Depauperate or Not? Examining Marginality in Island Environments

Abstract

Are the islands off the coast of California “marginal” environments? How could seemingly “depauperate” places have sustained human settlements for thousands of years? In An Archaeology of Abundance: Reevaluating the Marginality of California’s Islands, edited by Kristina M. Gill, Mikael Fauvelle, and Jon M. Erlandson, archaeologists and other scholars argue that our understanding of the resource bases of the California islands is biased by years of Euroamerican impacts. By integrating archaeological and ethnohistoric data with paleoecological reconstructions, the authors reexamine life on these islands before European contact and subsequent environmental degradation.