Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Size matters only sometimes: the energy-risk trade-offs of Holocene prey acquisition in the Bonneville basin, western USA

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper presents new zooarcheological data examining the relative abundances of artiodactyl and leporid remains from Holocene-aged sites in the Bonneville basin. Prior scholarship derived largely from sheltered sites suggests favorable climate conditions during the late Holocene increased foraging efficiency and supported a focus on hunting high-value artiodactyls. Using theoretical rationale from foraging theory and empirical data, we re-evaluate the trade-offs between the risk of hunting failure and energetic returns associated with the procurement artiodactyls and leporids, the two most common prey groups found in the regional zooarcheological record. The trade-offs between risk and energy show that while small in body size, leporids are a low risk, reliable food source rather than an inefficient resource targeted only when high-ranked prey are unavailable. We present faunal data from more than 80 open contexts in the Bonneville basin dating to the late Holocene that show a relatively stable exploitation strategy centered on leporids, especially hares (Lepus sp.). Additional data from open and sheltered sites in neighboring areas show a similar pattern. The prehistoric reliance on small game is consistent with divergent labor patterns observed in the ethnographic and historic records of the area. We advocate for the evaluation of the trade-offs between risk and energy of different sized prey within a regional context, and the use of zooarcheological data derived from a large number of sites and different site types to infer prey exploitation patterns.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Rabbits jumped are the number of rabbits seen but not necessarily the number targeted. Some rabbits were not targeted because they jumped when the hunters let their dogs run for exercise. Others were not pursued because of thick brush coverage (i.e., poor shot advantage) and other variables (South Carolina rabbit hunter study, Department of Natural Resources 2011–2012:5). See also South Carolina rabbit hunter studies, Department of Natural Resources (2009-2010, 2018-2019).

  2. Gilmore (1953:152–153) states, “Natural hemp, made from the bark of plants, was used as thread in sewing these small strips of fur together. A single blanket has been known to have required...one-hundred skins in its making. However, most blankets were custom-made, being made to reach from the ground to the top of the head of the person for whom the blanket was being made. Rabbit blankets lasted many years and continued to be warm as long as they were kept clean. Rabbit fur was so valuable… that it was frequently used instead of coin in purchasing articles and for wagering at gambling…”

  3. Steward (1938:45) reports that 20 lengths of roped or twined rabbit pelt sold for about 5$ and could be used to purchase a buckskin.

References

  • Alvard MS (1993) Testing the “ecologically noble savage” hypothesis: interspecific prey choice by Piro hunters of Amazonian Peru. Hum Ecol 21:355–387

    Google Scholar 

  • Best T (1996) Lepus californicus. Mammalian Species 530:1–10

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird DW, Bliege Bird R, Codding BF (2009) In pursuit of mobile prey: Martu hunting strategies and archaeofaunal interpretation. Am Antiq 74:3–29

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird DW, Bliege Bird R, Parker CH (2005) Aboriginal burning regimes and hunting strategies in Australia’s western desert. Hum Ecol 33:443–464

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird DW, Codding BF, Bliege Bird R, Zeanah DW (2012) Risky pursuits: Martu hunting and the effects of prey mobility: reply to Ugan and Simms. Am Antiq 77:186–194

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird DW, Codding BF, Bliege Bird R, Zeanah DW, Taylor CJ (2013) Megafauna in a continent of small game: archaeological implications of Martu camel hunting in Australia’s western desert. Quat International 297:155–166

    Google Scholar 

  • Bird DW, O’Connell JF (2006) Behavioral ecology and archaeology. J Archaeol Res 14:143–188

    Google Scholar 

  • Bliege Bird R, Smith EA, Bird DW (2001) The hunting handicap: costly signaling in male foraging strategies. Behav Ecol and Sociobiol 50:9–19

    Google Scholar 

  • Bliege Bird R, Codding BF, Bird DW (2009) Determinants of gendered foraging and production inequalities among Martu. Hum Nat 20:105–129

    Google Scholar 

  • Boydston GA, Gore HG (1987) Archery wounding loss in Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Austin

    Google Scholar 

  • Broughton JM (1994) Late Holocene resource intensification in the Sacramento Valley, California: the vertebrate evidence. J Archaeol Sci 21:501–514

