Introduction

The use of animals for food and byproducts in the Monterey Bay area of California is one axis along which social difference and inequality may be visible archaeologically. In this chapter zooarchaeological data from multiple assemblages are investigated along with beads, obsidian, and other artifacts to understand the role that animal resources played in the emergence of wealth-based social differentiation. Although wealth accumulation and exchange systems that are focused on shell beads and obsidian tools have been understood through previous investigations of burials and residential areas, faunal remains have contributed little to the story. This chapter explores evidence for social inequality as reflected in subsistence choices, animal processing, and exchange relationships among hunter-gatherer communities.

Zooarchaeology provides one lens through which inequalities of wealth or status may be visible materially, yet this ideally forms part of a strategy involving analysis of multiple material categories and techniques (Ashby 2002). The conjunctive approach ideally correlates household-associated faunal assemblages with other indicators of status or wealth to more convincingly infer inequalities (Ashby 2002; Crabtree 1990:171; deFrance 2009; Schmitt and Lupo 2008; Taylor 1983). The multiple, independent lines of evidence that build such arguments may include faunal remains, botanicals, other artifacts, use of space, architecture, bioarchaeological data, and documentary history (Ashby 2002:51; deFrance 2009:122). Social inference using a conjunctive approach helps the analyst minimize problems of inferential confidence (Gifford-Gonzalez 1991:215) while alleviating problems of sampling and measurement inherent in any archaeological data source (Crabtree 1990:188). Zooarchaeologists routinely address difficult social questions, yet we must collaborate with other specialists because it remains the case that “bones themselves are not enough” (Gifford-Gonzalez 1991:246) to get at social difference, inequalities, wealth, and status adequately.

Any discussion of the difficulty of using only animal remains to make inferences of social difference must also balance this with consideration for how the inclusion of animals is constructive. Although social inequalities are often reflected in foodways (Gumerman 1997; Reitz and Wing 1999:273), the ways that animal remains are used to symbolize these dynamics may be different from other material remains. Singer (1987:98) argues that food has little status visibility, particularly outside performative contexts such as feasting. However, the advantage of investigating inequality through food remains is that on a daily basis “people are less likely to exhibit . . . social pretension through the medium of food” although they may “occasionally procure food that is normally unavailable to them” (Ashby 2002:38–39). It is much easier to express status aspirations through a few, big-ticket items like ceramics or ornamentation than to eat outside of one’s means repeatedly.

Beyond food, investigating uses of animals for accumulation of capital and wealth and ideological or ritual uses may provide equally important avenues for understanding inequality (deFrance 2009). Wealth disparities may be manifested in differential access to secondary products and crafts (Ashby 2002) rather than in the use of an animal primarily for meat. Whether edible or unpalatable, animal products were encountered in all aspects of hunter-gatherer life and their material signatures may elucidate social differences signaled by this likely marker of status.

Approaches to Zooarchaeological Investigations of Inequality

Although research indicates there is great variability in how animals were mobilized in the past to signal social differentiation or create symbolic meaning (deFrance 2009:105), there are some commonly used zooarchaeological correlates of inequality. Analysis often centers on the identity and diversity of exploited species, proportions of species, element distributions, butchering marks related to culinary practices, and inferred quality of meat cuts (Ashby 2002:39; Crabtree 1990:171; deFrance 2009M:125–126; Jackson, chapter 5, this volume; Reitz 1987). Common indicators of high status or wealth include more meat, fatty or greasy foods, species diversity, younger animals (especially domesticates), and preparation-heavy foods. Proportions of species may also include greater use of domesticates, wild fauna, marine foods, or exotic or imported animals (deFrance 2009:125–126). In some cases historical documentation may be used to reconstruct the relative market value of cuts of meat and to infer status based on those cuts (Huelsbeck 1989; Lyman 1987; Reitz 1987).

These common correlates of inequality will not hold in all cases. For example, although in many case studies species diversity is used as a marker of status, this “luxury of variety” (deFrance 2009:127) leaves a diversity signature similar to low-status opportunistic hunting. Further, high status or wealth may not be associated with foods of luxury (deFrance 2009; Ervynck et al. 2003) or delicacies, and instead may simply be expressed by higher quantities of lower-status foods (Ashby 2002:42; Singer 1987).

