ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the types of demographic factors considered by California archaeologists, data sources relied upon in the research, and challenges confronting, methodological problems with, and emerging opportunities for the studies. Population size and migration have received the most archaeological attention in California, although research on both of these demographic issues has benefited substantially from incorporation of data from non-archaeological sources. Research on human demography as catalyst has focused primarily on hypothesized population-resource imbalances leading to subsistence resource intensification. The routine use of radio-carbon dating and, in certain regions, obsidian hydration analysis to identify and date archaeological components of habitation sites provided a corpus of data to begin to assess relative changes in regional population size through time, including shifts related to environmental change or crises. Archaeological studies of colonial-era native demography in California may provide a useful starting point for understanding the more distant past, given the richness of ethnographic and ethno-historic records as well as native oral tradition.
