Ancient Seafood Buffet Uncovered on Channel Islands

livescience.com ^ | 03-03-2011 | by Stephanie Pappas, LiveScience Senior Writer

[Red Badger]

On the menu for the earliest colonizers of the Americas: seabirds, seals and sardines That's according to findings from three new archaeological digs on the Channel Islands off Southern California. The sites have yielded dozens of delicate stone tools and thousands of bone and shell fragments from meals more than 11,000 years old, researchers report in this week's issue of the journal Science.

The finds reveal more about how early Americans lived and ate, said study researcher Torben Rick, a curator of North American archaeology at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. The tools found also link the seafaring people of the Channel Islands to populations living far inland in North America including the area that is now Utah and Nevada, Rick told LiveScience"These are very refined tools," Rick said. "Similar technologies had been found in the Great Basin, the interior of North America, [but] we didn't really have any on the West Coast, especially on the Channel Islands, found in situ." ( In situ means the tools were found where they were eft thousands of years ago.) Seafaring tool-makers During the last several million years, the Channel Islands have been separated from the mainland by at least 11 to 32 miles (7 to 20 kilometers) of water. Archaeologists have long

[Repeal The 17th]

ex-zactly...
You reminded me of when I lived on the Florida gulf coast...25 years ago...



There was a certain time of the year the locals called "the jubillee'. It was some kind of mating season when crabs crawled up on the beach by the thousands.

The locals would take a big pot and a pack of matches to the beach, scoop up a pot full of water, gather up some driftwood and build a fire and set the pot of water on to boil.

Then they would walk down the beach and pick up blue crabs and go back and toss them in the pot. When they turned red and floated to the top they were 'done'.

They would eat their fill, dump the pot of water on the fire to put it out, and go back home.

22 pounds of shells?
That's like 'nothing'.

[Red Badger]

What part of the Gulf Coast did you live on?.....

[Repeal The 17th]

Mexico Beach, Florida

[Red Badger]

I live in Ft. Walton Beach, and have for 30 years in October.
The days you describe are long gone into history.
Today, we cannot build fires on the beach.
To harvest crabs requires a license.
There are Size limits as well as quantity limits.
Certain species of crabs are protected.
No egg bearing female crabs allowed.
Fines and / or jail terms for non-compliance.

http://www.eregulations.com/Florida/fishing/saltwater/

When I was a kid this was a free country.......

[Repeal The 17th]

Ft. Walton is cool, been there many times.
I lived in Mexico Beach, worked in St. Joe,
and we had to go to Panama City to buy groceries!

[SunkenCiv]

· GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach · · join list or digest · view topics · view or post blog · bookmark · post a topic · subscribe ·
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[Fiddlstix]

Seafood while living on an island...Who would have thunk...

Yeah! It's amazing! I, for one, would have never made such a link between the two.........
</sarcasm>

Aren't we all so happy that our tax money was used for this oh so important study?
Ancient people living on an island surrounded by water feasting on seafood.
Will wonders never cease?

[Mike Darancette]

These people may have killed off the Pygmy Mammoths. Oxymoron, no?

[TheOldLady]

That article was written for fourth graders (from our time), but I bet that these days, college grads might struggle to understand it.

At least their intelligence can’t be insulted.

[SunkenCiv]

Additional:

• Island tool finds show early settlers' diversity
• Scientists' amazing California discovery includes fishing tackle 12,000 years old
• Scientists' amazing California discovery includes fishing tackle 12,000 years old

[colorado tanker]

Mmmm. Abalone is good eats, but hard to find.