    Google Scholar 

  • Broughton JM (2002) Prey spatial structure and behavior affect archaeological tests of optimal foraging models: examples from the Emeryville Shellmound vertebrate fauna. World Archaeol 34:60–83

    Google Scholar 

  • Broughton JM, Bayham FE (2003) Showing off, foraging models, and the ascendance of large game hunting in the California middle Archaic. Am Antiq 68:783–789

    Google Scholar 

  • Broughton JM, Byers DA, Bryson RA, Eckerle W, Madsen DB (2008) Did climatic seasonality control Late Quaternary artiodactyl densities in western North America? Quat Sci Rev 27:1916–1937

    Google Scholar 

  • Broughton JM, Cannon MD, Bayham FE, Byers DA (2011) Prey body size and ranking in zooarchaeology: theory, empirical evidence, and applications from the northern Great Basin. Am Antiq 76:403–428

    Google Scholar 

  • Buck P, Hockett B, Graf K, Geobel T, Griego G, Perry L, Dillingham E (2002) Oranjeboom Cave: a single component Eastgate site in northeastern Nevada. Utah Archaeol 15:99–112

    Google Scholar 

  • Butler VL, Campbell SK (2004) Resource intensification and resource depression in the Pacific Northwest of North America: a zooarchaeological review. J World Prehistory 18:327–405

    Google Scholar 

  • Byers D, Broughton JM (2004) Holocene environmental change, artiodactyl abundances, and human hunting strategies in the Great Basin. Am Antiq 69:235–255

    Google Scholar 

  • California Department of Fish and Upland Game/Waterfowl Program report of the [1996, 1999-2008, 2010] game take hunter survey, Sacramento https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/

  • Cannon MD (2003) A model of central place forager prey choice and an application to faunal remains from the Mimbres Valley, New Mexico. J Anthropol Archaeol 22:1–25

    Google Scholar 

  • Cannon MD (2013) NISP, Bone fragmentation, and the measurement of taxonomic abundance. J Archaeol Method Theory 20:397–419

    Google Scholar 

  • Carbyn LN, Trottier T (1988) Descriptions of wolf attacks on bison calves in Wood Buffalo National Park. Arct 41:297–302

    Google Scholar 

  • Chapman JA, Willner GR (1978) Sylvilagus audubonii. Mammalian Species 106:1–4

    Google Scholar 

  • Codding BF, Bird DW (2015) Behavioral ecology and the future of archaeological science. J Archaeol Sci 56:9–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Codding BF, Bliege Bird R, Bird DW (2011) Provisioning offspring and others: risk–energy trade-offs and gender differences in hunter–gatherer foraging strategies. Proc Royal Soc B 278:2502–2509

    Google Scholar 

  • Codding BF, Porcasi JF, Jones TL (2010) Explaining prehistoric variation in the abundance of large prey: a zooarchaeological analysis of deer and rabbit hunting along the Pecho Coast of central California. J Anthropol Archaeol 29:47–61

    Google Scholar 

  • Creel S, Winnie J Jr, Maxwell B, Hamlin K, Creel M (2005) Elk alter habitat selection as an antipredator response to wolves. Ecol 86:3387–3397

    Google Scholar 

  • Croft RL (1963) A survey of Georgia bowhunters. Proc Southeast Assoc of Game and Fish Comm 17:155–163

    Google Scholar 

  • Dalley GF (1976) Swallow shelter and associated sites. Anthropological Papers no. 96. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Ditchkoff SS, Welch ER Jr, Lochmiller RL, Masters RE, Starry WR, Dinkines WC (1998) Wounding rates of white-tailed deer with traditional archery equipment. Proc Annu Conf Southeast Assoc Fish and Wildl Agencies 52:244–248

    Google Scholar 

  • Downing RL (1971) Comparison of crippling losses of white-tailed deer caused by archery, buckshot, and shotgun slugs. Proc Annu Conf Southeast Assoc Game and Fish Comm 25:77–82

    Google Scholar 

  • Downs JF (1966) The two worlds of the Washo: an Indian tribe of California and Nevada. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Durrant SD (1970) Faunal remains as indicators of neothermal climates at Hogup Cave. In: Aikens CM Hogup Cave. Anthropological Papers no. 93. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp 241-245

