In Coastal California, the Tongva Sustainably Hunted Marine Mammals for Centuries hakaimagazine.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from hakaimagazine.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Indeed, as Radde noted, predation of pinnipeds has been so pervasive that data from archaeological sites suggest they behave differently today than in the past, moving their rookeries (where they birth and raise young) and foraging areas.
For Radde, the Catalina artifacts from the late Holocene study site (roughly 1315-570 years before the present, or BP) represented an immense challenge.
“The sheer density of marine mammal remains was the first surprise,” he said. “Regional archaeologists had already established baselines for significant hunting sites based on density of animal bones. In general, these assemblages are rare. Once I realized I was knee deep in a collection characterized by this I dove deep into the literature on pinniped hunting among hunter-gatherer-fishers.”