Mammalian Fauna
at Five Finger Ridge
Mammalian Fauna
at Five Finger Ridge
My dissertation research developed a series of predictions for identifying whether certain kinds of animals were targeted by prehistoric hunters for reasons extending beyond simple dietary needs. This largely stems from recent ethnographic research on “costly signaling” that attempts to explain why large game are frequently hunted even when smaller game are more reliable, accessible, and sometimes provide higher caloric returns.
In a nutshell, I predicted that animals that become locally more rare should have increasing value as a costly signal. Animals with high signaling value should be shared widely among a community. Thus, as some animals become more rare on the landscape through time, there should be a corresponding change in sharing.
Here I present a portion of the results that came out of this research. In particular, I focus on the changes in animal resource use through time at Five Finger Ridge, a Fremont site located in central Utah.
Costly Signaling and Hunting
Jacob Fisher takes full responsibility for the information posted. The information on this page represents that of Jacob Fisher and not that of California State University Sacramento.
Last updated on January 3, 2011
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0840847. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.