  • Elston RG, Zeanah DW, Codding BF (2014) Living outside the box: an updated perspective on diet breadth and sexual division of labor in the prearchaic Great Basin. Quat Int 352:200–211

    Google Scholar 

  • Ferris WA (1940) Life in the Rocky Mountains: a diary of wanderings on the sources of the rivers Missouri, Columbia and Colorado from February 1830 to November 1831. Old West Publishing, Denver

  • Fisher JL (2018) Influence of bone survivorship on taxonomic abundance measures. In: Giovas CM, LeFebvre MJ (eds) Zooarchaeology in practice: case studies in methodology and interpretation in archaeofaunal analysis. Springer, Cham, pp 127–149

    Google Scholar 

  • Fowler CS (1986) Subsistence. In: d’Azevedo WG (ed) Handbook of North American Indians, Great Basin, vol 11. Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, pp 64–97

    Google Scholar 

  • Fowler CS (1989) Willard Z. Park’s ethnographic notes on the Northern Paiute of western Nevada, 1933-1944. Anthropological Papers No. 114. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Fowler CS (1992) In the shadow of Fox Peak: an ethnography of the cattail-eater Northern Paiute people of Stillwater Marsh. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Cultural Resource Series no. 5. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington DC

  • Fowler CS, Walter NP (1985) Harvesting pandora moth larvae with the Owens Valley Paiute. J Calif Gt Basin Anthropol 7:155–165

    Google Scholar 

  • Garland LE (1972) Bowhunting for deer in Vermont: some characteristics of the hunters, the Hunt, and the Harvest. Vermont Fish and Game Department, Waterbury

    Google Scholar 

  • Garland T Jr (1983) The relation between maximal running speed and body mass in terrestrial mammals. J Zoology 199:157–170

    Google Scholar 

  • Geist V (1998) Deer of the world: their evolution, behavior, and ecology. Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilmore HW (1953) Hunting habits of the early Nevada Paiutes. Am Anthropol 55:148–153

    Google Scholar 

  • Gladfelter HL, Kienzler JM, Koehler KJ (1983) Effects of compound bow use on deer hunter success and crippling rates in Iowa. Wildl Society Bull 11:7–12

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayson DK (1983) The paleontology of Gatecliff Shelter: small mammals. In: Thomas DH The Archaeology of Monitor Valley 2, Gatecliff Shelter. Anthropological Papers 59(1). American Museum of Natural History, New York, pp 99-126

  • Grayson DK (1988) Danger Cave, Last Supper Cave, and Hanging Rock Shelter: the faunas. Anthropological Papers 66(1). American Museum of Natural History, New York

  • Grayson DK (1990) The James Creek Shelter mammals. In: Elston RG, Budy EE (eds) The archaeology of James Creek Shelter. Anthropological Papers no. 115. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp 87-98

  • Grayson DK (2000) Mammalian responses to middle Holocene climatic change in the Great Basin of the western United States. J Biogeogr 27:181–192

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayson DK (2006) Holocene bison in the Great Basin, western USA. The Holocene 16:913–925

    Google Scholar 

  • Grayson DK (2011) The Great Basin: a natural prehistory. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Hall ER (1946) Mammals of Nevada. University of California Press, Berkeley

    Google Scholar 

  • Hames RB (1979) A comparison of the efficiencies of the shotgun and the bow in neotropical forest hunting. Hum Ecol 7:219–252

    Google Scholar 

  • Hampton JO, Forsyth DM, Mackenzie D, Stuart I (2015) A simple quantitative method for assessing animal welfare outcomes in terrestrial wildlife shooting: the European rabbit as a case study. Animal Welfare 24:307–317

  • Harper KT (1986) Historical environments. In: d’Azevedo WG (ed) Handbook of North American Indians, Great Basin, vol 11. Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, pp 51–63

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, Bliege Bird R (2002) Showing off, handicap signaling, and the evolution of men’s work. Evol Anthropol 11:58–67

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF (1985) Optimal foraging models and the case of the! Kung. Am Anthropol 87:401–405

