Re: recent coastal middens

On Aug 23, 6:00 am, archer <twi...@xxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 22, 12:45 am, Marc Verhaegen <m_verhae...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:





http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/21/science/earth/21ancient.html?partne...
mc=rss

"Ancient Man Hurt Coasts, Paper Says"
CORNELIA DEAN

... Rick's co-author, Jon M.Erlandson of the University of Oregon, said
people who lived on the Channel Islands 13 ka left behind middens (piles of
shells & bones) that offer clues to how they altered their landscape:
"We have shell middens that are full of sea urchins."
He & Rick theorized that the sea urchins became abundant when hunting
depleted the sea otters that prey on them. In turn, the sea urchins would
have severely damaged the underwater forests of kelp on which they fed/
"These effects cascade down the ecosystem."
Today, coastal scientists argue about a similar cascade, which some
attribute to sea otters' being eaten by killer whales.
But the scientists added that when people in the Channel Islands hunted
otters, they probably ended up increasing the abundance of shellfish. The
researchers also cite systems of walls & terraces that people in the Pacific
Northwest built to trap sediment & create habitat for clams, which they
harvested & ate.
Erlandson said anthropologists in general were not used to thinking that
people exploited marine environments before 4 ka or so, when sea levels that
had been rising since the end of the last ice age more or less stabilized.
Much of the evidence of earlier coastal settlements has vanished under the
waves, he said.

They would have to dive for them ????,  AAH, or gather on the tide
pools??????????

Not to mention the fact that the earliest human remains from these
islands,
Arlington Springs, were found in close proximity to a mammoth, not sea
shells.


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