Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Archaeological Evidence For Resilience Of Pacific Northwest Salmon Populations And The Socioecological System Over The Last ~7,500 Years, Sarah K. Campbell, Virginia L. Butler

Anthropology Faculty and Staff Publications

Archaeological data on the long history of interaction between indigenous people and salmon have rarely been applied to conservation management. When joined with ethnohistoric records, archaeology provides an alternative conceptual view of the potential for sustainable harvests and can suggest possible social mechanisms for managing human behavior. Review of the ~7,500-year-long fish bone record from two subregions of the Pacific Northwest shows remarkable stability in salmon use. As major changes in the ecological and social system occurred over this lengthy period, persistence in the fishery is not due simply to a lack of perturbation, but rather indicates resilience in the …