It is clear that interpretations of status, identity, and inequalities are impacted by analytical and taphonomic biases (Ashby 2002; Reitz 1987). Considerations include the biases created from small sample sizes (particularly assemblages of less than two hundred specimens) on measures of species diversity (Grayson 1984; Reitz et al. 1985). Reitz (1987) points out that some of the characteristics used to determine socioeconomic status may instead reflect nonhuman taphonomic factors, as faunal status markers are not independent from the site-formation processes and biases that influence other data classes.

Many studies (Carlson 2010; McGovern 1984 cited in Crabtree 1990:177; Schmitt and Lupo 2008) link zooarchaeology to other material reflections of social difference, including prestige items, ornamentation, exotic goods, and access to high-quality pastures or raw materials. These studies illustrate how the use of zooarchaeological analyses in conjunction with other lines of material evidence for social difference bring us much closer to identifying these dynamics archaeologically. The following discussion similarly investigates inequalities among hunter-gathers by analyzing high-resolution zooarchaeological analyses in conjunction with other material and spatial data.

Case Study: Monterey Bay Area of California

In central coastal California (Figure 8.1) wealth accumulation and exchange systems have been understood through previous investigations of beads and lithic artifacts, but faunal remains have scarcely been used to contribute to the story. My approach investigates social inequality associated with foodways and animal byproducts from the Middle Period (600 BC–AD 1000) and Middle-Late Transition (MLT; AD 1000–1250). Three residential bases in the Monterey Bay area—sites CA-MNT-229, CA-SCR-44, and CA-SCL-119—are characterized by long-term occupation, hearths, middens, cemeteries, and artifacts that reflect a diversity of residential activities. CA-MNT-234 is considered part of the residential complex of nearby CA-MNT-229, and contained hearths, middens, and four burials. CA-MNT-234 dates to as early as the Middle Holocene, but the primary midden associated with this analysis dates to AD 400–600 of the Middle Period (Gifford-Gonzalez and Sunseri 2009). CA-SCL-119 generally dates from 3050 BC to AD 1225, but a series of living surfaces at the site emphasize Middle and MLT period habitation in this locale (Hildebrandt and Mikkelsen 1993:104–108). CA-SCR-44 dates to approximately 700 BC–AD 1300 of the Middle and MLT periods (Sunseri 2009:269).

Figure 8.1. Study area around Monterey Bay, California.

The vegetative and animal communities around the sites are varied. CA-SCL-119 lies along San Felipe Lake in the Santa Clara Valley and is near both hardwood and pine forests and valley oak savanna communities. Coastal site CA-MNT-234 lies at the apex of Monterey Bay near the mouth of the Salinas River and Elkhorn Slough. This area is characterized by coastal saltmarsh and sagebrush and is associated with both marine and estuarine environments. CA-SCR-44 lies between these sites and is surrounded by coastal saltmarsh, prairie-scrub, and hardwood forest resources.

Sites in the Monterey Bay region generally suggest that growing population levels, mild climate, and territorial circumscription characterized the Middle Period, and subsistence was based on acorns, fish and terrestrial game, and few shellfish. Hildebrandt and McGuire (2002) interpret an increase in big game hunting during the Middle Period as prestige-hunting by men, or costly signaling, rather than purely a subsistence strategy. Material patterns until about AD 1000 have been associated with increased storage, higher degrees of sedentism, gender-specific work, and exploitation of areas more distant from the villages (Hildebrandt and McGuire 2002). Burials of this period commonly have individuals interred with funerary goods of bone tubes and saucer beads (Jones et al. 2007).

In contrast to the environmental and climatic stability of the Middle Period, the MLT is currently thought to coincide with the warm, dry Medieval Climatic Anomaly (AD 950–1150; Jackson and Ericson 1994; Jones et al. 1999; Malamud-Roam et al. 2006). The MLT is associated with an increased reliance on deer and other terrestrial game, the appearance of the bow and arrow, and new shell-bead forms (Jones et al. 2007:139). These material shifts may be related to reorganization of economic relationships and an adaptive response to simultaneously shifting resource availability. In both the Middle Period and MLT, long-distance exchange of shell beads and obsidian was common (Ericson 1982; Jones et al. 2007), yet there may be some local production of shell beads as well (Bennyhoff and Hughes 1987).

