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STUDYING ARCHAEOLOGICAL FOOD-WEBS IN ANCESTRAL
PUEBLOAN SOCIETY
Stefani Crabtree, Washington State University
Monday, October 22, 2012
WHAT IS A FOOD-WEB?A network of interactions between producers and consumers
The graphical representation of trophic interactions
directional, shows community structure, stability, and nutrient flow
Basically, who eats whom.
Monday, October 22, 2012
PREVIOUS FOOD-WEB STUDIES
Estes et al. 1998; a look at killer whale predation on sea otters.
First study linking oceanic and near shore systems.
Yodzis and Inness’s producer/consumer functional response model.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
HUMAN SPECIFIC MODELS
Studies usually focus on negative consequences of human involvement--i.e. exploitation.
Deer predation in U.S. Southwest--human overhunting destroyed big game by Pueblo II times.
Exception: work by Jennifer Dunne’s lab
Collaboration with Herb Maschner looking at long-term human interaction/management in Alaska
Monday, October 22, 2012
THIS STUDY:
Looks at human/environment interactions in a novel environment
The Mesa Verde Cuesta and Great Sage Plain
Attempts to understand human/environment interactions within an agricultural society.
Decouples humans from direct causation; looks at humans as actors (and reactors) in a complex system.
Tests vulnerability of humans in their environment.
Monday, October 22, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Occupied 1250-1274 AD.
Well-excavated by Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
Oral history linking surviving descendants to the site.
Well-recorded, high resolution of utilized plants and animals.
WHY CASTLE ROCK?
Monday, October 22, 2012
METHODS
Combed the grey literature to compile information on all animals and plants living in our study area in Southwest Colorado.
Data easily located for plants and mammals. Difficult for invertebrates.
Invertebrates were aggregated according to types.
Human consumption patterns were taken from Castle Rock Pueblo Archaeological site and data on ethnographic consumption from Crow Canyon Archaeological Center.
Monday, October 22, 2012
THE FOOD-WEBS
Overall Food Web
Human-Specific Food Web
Trophic Level
Trophic Level
Monday, October 22, 2012
DISCUSSION
Humans directly predate few species on the landscape.
When we take into account what the species that humans prey on eat, web gets more complicated.
Humans are connected to all species in the landscape through secondary, tertiary and quaternary connections.
Monday, October 22, 2012
VULNERABILITY WEB
Humans are not especially vulnerable because of their omnivory.
However, the species that humans rely on most have few species they eat.
Human vulnerability is related to the vulnerability of their prey.
Vulnerability
Monday, October 22, 2012
DISCUSSION
Humans did affect the survival of their prey through hunting. However, because high-ranked game rely on few species for preferred browse, high-ranked prey would be affected by small climatic changes.
If deer rely on a shrub for a majority of their diet, but it is affected by long term growth cycles of invertebrates, deer abundance will go down when invertebrates get more abundant.
Humans reacted not only to hunting-induced depletion but also the resiliency of the system as a whole
Monday, October 22, 2012
CONCLUSIONS
These data are preliminary; it’s being refined daily.
Working to include percents of diets to look at “nodal knockout” of key species
However, there are important implications for worldwide ecosystems.
Seemingly “invisible” forces may have dramatic effects on an ecosystem.
Resiliency of ancestral population is in the choices they had; what is our resiliency now?
Monday, October 22, 2012
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThis work was produced under the Village Ecodynamics Project (VEP), funded by NSF DEB-0816400
Individual support provided by the NSF grfp program at Washington State University.
Initial project produced at the Santa Fe Institute Complex Systems Summer School.
Monday, October 22, 2012
THANKS...Lydia Smith, MA student at UC Berkeley
Santa Fe Institute, especially Jennifer Dunne for invaluable advice on this project;
Rick Williams and Neo Martinez for their help with the use of Networks 3D;
Mark Varien, Scott Ortman and Donna Glowacki for advice on how to proceed with archaeological literature;
Thomas Lewinsohn and the faculty at the Sao Paulo Advanced Science School on Ecological Networks for critiques of an earlier draft of this project;
David Krakauer and Cormac McCarthy for evaluating and judging a previous version of this work
Monday, October 22, 2012
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