A Late Holocene Population Bottleneck in California Tule Elk ( Cervus elaphus nannodes ): Provisional Support from Ancie
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A Late Holocene Population Bottleneck in California Tule Elk (Cervus elaphus nannodes): Provisional Support from Ancient DNA Jack M. Broughton & R. Kelly Beck & Joan B. Coltrain & Dennis H. O’ Rourke & Alan R. Rogers
Published online: 13 December 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Abstract Zooarchaeological analyses have suggested a possible case of late Holocene resource depression in California tule elk (Cervus elaphus nannodes). We develop and conduct a preliminary independent test of this here based on trends in genetic diversity derived from ancient DNA extracted from archaeological elk bone. Mitochondrial DNA sequence data from 24 tule elk temporally dispersed across the late Holocene deposits of the Emeryville Shellmound, California, provide provisional support for a decline in genetic diversity and a population bottleneck beginning about 1600 B.P. Final confirmation of this pattern must await complete replication of the sequences. Stable isotope analyses of the elk bone provide a record of change in the terrestrial environment across the period of deposition and no suggestion that climate change may have played a role in an elk population decline. The analysis has implications for our understanding of change in human behavior and biology during late Holocene of central California, the methodology of resource depression analyses, and the conservation biology of tule elk. Keywords Tule elk . Late Holocene . Ancient DNA . Resource depression . Climate change
Introduction The extremely high densities of large game in California during the early historic period (early 1800s) astonished explorers, and their accounts of ungulate densities are J. M. Broughton (*) : R. K. Beck : J. B. Coltrain : D. H. O’ Rourke : A. R. Rogers Department of Anthropology, University of Utah, 270 S 1400 E RM 102, Salt Lake City, UT 84112-0060, USA e-mail: [email protected] R. K. Beck SWCA Environmental Consultants, 257 East 200 South, Suite 200, Salt Lake City, UT 84111, USA
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routinely taken as benchmarks for the state’s original or pristine zoological condition. Interpretations of California’s indigenous peoples also have been deeply conditioned by these descriptions and the apparent abundance of the natural food supply. The indigenous harvesting strategies that some suggest may have promoted these faunal abundances have also been proposed as models for the management of wilderness areas and national parks today (e.g., Anderson 2005; Blackburn and Anderson 1993; but see also Berkes 2004; Berkes et al. 1995 for complexities on the role of traditional ecological knowledge in resource conservation). Many of these perceptions have been challenged recently by research grounded in behavioral ecology. That work suggests that times were anything but easy in many native California contexts and that resource stress brought on by late Holocene prey depressions and/or severe climatic disruptions provided the primary catalyst for a host of other changes in human behavior and lifeways. These i
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