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Blurton Jones N (1991) Hunting income patterns among the Hadza: big game, common goods, foraging goals and the evolution of the human diet. Philos Trans Royal Soc B 334(1270):243–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Hawkes K, O’Connell JF, Coxworth JE (2010) Family provisioning is not the only reason men hunt: a comment on Gurven and Hill. Current Anthropol 51:259–264

  • Hill K (1988) Macronutrient modifications of optimal foraging theory: an approach using indifference curves applied to some modern foragers. Hum Ecol 16:157–197

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill K, Hawkes K (1983) Neotropical hunting among the Ache of eastern Paraguay. In: Hames RB, Vickers WT (eds) Adaptations of native Amazonians. Academic Press, Orlando, pp 139–188

    Google Scholar 

  • Hill K, Kaplan H, Hawkes K, Hurtado AM (1987) Foraging decisions among Ache hunter-gatherers: new data and implications for optimal foraging models. Ethnol Sociobiol 8:1–36

    Google Scholar 

  • Hockett B (1996) Corroded, thinned and polished bones created by golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos): taphonomic implications for archaeological interpretations. J Archaeol Sci 23:587–591

    Google Scholar 

  • Hockett B (1998) Sociopolitical meaning of faunal remains from Baker Village. Am Antiq 63:289–302

    Google Scholar 

  • Hockett B (2005) Middle and late Holocene hunting in the Great Basin: a critical review of the debate and future prospects. Am Antiq 70:713–731

    Google Scholar 

  • Hockett B (2007) Nutritional ecology of late Pleistocene to middle Holocene subsistence in the Great Basin: zooarchaeological evidence from Bonneville Estates Rockshelter. In: Graf KE, Schmitt DN (eds) Paleoindian or paleoarchaic? Great Basin human ecology at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp 204–230

    Google Scholar 

  • Hockett B (2015) The zooarchaeology of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter: 13,000 years of Great Basin hunting strategies. J Archaeol Sci: Rep 2:291–301

    Google Scholar 

  • Hockett B, Creger C, Smith B, Young C, Carter J, Dillingham E, Crews R, Pellegrini E (2013) Large-scale trapping features from the Great Basin, USA: the significance of leadership and communal gatherings in ancient foraging societies. Quat Int 297:64–78

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt JM, Rhode D, Madsen DB (2000) Homestead Cave flora and non-vertebrate fauna. In: Madsen DB Late Quaternary paleoecology in the Bonneville basin. Bulletin 130. Utah Geological Survey, Salt Lake City, pp 47-58

  • Janetski JC (1997) Fremont hunting and resource intensification in the eastern Great Basin. J Archaeol Sci 24:1075–1088

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones EL (2006) Prey choice, mass collecting, and the wild European rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). J Anthropol Archaeol 25:275–289

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones GT, Beck C (2012) The emergence of the desert archaic in the Great Basin. In: Bousman CB, Vierra BJ (eds) From the Pleistocene to the Holocene: human organization and cultural transformations in prehistoric North America. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, pp 105–124

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones TL, Porcasi JF, Gaeta J, Codding BF (2008) The Diablo Canyon fauna: a course-grained record of trans-Holocene foraging from the central California coast. Am Antiq 73:289–316

    Google Scholar 

  • Kelly IT (1932 ) Ethnography of the Surprise Valley Paiute. University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 31(3). University of California Press, Berkeley, pp. 67-210

  • Kelly IT (1964) Southern Pauite ethnography. Anthropological Papers no. 69. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Koster JM (2007) Hunting and subsistence among the Mayangna and Miskito of Nicaragua’s Bosawas Biosphere Reserve. Ph.D. dissertation, Pennsylvania State University, State College

  • Krausman PR, Bowyer RT (2003) Mountain sheep (Ovis canadensis and O. dalli). In: Feldhamer GA, Thompson BC, Chapman JA (eds) Wild mammals of North America: biology, management, and conservation, 2nd edn. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, pp 1095–1115

    Google Scholar 

  • Krueger WJ (1995) Aspects of wounding of white-tailed deer by bowhunters. West Virginia University, Morgantown, Ph.D. dissertation

    Google Scholar 

  • Lee RB (1979) The! Kung San: men, women, and work in a foraging society. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

    Google Scholar 

  • Leonard Z (1904) Leonard’s narrative: adventure of Zenas Leonard, fur trader and trapper, 1831-1836. Wagner WF (ed). Burrows Brothers, Cleveland

