Regional Trade Systems in Prehistoric Southern California: Feasting, Power and Lithic Procurement

Mikael Fauvelle
Anthropology
UC San Diego

This project seeks to question several longstanding assumptions about the nature of regional exchange in Southern California during the prehistoric Late Period (circa 500-1500 C.E.). Previous approaches to understanding the evolution of social complexity in southern California have widely assumed that terrestrially impoverished populations on the Channel Islands traded asymmetrically for subsistence resources from their neighbors on the mainland. Instead, this project attempts to change to focus to more agent based economic models. In order to do this we will pursue two lines of data. First of all, we will search through early 20th century site reports for evidence of competitive feasting; a key strategy used by elites in transegalitarian societies to aggrandize themselves and maximize their power. Secondly, we will examine chert sources from the mainland to directly question the concept that shell beads were necessarily made with Santa Cruz Island chert.