TY - JOUR
T1 - At the Malthusian ceiling
T2 - Subsistence and inequality at Bridge River, British Columbia
AU - Prentiss, Anna Marie
AU - Cail, Hannah S.
AU - Smith, Lisa M.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Ian Kuijt for inviting us to contribute to the Seminar on Storage and Social Inequality at the Amerind Foundation and Museum, Dragoon, Arizona. We thank Ian and all of the participants in the seminar for their provocative research and thoughtful consideration of our work. Our investigations at the Bridge River site were conducted as a partnership with Xwisten, the Bridge River Band, and were generously supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant BCS-0713013 paid for the 2007–2009 field seasons) and The University of Montana. The research presented in this paper was particularly inspired by the work of Bruce Winterhalder (along with Cedric Puleston), who also provided us with unpublished papers and comments on this manuscript. We also thank Lucy Harris, Natasha Lyons, and two anonymous peer-reviewers for their very useful comments. We take full responsibility for any shortcomings. Finally, we thank Eric Carlson and Lucy Harris for their assistance with graphics and maps.
PY - 2014/3
Y1 - 2014/3
N2 - The Bridge River Village, located in the Middle Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, was established and grew to maximum size during the period of ca. 1800-1100. cal. B.P. Village expansion occurred in two distinct stages resulting in a stepped pattern of demographic growth. We suggest that this could reflect two distinctly different periods, the first (Bridge River 2) a relatively comfortable equilibrium with little subsistence stress; the second (Bridge River 3) a truly Malthusian ceiling associated with reduction in critical subsistence resources, social change, and eventual abandonment. In this paper we explore the interactions between resource productivity, food harvest and storage, animal husbandry, demographic growth, and socio-political change in the late Holocene Middle Fraser Canyon. The study provides us with the opportunity to compare and contrast histories of hunter-gatherer-fisher people with that of other complex hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists on similar demographic scales.
AB - The Bridge River Village, located in the Middle Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, was established and grew to maximum size during the period of ca. 1800-1100. cal. B.P. Village expansion occurred in two distinct stages resulting in a stepped pattern of demographic growth. We suggest that this could reflect two distinctly different periods, the first (Bridge River 2) a relatively comfortable equilibrium with little subsistence stress; the second (Bridge River 3) a truly Malthusian ceiling associated with reduction in critical subsistence resources, social change, and eventual abandonment. In this paper we explore the interactions between resource productivity, food harvest and storage, animal husbandry, demographic growth, and socio-political change in the late Holocene Middle Fraser Canyon. The study provides us with the opportunity to compare and contrast histories of hunter-gatherer-fisher people with that of other complex hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists on similar demographic scales.
KW - Animal husbandry (dogs)
KW - British Columbia
KW - Complex hunter-gatherers
KW - Demography
KW - Salmon fishing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84889650652&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.jaa.2013.11.003
DO - 10.1016/j.jaa.2013.11.003
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84889650652
SN - 0278-4165
VL - 33
SP - 34
EP - 48
JO - Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
JF - Journal of Anthropological Archaeology
IS - 1
ER -