Garniewicz, Rexford C. (Glenn A. Black Laboratory of Archaeology, Indiana University,
Bloomington)
A DIACHRONIC PERSPECTIVE ON PREHISTORIC DEER UTILIZATION IN THE MIDWEST
Figure: Graphical summary of trends in deer
age over time. The lightly shaded bars represent the percentage of deer in the
3-6 year age class and the darkly shaded bars represent deer in the 6-9 year age
class.
Figure: Comparison of deer size and mortality
profiles.
Previous approaches to the study of deer utilization have assumed stable deer
populations over time and interpreted age profiles without regard to taphonomic
considerations. The result of this work has been an array of unfounded speculations
on prehistoric hunting techniques.
A new approach is employed in this investigation. This technique avoids testing
hypotheses against the poorly preserved skeletal material of young deer by comparing
the abundance of deer in the three to six year age classes to the abundance of
deer in the six to nine year age classes. Post-agricultural samples show increased
percentages of deer in the lower age class and corresponding decreased percentages
of deer in the upper age class when compared to pre-agricultural samples.
Since the proportions of deer in certain age classes may result from hunting techniques
rather than deer population characteristics, supplemental ecological information
is required. The variable of deer size which is calculated from osteometric measurements
of deer astragali is employed as a population characteristic.
Deer size is directly related to deer density. When deer population numbers are
low, individual deer have greater access to concentrated high quality food sources,
and deer size increases. Deer size decreases when population crowding reduces
the availability of choice browse. Used in combination, the variables of age and
size can show that the absence of certain upper age classes in archaeological
samples reflects a deer population characteristic rather than merely selective
hunting.
I have combined work done on deer size in Illinois by Purdue (1986) with published
data on mortality profiles from the Midwest and more specifically with my own
data on deer size and mortality from Indiana. Archaeological data show that the
average deer weight increases when the abundance of the upper age class drops.
This relationship is in accord with the findings of wildlife biologists who confirm
that the same result occurs in modern deer population as a result of deer population
reduction through extensive hunting.
Thus, based on ecological variables, deer populations remained fairly constant
through the Archaic and Woodland periods. Deer population size then declined,
at least within the vicinity of major sites, in the Mississippian period. Deer
populations then regained their equilibrium at approximately the time of European
contact. The interpretation of these data suggests that, while deer populations
were not significantly stressed by the pre-Mississippian inhabitants of the Midwest,
the establishment of larger population centers led to a notable reduction in the
size of deer populations. Thus, the conceptualization that Mississippian agriculturalists
could concentrate on agricultural endeavors and capture wayward deer which wandered
into their fields is not supported by the zooarchaeological record.
On the contrary, the over-hunted deer in the vicinity of Mississippian sites would
be inordinately wary of humans and probably extremely difficult to hunt. Since
deer drives have been shown to be energetically inefficient on sparsely distributed
and on wary deer populations, they were probably not the principle means of procuring
deer in the Mississippian period. Based on the characteristics of deer populations,
drives would have been much more effective in the Archaic, Woodland, and Protohistoric
periods, whereas solitary hunting would have been most efficient in the Mississippian
period.
Reference Cited
Purdue, James R.
1986 The size of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus)
during the Archaic period in Central Illinois. In Foraging,
Collecting, and Harvesting: Archaic Period Subsistence and
Settlement in the Eastern Woodlands, edited by S. W. Neusius,
pp.117-144. Occasional Paper 6, Center for Archaeological
Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Carbondale,
Illinois.
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