Faunal data from these periods are investigated along with beads, obsidian, and other artifacts to understand the role that exchange and community interactions, subsistence, and pelt production played in the emergence of social differentiation. The conjunctive approach ideally integrates faunal data with other material or spatial data sets at a temporal and spatial scale that represents interpersonal differences. That is, relatively small units of analysis such as households or farmsteads may be compared to identify differential wealth, status, and materiality. While the Monterey Bay assemblages in this study are associated with site-wide archaeological data from particular components, there are no household-level data available upon which to build comparisons. Funerary assemblages provide the most comparable units of analysis from which we may see interpersonal differences of wealth or status. Burials at coastal site CA-MNT-229 were dichotomous with respect to funerary assemblages, as a few contained large numbers of shell beads while the majority had little to no associated goods (Dietz et al. 1986, 1988). One of these elaborate funerary assemblages is associated with an adult male interred with over 3,000 shell beads.

The funerary assemblages do suggest there was differential access to nonutilitarian items, which may be a material expression of intracommunity social differentiation even if there was not a hierarchical organization of power. Interpersonal differences in funerary assemblages may represent an individual’s or family’s access to goods (e.g., beads, obsidian, steatite), particularly exotic or long-distance trade goods. The means and relationships to acquire these nonfood items would have similarly impacted negotiations for access to foods by hunting or trade, and would have affected access to local and nonlocal species, small- or large-bodied prey, and essential nutrients (including lean meat, fatty meat, and within-bone fats). The diachronic pattern of shell beads and obsidian exchange suggests that in this region these items were exchanged and mobilized from the Middle Period through the MLT to signal social differences through wealth, and possibly to help deal with environmental and nutritional stresses (Sunseri 2009). This transition from the Middle to Late Periods is also evidenced by species choice, animal processing, and exchange relationships; the resulting zooarchaeological patterns of these behaviors are the focus of this investigation.

Zooarchaeological Sample and Methods

The assemblages of interest in this study were excavated over thirty years in cultural resource management contexts (e.g., Breschini and Haversat 1989, 1995, 2000; Hildebrandt and Mikkelsen 1993; Milliken et al. 1999). Mammals comprise the majority of assemblages from CA-SCL-119 (75 percent of total) and CA-SCR-44 (84 percent of total), and a fraction of the CA-MNT-234 assemblage (2.2 percent are mammals, 97.6 percent are fishes). A sampling of identified mammal species is presented in Table 8.1 (for full species lists see Sunseri 2009:284–317). Data collected include species, element, portion, symmetry, taphonomic modifications, metric data, bone-mineral density (Lam et al. 1999), sex, and age estimates. Northern fur seal ages were estimated using Etnier’s (2002) age-calibration method and epiphyseal fusion rates in known-age comparative skeletons (see Sunseri 2009:75). Because the northern fur seal is sexually dimorphic, elements are identifiable to sex, based upon size and age criteria.

Taxonomic diversity is measured with both species richness and evenness calculations. Richness is a straightforward count of the number of taxa represented, whereas evenness is a more complex quantification of how evenly taxa are represented across the assemblage. These consider the number of nonoverlapping taxonomic categories, usually at least at the genus level, and the NISP identified to these categories (after Fisher 2010:75; Grayson 1991:490). The evenness calculation is made with the reciprocal of the Simpson’s index of evenness (Fisher 2010:75; Magurran 1988; Schmitt and Lupo 1995, 2008). Because richness is closely related to sample size (Grayson 1984), this analysis of the data does not consider birds, fish, reptiles, or amphibians due to the small and varying sample sizes of these classes of vertebrate remains.

Zooarchaeological Expectations

Compared to large mammals, small-bodied ones (e.g., rabbits and squirrels) are more likely to be hunted upon encounter and are often fast-moving prey with low return rates and high capture costs regardless of snares or other technology available (Munro 2004:S11). Large mammals are expected to have higher caloric values and return rates (Munro 2004:S7) and hence were preferred by communities with the means to access them. Long-bone cavities of these mammals (especially ruminants) may have been processed for marrow or grease extraction, and thus are likely to have higher NISP values resulting from these activities. Alternatively, ruminants and fur seal byproducts—such as hides and pelts—may have provided another incentive for their exploitation. Overall, the meat, within-bone fats (i.e., marrow, grease), and inedible byproducts of these large mammals were likely of relatively high value.

