Against a backdrop of sustained resource intensification and population increases that began at the end of the middle Holocene in California and continued until at least 1000 B.P., there is a variety of archaeological evidence indicating that hunting of highly ranked large mammals actually increased during this time. This trend runs counter to general expectations set forth by optimal-foraging and diet-breadth models, and suggests that the role of big-game procurement by logistically organized male hunting parties had important social—indeed evolutionary—implications apart from its contributions to simple group provisioning. At the core of this argument is the notion that there can be Darwinian fitness benefits for males in pursuing certain types of highly prized resources, at the expense of regular and dependable provisioning of one's family. We contend that the evolutionary legacy surrounding big-game hunting is fundamental to the understanding not only of its paradoxical energetics, but also of the general elaboration of cultural systems, including the rise of certain spectacular technological and artistic traditions that characterize the California Middle Archaic period.

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Over the last several decades, there has been an increasingly robust body of ethnographic research indicating that the sharing of meat is strongly linked to the fitness pursuits of individuals, where successful male hunters achieve various forms of prestige that ultimately lead to greater reproductive success. We argue that the effects of prestige hunting and other similar displays can be traced archaeologically in subsistence, settlement, and material culture profiles, and in the gender division of labor of even the simplest foraging societies—in this case Great Basin Middle Archaic (4500-1000 B.P.) hunter-gatherers. In contrast with optimal faraging and other efficiency models that attempt to account for such behaviors, we apply costly signaling theory to explain when foraging currencies shifted from calories to prestige among Great Basin foragers. The application of such an approach has the ability to integrate a series of disparate, subsistence- and non-subsistence-related observations regarding Great Basin lifeways and, in so doing, revise our traditional understanding of prehistoric culture change in this region.

AND WU.UAM R. HlI.nmm.ANDT far Wcs/t'1"/I A/lt/lwl'll/llgiml UC~l'lIrdl CrollJI, OIlP;S, Californill 95(,17 R. Lee Lyman has challenged our assertion that prehistoric hunting of marine mammals along the west coast of North America approximated a prehistoric tragedy of the commons in which highly ranked migratory sea lions and fur seals were reduced by overexploitation, necessitating pursuit of smaller, more elusive harbor seals and sea otters late in time. In response, we review alternative theoretical perspectives, rebut Lyman's characterization of marine mammal repro­ ductive behaviors, reanalyze seal and sea lion NISP data from the California and Oregon (oasts, and reinterpret three regional prehistories. Because migratory pinnipeds need to breed on land, are vulnerable to terrestrial predation when congregated in breeding colonies, and employ mi­ gration corridors thousands of kilometers in length, they were susceptible to overexploitation. In areas where rookeries perSisted on remote islands and offshore rocks, sophisticated weaponry and watercraft were developed to facilitate pursuit of dwindling populations and more elusive taxa as part of intensive, socially complex maritime economies. The evolution of marine mammal hunt­ only models which integrate all of these ing strategies and their association with lines of evidence have the potential to suc­ complex, non-egalitarian hunter-gatherer cessfully characterize the complex co­ cultures of the western North American evolution of marine mammal hunting coast are issues deserving continued anal­ strategies and coastal hunter-gatherer cul­ ysis and debate. R. Lee Lyman has done ture. We still believe this to be the case. this topic a service in his challenge to our We consider the prehistory of marine recent proposals concerning prehistoric mammal acquisition in western North overexploitiltion of Norlhcilstcrn Pilcific America as il classic ImXf'rly of tile COI11l1rol1~, ~l'a millTImals, Our original model wtlS in which pillnipcl1 popllltlliuns were over­ cardully conceivl'd to articulate human exploited during the course of thousands optilTItll economic behtlvior, population of years of pursuit by humans. Initially growth and intensification, technological available in large numbers in mainland change, and sea mammal reproductive be­ rookeries, fur seals and sea lions were pur­ havior and population ecology. in its sup­ sued along the entire length of the Califor­ port we summarized the majority of avail­ nia and Oregon coasts. Through time, ex­ able zooarchaeological data from the Cali­ ploitation of the easily accessible mainland fornia and Oregon coasts, including 16,123 breeding sites caused a decline in popula­ large mammal bone identifications from 41 tions, a disappearance of these rookeries, sites. We also reviewed seal and sea lion and an increased reliance on smaller more breeding behaviors and population biol­ elusive taxa (Le., harbor seals and sea ot­ ogy, and ethnographic and historic ac­ ter) that did not require terrestrial rooker­ counts of s...