Ethnoarchaeology of Marine Foraging

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With National Science Foundation support Dr. Eric Smith and his colleagues will conduct ethnoarchaeological fieldwork among the Meriam, a Melanesian group which inhabits the three easternmost islands in the Torres Strait, southeast of Papua New Guinea. The islands are surrounded by broad fringing reefs and deep waters which are rich in both fish and shellfish. Although now Australian citizens and increasingly reliant on store bought flour and rice, the Meriam still retain a significant gathering and fishing component in their diet and devote considerable effort to gathering shellfish from rocky shore and intertidal areas. Dr. Smith and his colleagues will study the shellfish gathering strategies employed. Although the project employs ethnographic techniques to study present day people, the direct significance of the proposed research is largely archaeological. Prehistoric coastal populations in many parts of the world relied heavily on shellfish resources for food and shells are abundant in many archaeological sites. Through analysis of such materials scientists attempt to reconstruct the subsistence strategies of the inhabitants and to trace the effects which prehistoric gatherers had on the landscape. Based for example on decreasing shell size over time and increasing utilization of smaller species in some parts of the world, archaeologists have postulated that overexploitation occurred. However past work by project members among the Meriam has shown that no simple and clear-cut relationship exists between observed collecting practices and material remains which are ultimately deposited at camp sites. Using a powerful body of theory which derives from optimal foraging, the investigators will follow Meriam foragers and record subsistence behavior. They will attempt to determine within this theoretical framework why particular foraging decisions are made and what the material signatures of specific behaviors are. The research is important for several reasons. It will increase our understanding of how subsistence decisions are made among technologically simple foragers. It will also provide scientists with a set of tools and framework to aid in interpretation of the archaeological record in many parts of the world.