It is expected that resource stress may prompt increases in diet breadth as available resources are captured (Broughton and Grayson 1993; Stiner and Munro 2002; Stiner et al. 2000), through intensification of harvest (Broughton 1994), and/or through intensification of processing in which added labor is meant to increase the net gains from a single carcass (Munro 2004). These responses to nutritional stress may be identifiable by low species evenness, because intensification of marrow extraction or bone-grease production would inflate the NISP of particular taxa, or by high species richness associated with increased diet breadth. Low richness and evenness may also reflect the targeting of particular taxa for meat, fat, or byproducts, either for local use or export to other communities. Thus, communities with diminished means may be associated with diets high in species richness due to attempts to increase diet breadth and yet have low evenness from additional processing intensification during marrow extraction and grease rendering.

It is expected that communities containing individuals of higher status and means will consume a range of species, having the luxury of dietary diversity (deFrance, chapter 3, this volume; Schmitt and Lupo 2008:321), and have access to many species through trade or an ability to negotiate movement across the landscape. If there are enough animals available, each carcass does not require added labor for intense processing to extract all available nutrients. In this case, an even representation of species and taxonomic richness may reflect a high-status diet.

These expectations suggest that diversity measures alone are not reliable status markers—taphonomy provides a necessary line of evidence to identify these conditions. It is expected that the remains from intensive marrow- or grease-extraction processes would exhibit high rates of fragmentation as well as numerous percussive impact marks, and would result in high NISP values but low evenness. High NISP values from targeting particular species for pelt or hide removal may also be associated with low evenness, along with additional processing tools, patterned cut marks, and selectivity of species or individuals to optimize size and quality of hides. Thus, taphonomy contributes to understanding whether low evenness values reflect the inflation of the NISP that results from processing bones for marrow and grease extraction, or reflect the exploitation of more individual animals of a particular species.

Results: Species Choice and Taxonomic Diversity

The faunal assemblages by site and component are characterized in Table 8.2 by total mammal specimens, evenness (high values represent the most evenness across species), richness, and proportion of large mammals. After Schmitt and Lupo (2008:321) each assemblage is ranked by high- to low-status diets, and the overall rankings in this table reflect averages per site of all ranking methods. The rankings represent preferences for high-status diets dominated by an abundance of large mammals and high species richness, as laid out in the expectations described in the previous section.

There does not appear to be a significant relationship between sample size and the number of taxa (r² = 0.837, ρ = 0.085) or species evenness (r² = 0.47, ρ = 0.315), suggesting that assemblage characteristics are not primarily a function of sample size. Evenness in Table 8.2 is derived from NISP, but the ranking remains the same for MNI-derived evenness. These calculations derived from NISP and MNI are highly correlated (r_s = 1.0, ρ < 0.01). Inland CA-SCL-119’s MLT component is low ranked by both evenness and richness. CA-MNT-234 has the richest diversity but least evenness, as much of this assemblage consists of the northern fur seal.

Results: Taphonomy and Carcass Processing for Food and Pelts

The low evenness of the assemblages from CA-MNT-234 and CA-SCL-119 prompt further inspection of the taphonomic processes or selection pressures that may be responsible for inflating NISP values of particular taxa. The faunal assemblages suggest that northern fur seals were heavily exploited at CA-MNT-234 while ruminants were the focus at CA-SCL-119.

According to expectations for pelt production (Lapham 2005), animals targeted for their pelts contribute a high proportion of protein to the overall diet. These animals are selected and processed to optimize hide quantity and quality, and processing for maximum pelt size results in distinct patterns in cut-mark location. An assemblage resulting from pelt production is also expected to contain many hide-processing tools. Meeting these expectations, the fur seals are the majority (by NISP, MNI) of the faunal assemblage for CA-MNT-234. All age groups are represented in the assemblage (Figure 8.2). Adult females and young adults are represented by all skeletal elements and only a few, select adult-male elements are present (Table 8.3). Females are expected to have higher-quality pelts, as these animals engage in less aggressive intraspecific competition than males (Gentry 1998) and as a result have fewer imperfections in their pelts. Taphonomic modifications include carnivore modifications (n = 278), cuts and chops (n = 423), and burning (n = 338). Due to the lack of medullary cavities in fur seal long bones, it makes sense that there are very few impact marks on fur seal specimens. Most modifications are cut marks, which appear primarily in the locations expected for pelt processing: mandibles, anterior cervicals, distal forelimbs (radii, carpals, metacarpals), and distal hindlimbs (tibiae, tarsals, metatarsals).