  • Lindstedt SL, Hokanson JF, Wells DJ, Swain SD, Hoppeler H, Navarro V (1991) Running energetics in the pronghorn antelope. Nat 353(6346):748

    Google Scholar 

  • Louderback LA, Rhode D (2009) 15,000 years of vegetation change in the Bonneville basin: the Blue Lake pollen record. Quat Sci Rev 28:308–326

    Google Scholar 

  • Lowie RH (1909) The Northern Shoshone. Anthropological Papers 2(2). American Museum of Natural History, New York, pp 165–306

  • Lowie RF (1924) Notes on Shoshonean Ethnography. Anthropological Papers 20(3). American Museum of Natural History, New York, pp 185–324

  • Lowie RF (1939) Ethnographic notes on the Washo. Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 36. University of California, Berkeley, pp 301–352

  • Lubinski PM, Herren V (2000) An introduction to pronghorn biology, ethnography and archaeology. Plains Anthropol 45:3–11

    Google Scholar 

  • Lukacs PM, Gude JA, Russell RE, Ackerman BB (2011) Evaluating cost-efficiency and accuracy of hunter harvest survey designs. Wildl Soc Bull 35:430–437

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo KD (1996) The historical occurrence and demise of bison in northern Utah. Nevada Hist Q 64:168–180

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo KD (2007) Evolutionary foraging models in zooarchaeological analysis: recent applications and future challenges. J Archaeol Res 15:143–189

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo KD, Schmitt DN (1997) On late Holocene variability in bison populations in the northeastern Great Basin. J Calif Gt Basin Anthropol 19:50–69

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo KD, Schmitt DN (2002) Upper Paleolithic net-hunting, small prey exploitation, and women’s work effort: a view from the ethnographic and ethnoarchaeological record of the Congo Basin. Archaeol Method Theory 9:147–179

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo KD, Schmitt DN (2005) Small prey hunting and zooarchaeological measures of taxonomic diversity and abundance: ethnoarchaeological evidence from Central African forest foragers. J Anthropol Archaeol 24:335–353

    Google Scholar 

  • Lupo KD, Schmitt DN (2016) When bigger is not better: the economics of hunting megafauna and its implications for Plio-Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. J Anthropol Archaeol 44:185–197

    Google Scholar 

  • Lyman RL (2003) Pinniped behavior, foraging theory, and the depression of metapopulations and nondepression of a local population on the southern northwest coast of North America. J Anthropol Archaeol 22:376–388

    Google Scholar 

  • Madsen DB (1989) Exploring the Fremont. Occasional Publication No. 8. Utah Museum of Natural History, Salt Lake City

  • Madsen DB (2000) Late Quaternary paleoecology in the Bonneville basin. Bulletin 130. Utah Geological Survey, Salt Lake City

  • Madsen DB (2007) The paleoarchaic to archaic transition in the Great Basin. In: Graf KE, Schmitt DN (eds) Paleoindian or paleoarchaic? Great Basin human ecology at the Pleistocene-Holocene transition. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp 3–20

    Google Scholar 

  • Madsen DB, Oviatt CG, Young DC, Page D (2015) Old River Bed delta geomorphology and chronology. In: Madsen, DB, Schmitt DN, Page D The paleoarchaic occupation of the Old River Bed delta. Anthropological Papers No. 128. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp 30-60

  • Madsen DB, Rhode D, Grayson DK, Broughton JM, Livingston SD, Hunt JM, Quade J, Schmitt DN, Shaver MW III (2001) Late Quaternary environmental change in the Bonneville basin, western USA. Palaeogeogr Palaeoclimatol Palaeoecol 167:243–271

    Google Scholar 

  • Madsen DB, Schmitt DN (1998) Mass collecting and the diet breadth model: a Great Basin example. J Archaeol Sci 25:445–455

    Google Scholar 

  • Madsen DB, Schmitt DN (2005) Buzz-Cut Dune and Fremont foraging at the margin of horticulture. Anthropological Papers no. 124. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Madsen DB, Simms SR (1998) The Fremont complex: a behavioral perspective. J World Prehistory 12:255–336

