exploited (foraging efficiency), (2) the number of resources utilized (diet breadth), and (3) the habitats exploited (patch choice). The predictions are tested using the large assemblage of vertebrate faunal remains from the well-stratified and well-dated Shag River Mouth site. This study shows that using foraging theory models to structure analysis provides a more fine-grained spatial and temporal resolution of subsistence change in southern New Zealand than has been previously achieved.     

Prehistoric seal carcass exploitation at the Shag Mouth site,New Zealand

Seal populations in New Zealand declined dramatically during the prehistoric period. The loss of this important resource significantly affected the foraging practices at the Shag River Mouth site. Previous research documented substantial changes to the diet with the decline of seals and the corresponding decline in foraging efficiency. In this study, I examine how New Zealand foragers altered their use of seal carcasses as the availability of these marine mammals declined. Otariid seal data from the Shag River Mouth site in southern New Zealand are analyzed to test changes in butchery/transport and skeletal element breakage patterns expected with resource depression and declining foraging efficiency. This research shows that at Shag Mouth, seal carcasses were used more intensively over time. However, bone breakage patterns showed little change in the exploitation of within-bone nutrients.     

Evidence for temporal and social differences in cranial dimensions in Edo‐period Japanese

This study examined the craniometric traits of the Edo‐period (AD1603–1867) human skeletons from the Hitotsubashi site in Tokyo, compared them with temporally and socially various populations, and attempted to detect the morphological differentiation patterns that the Edo‐period Japanese exhibited over time and under those social/environmental conditions. The materials measured here were the townsmen's crania from the Hitotsubashi site, which were dated back to the early half of the Edo period. The observations revealed that the Hitotsubashi samples were more dolichocephalic than any other Edo series and were different from subsequent Edo series in terms of larger maximum cranial length and smaller maximum cranial breadth. The Hitotsubashi samples were definitely in contrast with those of Tentokuji and Shirogane, both of which included a samurai (warrior) class of the late to final Edo period and exhibited the most brachycephalic crania. It is reasonable to assume that the temporal and social situations were possibly related to the observed cranial variation and that the temporal changes in cranial dimensions in pre‐modern Japan might have reflected the nutritional and environmental conditions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Cranial traumatic injuries caused by weapons in Tokugawa Japan

Weapon‐related traumas on human skeletons provide us with direct evidence of violence in archaeological and forensic contexts. The purposes of this study are to describe the weapon‐related traumas on Edo‐period (AD 17th–19th centuries) human skeletons from the Hitotsubashi site (Tokyo, Japan), to examine their presence, distribution and variability, and finally to better understand violence during that period. The specimens observed here are two adult males exhibiting eight traumas: five sharp‐force traumas caused by edged blades (62.5%) and three blunt‐force traumas with radiating fractures (37.5%). The frequency of individuals with traumas is 1.0% out of 207 individuals and 3.3% out of 64 adult males. The traumas found on the Hitotsubashi crania are distinguishable from those on the medieval crania in terms of low traumatic frequency. These observations shed new light on the life and death situations of the Edo inhabitants from osteoarchaeological perspectives. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On Behavioral Depression in White-tailed Deer

Behavioral depression is a decline in prey availability because of enhanced alert response, movement away from areas, increased social behavior, and other responses to predators. This form of resource depression is an alternative hypothesis to be contrasted to over-exploitation that potentially explains a decrease in hunting efficiency over time should the zooarchaeologist observe a decline in the relative abundance of remains of high-rank prey. Gregarious ungulates, such as many North American cervids, may exhibit such behavioral responses under predation. The white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), one of the most common high-rank prey animals from Holocene archaeological sites in eastern North America, is less gregarious, more r-selected, and exhibits greater home-range fidelity than other cervids. As a result, whitetails are less likely to exhibit behavioral depression than other North American ungulates, which may explain their common occurrence in Holocene archaeological faunas, such as that from the Eagle??s Ridge site in southeast Texas where resource depression appears to have occurred from 4,500 to 1,500?years ago. The behavioral ecology of ungulate species should be considered on a case-by-case basis to develop testable hypotheses about prehistoric human predation.