Figure 8.2. Fur seal age classes at CA-MNT-234 (NISP = 1552).

Ruminants at CA-SCL-119 include deer, elk, and antelope. Deer specimen counts, modifications, fragmentation (NISP:MNE, after Wolverton 2002), and size are presented in Table 8.4. From the Middle Period to the MLT, the proportion of deer bones with percussive-impact marks increases (3.7 percent to 8.5 percent) and incidences of fracture on ruminant fresh bone increase (3.2 percent to 16.7 percent). Fresh-bone fracturing with hammerstones and anvils may explain the higher NISP of ruminants in the MLT assemblage, rather than more intense hunting of the species. Poor preservation does not account for ruminant patterns, since a negative correlation exists between element abundances (NISP and standardized minimum animal units, or %MAU) and bone-mineral densities (Lam et al. 1999:351–353) for CA-SCL-119 (Middle: r_s = –0.35, ρ = 0.13; MLT: r_s = –0.63, ρ < 0.01) and CA-SCR-44 (r_s = –0.31, ρ = 0.2).

Correlations between %MAU and nutritional utility (Binford 1978; Madrigal and Holt 2002; Metcalfe and Jones 1988) suggest ruminant portions were selected for meat, grease, and marrow in the Middle Period and marrow and grease in the MLT (see Sunseri 2009:185–186 for statistics). Because long bones must be broken open to extract marrow and fragmented for bone-grease preparation, a negative relationship can exist between high rates of these activities and the identification of elements with these utilities in an assemblage (Brink 1997). However, the overall high fragmentation rates, uniformly small specimen sizes, and percussive-impact marks suggest inland communities processed marrow and rendered grease to meet nutritional needs.

Integrating Fauna with Other Archaeological Materials

To apply the conjunctive approach, the zooarchaeological results must be integrated with other materials that may reflect status or wealth. These materials include obsidian tools, projectile points, shell and steatite ornamentation, quartz crystals, and bone whistles and tools (Table 8.5). Although site CA-MNT-229 is not discussed in this zooarchaeological analysis, the impressive quantity of artifacts recovered from 101.9 cubic meters of excavated volume at this site include: 23 bone tools, 15 projectile points, 17 obsidian tools, 3,642 beads, 10 bone whistles, and 1 crystal.

Sites CA-MNT-234 and CA-SCR-44 had comparable volumes excavated, whereas much lower volumes were excavated from the other two assemblages from CA-SCL-119. All zooarchaeological quantities were based on counts of faunal material recovered, rather than counts scaled by volume excavated. However, in Table 8.5, artifact-wealth rankings by count as well as artifact volumetrics are included. Although all samples are not directly comparable in terms of total sampling area or volume, count-based comparisons do take into account full samples recovered from components at each site. For this reason the following discussion is based on rankings of material wealth by overall counts rather than volumetrics.

Discussion

The question remains: how can we draw inferences about social inequality from Monterey Bay area assemblages? Our understanding of material wealth is based on types and abundances of artifacts, including ornamentation and beads, modified obsidian, bone, and steatite, and types and frequency of animal remains. Faunal results (Table 8.2) mirror rankings of material-rich assemblages by artifact counts (Table 8.5). The comparison between rank order of sites with “wealthy” artifact counts and faunal assemblage characteristics is positive and significantly correlated (r_s = 1, ρ < 0.01).

Site rankings are an attempt to isolate intercommunity differences in subsistence and animal byproduct production by characterizing assemblages by taxonomic diversity, specimen counts, and reliance on large mammals. The highest ranked faunal assemblages are comprised of high overall specimen counts, high proportion of large mammals, and high species richness. The highest-ranked assemblage, CA-MNT-234, contains many fur seal remains and has relatively low evenness and high richness. The low-ranked MLT component at CA-SCL-119 has few specimens and low richness and evenness, associated with intense ruminant processing and many small-bodied mammals. Most broadly, these assemblages highlight dietary diversity and inland-coastal economic relationships during the Middle Period and nutritional stresses of the MLT.