    Google Scholar 

  • Martin EP, Coltrain JB, Codding BF (2017) Revisiting Hogup Cave, Utah: insights from new radiocarbon dates and stratigraphic analysis. Am Antiq 82:301–324

    Google Scholar 

  • Marwitt JP (1970) Median Village and Fremont culture regional variation. Anthropological Papers no. 95. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Mitchell GJ (1971) Measurements, weights, and carcass yields of pronghorns in Alberta. J Wildl Manag 35:76–85

    Google Scholar 

  • McCabe RE, Reeves HM, O’Gara BW (2010) Prairie ghost: pronghorn and human interaction in early America. University Press of Colorado, Boulder

    Google Scholar 

  • McPhillips KB, Linder RL, Wentz WA (1985) Nonreporting, success, and wounding by South Dakota deer bowhunters - 1981. Wildl Soc Bull 13:395–398

    Google Scholar 

  • O’Gara BM (1978) Antilocapra americana. Mammalian Species 90:1–7

    Google Scholar 

  • Orr RT (1940) The rabbits of California. Occasional papers 19. California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco

  • Page D, Schmitt DN (2012) A class III cultural resource inventory of 2,693 acres in support of training area expansion, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Page D, Schmitt DN (2014a) A class III cultural resource inventory and site protection measures in support of testing and training, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Page D, Schmitt DN (2014b) A class III cultural resource inventory of Air Force use areas, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Page D, Schmitt DN (2014c) A class III cultural resource inventory in support of phase 7 of the PD-Tess range modernization project, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Page D, Schmitt DN, Rhode D (2014) A class III cultural resource inventory of the Baker Strong Point parcel in support of testing and training, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Palmer TS (1897) The jack rabbits of the United States. U.S. Department of Agriculture Bulletin no. 8. Government Printing Office, Washington DC

  • Pedersen MA, Berry SM, Bossart JC (2008) Wounding rates of white-tailed deer with modern archery equipment. Proc Ann Conf Southeastern Assoc Fish and Wildl Agencies 62:31–34

    Google Scholar 

  • Quimby DC, Johnson DE (1951) Weights and measurements of Rocky Mountain elk. J Wildl Manag 15:57–62

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhode D (2016) Quaternary vegetation changes in the Bonneville Basin. In: Oviatt CG, Shroder JF (eds) Lake Bonneville: a scientific update, Developments in Earth Surface Processes, vol 20. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 420–441

    Google Scholar 

  • Rhode D, Page D, Schmitt DN (2011) Archaeological data recovery at site 42To0567 in the Wig Mountain training area, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Rhode D, Page D, Schmitt DN (2014) A class III cultural resource inventory of the White Sage training area, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Ruth CR, Simmons H (1999) Answering questions about guns, ammo, and man’s best friend. Proc Annu Meet Southeast Deer Study Group 22:28–29

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt DN (2016) Faunal analysis. In: Beck RK (ed) Archaeological investigations for the Sigurd to Red Butte No. 2–345KV transmission project in Beaver, Iron, Millard, Sevier, and Washington Counties, Utah. Volume II: prehistoric synthesis. Bureau of Land Management, Cedar City, pp 9-1–9-16

  • Schmitt DN, Juell KE (1994) Toward the identification of coyote scatological faunal accumulations in archaeological contexts. J Archaeol Sci 21:496–514

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt DN, Lupo KD (1995) On mammalian taphonomy, taxonomic diversity, and measuring subsistence data in zooarchaeology. Am Antiq 60:496–514

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt DN, Lupo KD (2005) The Camels Back Cave mammalian fauna. In: Schmitt DN, Madsen DB Camels Back Cave. Anthropological Papers no. 125. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City, pp. 136-176

  • Schmitt DN, Lupo KD (2012) The Bonneville Estates Rockshelter rodent fauna and changes in late Pleistocene-middle Holocene climates and biogeography in the northern Bonneville basin, USA. Quat Res 78:95–102

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt DN, Lupo KD (2016) Changes in late Quaternary mammalian biogeography in the Bonneville basin. In: Oviatt CG, Shroder JF (eds) Lake Bonneville: a scientific update. Developments in Earth Surface Processes 20. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp. 352-370

