ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the varying behavioral patterns of prey on land as opposed to in the sea and their potential impact on the age and sex structure of death populations in archaeological contexts. It offers an explanation for an apparent change in subsistence, based on demographic characteristics of the archaeological death populations. The chapter proposes patterns of human exploitation in the absence of reliable information on broad population composition, instead focusing upon known prey social and reproductive behaviors in conjunction with technological data from the archaeological record. It examines demographic data for faunal remains recovered from three late Holocene sites on the Oregon coast. Age-sex data for pinniped remains are of critical importance for determining whether prehistoric hunters exploited rookeries or haul-outs. R. G. Matson suggested that over-hunting of pinnipeds in littoral settings using a relatively simple technology is more likely to occur than over-hunting with a complex marine-oriented technology in pelagic settings.