Communities likely increased diet breadth in the Middle Period by exchanging food, increasing mobility, or accessing animals across territorial boundaries from a variety of environments. Nutritional pressures of the MLT were likely mitigated with these strategies along with added labor in ruminant carcass processing. In the Middle Period CA-SCL-119 and CA-SCR-44 reflect inland access to rare marine mammal elements, shellfish, otters, coastal birds, and marine and estuarine fishes. Coastal fauna were likely directly accessed by inland groups or acquired through food exchange, until inferred shifts in territoriality and subsistence economies of the MLT restricted access to coastal resources (Hildebrandt 1997). Subsistence patterns shifted in the MLT as diet breadth decreased and processing of ruminant elements intensified. Added labor to process marrow or render grease provided an alternative to added investment in hunting, particularly during spans of decreased foraging efficiency, population packing, or territorial circumscription.

Taphonomic processes are critical for the interpretation of site rankings. Fur seals would have been an important fatty-meat contribution to lean-meat diets (Speth and Spielmann 1983) as well as a source of pelts that could be processed locally and easily transported long distances for trade (Gifford-Gonzalez and Sunseri 2009:98). Cut-mark patterns and selection of adult female seals reflect optimization for pelt size and quality, and bifaces (n = 29) and bone tools (n = 37) suggest intense processing of pelts. These pelts represent a commodity that had a significant labor investment in its production. Not all communities would have had access to the seal colonies, yet pelts provided coastal groups with something to trade for inland products, including obsidian and carbohydrate-rich foods.

Overall, results suggest that taxonomic richness and artifact wealth (quantified by total artifacts per site in Table 8.5) are highly correlated (r_s = 1.0, ρ < 0.01), as are site rankings for artifact wealth and proportions of large-bodied mammals (r_s = 0.9, ρ < 0.05). The association of artifact wealth, high frequencies of exchange items, and high frequencies of large-mammal bones together suggest that faunal remains reflect emerging patterns of wealth-based inequalities. The same people with access to prestige economies also had access to large mammals, particularly during periods of territoriality or environmental stress that would have limited the abundance of or access to some resources. For example, access to northern fur seals by coastal groups during the Middle Period provided a means to produce large quantities of seal pelts for export to groups that would not have had direct access to these animals, and thereby to specialize in a resource that would allow them to trade for other goods not available on the coast. It is possible that these items—obsidian tools, shell beads and ornaments, and large mammals—may have all been aligned along similar axes of value. In this way, social differences that are signaled through wealth items were also signaled through access to foods and animal byproducts.

Conclusions: Towards a Conjunctive Approach

This analysis applies a conjunctive approach to faunal remains and other artifacts to elucidate social inequalities among hunter-gatherer communities. Although households are often the optimal unit of analysis for comparing status and wealth among individuals, the lowest unit of analysis in this study is the site within a particular temporal context. Thus, the faunal remains and other recovered materials are compared across communities rather than households. Because wealth inequalities appear to be reified through funerary-assemblage richness, it is assumed they may be visible through other material assemblages, despite the resolution of the data to the site level. Still, the methods to build inferences about social difference employed here compare community access to and use of animal resources. Construction of inferential arguments regarding social inequalities following this approach ideally builds on such analyses and comparisons among households or other intracommunity groups to elaborate interpersonal scales of difference.

Overall, site rankings based on artifact wealth correlate strongly with rankings based on taxonomic richness and the exploitation of large-bodied mammals relative to smaller prey. Taxonomic richness is most likely associated with differences among communities regarding access to a broad range of habitats for accessing prey or to exchange systems that would provide exotic, nonlocal species. Communities with access to diverse exchange goods and tools (Table 8.5) also had access to meats, fats (marrow and grease), or pelts from large ruminants or marine mammals. Disparities among communities regarding access to foods and animal byproducts provide a comparison to scales of interpersonal difference in funerary goods at coastal site CA-MNT-229. In this way, tracking individual and community access to long-distance exchange items like obsidian and shell beads—along with differential access to large mammals, essential nutrients and fats, and the luxury of dietary diversity—provides insight into social difference experienced by hunter-gatherers in this region during the Middle and MLT Periods.

Acknowledgments. Investigations of CA-SCL-119 and CA-SCR-44 fauna were supported by a NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant (BCS-0840356) to the author. CA-MNT-234 zooarchaeological analysis by D. Gifford-Gonzalez, C. Sunseri, B. Curry, P. O’Meara, K. Gobalet (fish), J. Geary (birds). Special thanks to J. Fisher, J. Sunseri, and A. Watson for insightful discussions during the preparation of this chapter and to an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on an earlier draft.