  • Schmitt DN, Madsen DB (2005) Camels Back Cave. Anthropological Papers no. 125. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Schmitt DN, Madsen DB, Lupo KD (2004) The worst of times, the best of times: jackrabbit hunting by middle Holocene human foragers in the Bonneville basin of western North America. In: Mondini M, Muñoz S, Wickler S (eds) Colonization, migration, and marginal areas: a zooarchaeological approach. Oxbow Books, Oxford, pp 86–95

    Google Scholar 

  • Schmitt DN, Page D (2011) A class III cultural resource inventory in support of phase 5 of the PD-Tess range modernization project, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Schmitt DN, Page D, Memmott M (2010) A class III cultural resource inventory for phase 1 of the PD-TESS project, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Schmitt DN, Page D, Wazaney B, Dalldorf G (2012) A class III cultural resource inventory of the UAS Loiter area north of MAAF, U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground, Tooele County, Utah. Desert Research Institute, Reno

  • Severinghaus CW (1963) Effectiveness of archery in controlling deer abundance on the Howland Island Game Management Area. NY Fish Game J 10:186–193

    Google Scholar 

  • Shackleton DM (1985) Ovis canadensis. Mammalian Species 230:1–9

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharrock FW, Marwitt JP (1967) Excavations at Nephi, Utah, 1965-1966. Anthropological Papers no. 88. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City

  • Simms SR (1984) Aboriginal Great Basin foraging strategies: an evolutionary analysis. Ph.D. dissertation, University of Utah, Salt Lake City

  • Simms SR (1985) Acquisition cost and nutritional data on Great Basin resources. J Calif and Gt Basin Anthropol 7:117–126

    Google Scholar 

  • Simms SR (1987) Behavioral ecology and hunter-gatherer foraging: an example from the Great Basin. BAR International Series no. 381. British Archaeological Reports, Oxford

  • Simms SR (2008) Ancient peoples of the Great Basin and Colorado Plateau. Left Coast Press, Walnut Creek, California

    Google Scholar 

  • Simms SR, Schmitt DN, Jensen K (1999) Playa View Dune: a mid-Holocene campsite in the Great Salt Lake Desert. Utah Archaeol 12:31–49

    Google Scholar 

  • Simpson Capt JH (1876) Report of explorations across the Great Basin of the territory of Utah for a direct wagon-route from Camp Floyd to Genoa: In Carson Valley, in 1859. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith EA (1980) Evolutionary ecology and the analysis of human foraging behavior: an Inuit example from the east coast of Hudson Bay. Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, Ithaca

  • Smith EA (1991) Inujjuamiut foraging strategies: evolutionary ecology of an arctic hunting economy. Aldine de Grutyer, Hawthorne, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith EA (2004) Why do good hunters have higher reproductive success? Hum Nat 15:343–364

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith EA (2013) Agency and adaptation: new directions in evolutionary anthropology. Annu Rev Anthropol 42:103–120

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith EA, Wishnie M (2000) Conservation and subsistence in small-scale societies. Annu Rev Anthropol 29:493–524

    Google Scholar 

  • Smith GM, Barker P, Hattori EM, Raymond A, Goebel T (2013) Points in time: direct radiocarbon dates on Great Basin projectile points. Am Antiq 78:580–594

    Google Scholar 

  • Sosis R (2000) Costly signaling and torch fishing on Ifaluk atoll. Evol and Hum Behav 21:223–244

    Google Scholar 

  • South Carolina Rabbit Hunter Study [2009-2010, 2011-2012, 2018-2019]. South Carolina Department of Natural Resources, Columbia https://dc.statelibrary.sc.gov/

  • Speth JD (2012) The paleoanthropology and archaeology of big-game hunting: protein, fat, or politics? Springer, New York

    Google Scholar 

  • Steward JH (1938) Basin-plateau aboriginal sociopolitical groups. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120. Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC

  • Steward, JH (1941) Culture element distributions, XIII: Nevada Shoshone. Anthropological Records 4(2). University of California, Berkeley, pp 209-360

  • Steward JH (1970) The foundations of basin-plateau Shoshonean society. In: Swanson EH (ed) Languages and cultures of western North America: essays in honor of Sven S. Liljeblad. Idaho State University Press, Pocatello, pp 113–151

