Abstract
Modelling in demographic ecology offers insights into population stability and instability in village societies. In this study we explore the hypothesis that among storage dependent fisher-hunter-gatherers, access to high resource diversity favors reduced demographic volatility over time. To better understand this relationship, we generate summed probability distributions (SPDs) from legacy radiocarbon records to model the population histories of Middle to late Holocene groups residing in the Mid-Fraser Canyon and the Lower Fraser Valley, British Columbia. Our analysis indicates that Lower Fraser populations (with high subsistence resource diversity) were highly stable after 4000 years ago. In contrast, Mid-Fraser populations (with lower subsistence resource diversity) were very low 2000–4000 cal. BP, peaked at high densities by ca. 1200–1300 cal. BP, and were again low until the final centuries before first contacts with Europeans. We argue that climate related impacts on anadromous fish resources likely affected Mid-Fraser populations to a more substantial degree than those of the Lower Fraser. These results offer wider implications concerning demographic volatility and its effects on cultural stability and social change. Our study offers a means by which legacy radiocarbon data may be studied using a permutation-based statistical inference of SPDs.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 103512 |
| Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports |
| Volume | 44 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 2022 |
Funding
We thank Xwísten, the Bridge River Band and Ts’kw’aylaxw, the Pavilion Band, for their support of our research, respectively at the S7istken/Bridge River and Keatley Creek (Tl’atl’lh) sites. We acknowledge the late Desmond Peters Sr. for his extraordinary contributions to preserving Indigenous language and traditional knowledge in the Mid-Fraser Canyon. We thank all of the archaeologists (especially Brian Hayden, Mike Rousseau, David Sanger, Lisa Smith, and Arnoud Stryd) who have contributed data to the radiocarbon record of the Mid-Fraser Canyon. We thank the National Science Foundation (United States) for financial support of our research at the Keatley Creek (BCS-0108795), Bridge River (BCS-0313920 and BCS-0713013), and S7istken (BCS-1217480) sites. We thank the National Endowment for the Humanities (United States) for their support of our research at Housepit 54, Bridge River site (RZ-51287-11 and RZ-230366-1). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prentiss thanks the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge for providing a Visiting Scholar position during 2018 and the University of Montana for sabbatical funding during that year. Crema was supported by a Philip Leverhulme Prize (No. PLP-2019-304). We thank Morgan Ritchie for his help with the Fraser Valley database. Finally, we thank Ian Hutchinson, Dana Lepofsky, Martin Hinz, and several anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the manuscript. We thank Xwísten, the Bridge River Band and Ts'kw'aylaxw, the Pavilion Band, for their support of our research, respectively at the S7istken/Bridge River and Keatley Creek (Tl'atl'lh) sites. We acknowledge the late Desmond Peters Sr. for his extraordinary contributions to preserving Indigenous language and traditional knowledge in the Mid-Fraser Canyon. We thank all of the archaeologists (especially Brian Hayden, Mike Rousseau, David Sanger, Lisa Smith, and Arnoud Stryd) who have contributed data to the radiocarbon record of the Mid-Fraser Canyon. We thank the National Science Foundation (United States) for financial support of our research at the Keatley Creek (BCS-0108795), Bridge River (BCS-0313920 and BCS-0713013), and S7istken (BCS-1217480) sites. We thank the National Endowment for the Humanities (United States) for their support of our research at Housepit 54, Bridge River site (RZ-51287-11 and RZ-230366-1). Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Prentiss thanks the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge for providing a Visiting Scholar position during 2018 and the University of Montana for sabbatical funding during that year. Crema was supported by a Philip Leverhulme Prize (No. PLP-2019-304). We thank Morgan Ritchie for his help with the Fraser Valley database. Finally, we thank Ian Hutchinson, Dana Lepofsky, Martin Hinz, and several anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments on the manuscript.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| BCS-0108795, PLP-2019-304, BCS-0313920, BCS-1217480, BCS-0713013 | |
| National Endowment for the Humanities | RZ-51287-11, RZ-230366-1 |
Keywords
- British Columbia
- Lower Fraser Valley
- Mid-Fraser Canyon
- Population dynamics
- Radiocarbon dating
- Summed probability distributions