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Measurement of Significant Marine Paleotemperature Variation Using Black Abalone Shells from Prehistoric Middens

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Jeanne E. Arnold
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology and Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024-1553
Brian N. Tissot
Affiliation:
Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences, University of Hawaii, Hilo, Hawaii 96720-4091

Abstract

The archaeological record from the last millennium in southern California indicates that a period of significant cultural change was associated with a reported marine paleoenvironmental disruption ca. 1150-1250 A.D. A lengthy warm-water anomaly may have in part precipitated more complex sociopolitical and economic responses. We develop independent verification of the perturbation (originally deduced from sediment core data) using archaeological data. Respiratory pore number allometry in the black abalone shell is known to vary clinally in modern populations in response to temperature-induced variation in rate of growth. We use developmental trajectories of abalone from dated, stratified archaeological deposits to reconstruct prehistoric seawater temperatures.

Type
Articles
Copyright
University of Washington

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