    Google Scholar 

  • Stewart OC (1941) Culture element distributions, XIV: Northern Paiute. Anthropological Records 4(3). University of California, Berkeley, pp 361-446

  • Stiner MC, Munro ND (2002) Approaches to prehistoric diet breadth, demography, and prey ranking systems in time and space. J Archaeol Method Theory 9:181–214

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiner MC, Munro ND, Survoell TA (2000) The tortoise and the hare: small-game use, the broad-spectrum revolution, and Paleolithic demography. Curr Anthropol 41:39–73

    Google Scholar 

  • Stormer FA, Kirkpatrick CM, Hoekstra TW (1979) Hunter-inflicted wounding of white-tailed deer. Wildl Soc Bull 7:10–16

    Google Scholar 

  • Swanson R (2011) A comprehensive analysis of the Swallow Shelter (42BO268) faunal assemblage. Master’s thesis, Washington State University, Pullman

  • Szuter CR, Bayham FE (1989) Sedentism and prehistoric animal procurement among desert horticulturalists of the North American southwest. In: Kent S (ed) Farmers as hunters: the implications of sedentism. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 80–95

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugan A (2005) Climate, bone density, and resource depression: what is driving variation in large and small game in Fremont archaeofaunas? J Anthropol Archaeol 24:227–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Ugan A, Simms S (2012) On prey mobility, prey rank, and foraging goals. Am Antiq 77:179–185

    Google Scholar 

  • Valdez R, Krausman PR (eds) (1999) Mountain sheep of North America. University of Arizona Press, Tucson

    Google Scholar 

  • Wiessner P (2002) Hunting, healing, and hxaro exchange: a long-term perspective on! Kung (Ju/’hoansi) large-game hunting. Evol Hum Behav 23:407–436

    Google Scholar 

  • Wigand PE, Rhode D (2002) Great Basin vegetational history and aquatic systems: the last 150,000 years. In: Hershler R, Madsen DB, Currey DR (eds) Great Basin aquatic systems history. Smithsonian Contributions to Earth Sciences 33. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington, DC, pp 309-367

  • Winterhalder B (1981) Foraging strategies in the boreal forest: an analysis of Cree hunting and gathering. In: Winterhalder B, Smith EA (eds) Hunter-gatherer foraging strategies: ethnographic and archaeological analyses. University of Chicago Press, pp 66-98

  • Winterhalder B, Lu F (1997) A forager-resource population ecology model and implications for indigenous conservation. Conserv Biology 11:1354–1364

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolverton S (2005) The effects of the Hypsithermal on prehistoric foraging efficiency in Missouri. Am Antiq 70:91–106

    Google Scholar 

  • Wolverton S, Nagaoka L, Dong P, Kennedy JH (2012) On behavioral depression in white-tailed deer. J Archaeol Method Theory 19:462–489

    Google Scholar 

  • Yoder D, Blood J, Mason R (2005) How warn were they? Thermal properties of rabbit skin robes and blankets. J Calif Gt Basin Anthropol 25:55–68

    Google Scholar 

  • Yost JA, Kelly P (1983) Shotguns, blowguns and spears: the analysis of technological efficiency. In: Hames RB, Vickers WT (eds) Adaptive responses of native Amazonians. Academic Press, Orlando, pp 189–224

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks to two anonymous reviewers who provided useful critiques and suggestions and to Britt Starkovich and Tiina Manne for inviting us to participate in the 2019 Albuquerque symposium and this special issue.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Anthropology, Southern Methodist University, P.O. Box 750336, Dallas, TX, 75275, USA

    Karen D. Lupo & Dave N. Schmitt

  2. Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, 1664 N. Virginia St, Reno, NV, 89557, USA

    David B. Madsen

Authors
  1. Karen D. Lupo
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Dave N. Schmitt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. David B. Madsen
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Karen D. Lupo.

Additional information

Publisher’s note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Do good things come in small packages?

Electronic supplementary material

ESM 1

(DOCX 20.4 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lupo, K.D., Schmitt, D.N. & Madsen, D.B. Size matters only sometimes: the energy-risk trade-offs of Holocene prey acquisition in the Bonneville basin, western USA. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 12, 160 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01146-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-020-01146-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation