The Island Chumash

Colonized as early as 13,500 years ago, the Northern Channel Islands of California offer some of the earliest evidence of human habitation along the west coast of North America. The Chumash people who lived on these islands are considered to be among the most socially and politically complex hunter-gatherers in the world. This book provides a powerful and innovative synthesis of the cultural and environmental history of the chain of islands. Douglas J. Kennett shows that the trends in cultural elaboration were, in part, set into motion by a series of dramatic environmental events that were the catalyst for the unprecedented social and political complexity observed historically.

Douglas J. Kennett is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Study Area, Climate Change and Emergent Cultural Complexity, Note on Chronology


CHAPTER 2
Human Behavioral Ecology and Maritime Societies
Maritime Foraging Strategies, Diet Choice in Maritime Settings, Return Rates for Marine Resources, Central Place Foraging and Maritime Foragers, Intensification and the Ideal Free Distribution, Competition and the Formation of Social Hierarchies in Coastal Settings, Summary


CHAPTER 3
Environmental Context
General Physiography, Geology, Climate, Hydrology, Terrestrial Resources-Spatial Distribution, Marine Resources-Spatial Distribution, Seasonal Variability, Short-Term Climatic Variability, Paleoenvironment, Sea-level, Marine Climate History, Terrestrial Climate History, Summary


CHAPTER 4
Cultural Context
The Ethnohistoric Record, Chumash Population Levels, Subsistence, Settlement, Sexual Division of Labor, Sociopolitical Organization, Exchange and Specialization, Warfare and Territoriality, Ethnohistoric Summary, The Prehistoric Record, Chronology, Cultural Overview, Development of Sociopolitical Complexity, Punctuated Cultural Development, Prehistoric Summary


CHAPTER 5
Historic Island Communities
Historic Island Villages, Santa Cruz Island, Santa Rosa Island, San Miguel Island, Geographic Analysis, Viewshed Analysis, Rank-Size Analysis,Summary


CHAPTER 6
Terminal Pleistocene to Middle Holocene Records
Terminal Pleistocene Record, Early Holocene Record, Middle Holocene Record


CHAPTER 7
Late Holocene
Population Growth and Demographic Expansion, Territoriality and Warfare, Economic Intensificaton, Increases in Trade and Exchange, Emergent Sociopolitical Complexity


CHAPTER 8
Synthesis
Diet Breadth
Central Place Foraging, Intensification and the Ideal Free Distribution, Competition and the Formation of Social Hierarchies

References
Index