Subsistence Flashcards
What is subsistence?
The activities and materials that people use to obtain food - strategies to acquire calorific resources for survival.
Why is subsistence considered a major component of the economy in arc studies?
It includes essential practices such as hunting, gathering, and farming/agriculture.
What does it mean to have an economy of farming?
It means having a subsistence strategy that relies on farming, which is interchangeable with subsistence of farming.
What is hunting and gathering?
A subsistence strategy reliant on wild animals and wild plants, typically requiring lower investment.
What are immediate returns in hunting and gathering?
A direct result of labor.
What evidence is used for hunting?
Species representation, body part representation, and mortality profiles.
What do mortality profiles indicate?
They show how old the animal was at the time of death.
What is catastrophic mortality?
It reflects age in natural populations and death by mass mortality events.
What is attritional mortality?
It shows predominance of young and old individuals.
What is an example of a tool used in hunting?
Fish hooks, which are the oldest in the world (23kya - Okinawa).
How is isotope analysis used in archaeology?
To reconstruct diets using stable isotope analysis for diet.
What do C and N isotopes in collagen signify?
They act as signatures for food eaten during the formation of teeth and bones.
How often is the human skeleton remodeled?
Every 10 years.
What is a trophic level?
Each step in the food chain where animals eat plants or other animals.
How do plants obtain nitrogen and carbon?
Plants obtain N from the soil and C from CO2 in photosynthesis.
What does the ratio of 13C to 12C represent?
Delta 13C.
What are the delta 13C values for different plant types?
C3 plants: -26.5%, C4 plants: -12.5%, CAM plants: falls between C3 and C4.
What is the delta 15N ratio?
The ratio of 15N to 14N, which comes from dietary protein.
What does delta 15N indicate?
It appears in amino acids that are in collagen and is suitable to environmental factors.
How does delta 15N change with trophic levels?
Every step up the food chain increases the ratio by 3%.
What is the significance of measuring delta 15N in archaeology?
It compares base delta 15N for herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores at the same site and time.
What is agriculture?
The intentional propagation of food by humans.
What is domestication?
The biological process that changes the genetic makeup and morphology of a plant or animal, resulting in a new species.
What results from the isolation of domesticated species?
It is a result of human intervention, whether intentional or unintentional.
Tools as Evidence for hunting
Fish hooks - the oldest in the world found 23kya in Okinawa
Delta 13 C (ratio of 13C to 12C)
Different plants use different pathways for photosynthesis -> have different delta 13C
C3 - Trees, Shrubs, temperate grasses, have a delta 13C of -26.5%
C4 - Subtropical grasses have a delta 13C of -12.5%
CAM - Crassulacean acid metabolism - Bromeliads, Orchids, Lilies, and succulents, have their 13C fall between C3 and C4
Marine plants mainly use C3 pathways but base delta 13C is %7 more positive than terrestrial delta 13C falls between C3 and C4
What is domestication?
a process of increasing mutual dependence between human societies and the plant and animal populations they target
Ratio of 15N to 14N = Delta 15N
Comes from a dietary protein, appears in amino acids that are in the collagen - Delta 15N is suitable to environmental factors
- hot/arid = more positive ratios than cold and wet ecological zones
- Every step up the food chain (A tropic level) increases the ratio by 3% because marine ecosystems have many more levels = delta 15 N skews higher
Invention of Agriculture…
The intentional propagation of food by humans - an artificial ecosystem in which domesticated species are cultivated and reared
Domestication
The biological processes that changes the genetic makeup and morphology of a plant or animal -> new species
The isolation of the domesticated species from their wild relatives is a result of human intervention whether intentional or unintentional
Delta 15N seen in human consumers of terrestrial plants and animals vs fish, seals, sea lions
terrestrial plants and animals: Delta 15N = 6-10%
ish, seals, sea lions: Delta 15N = 15-20%
