Sea urchins: Improving understanding of prehistoric subsistence, diet, foraging behavior, tool use, and ritual practices in Polynesia
| Autor: | Marshall I. Weisler, Ashleigh J. Rogers, Morana Mihaljević |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | The Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology. 15:547-575 |
| ISSN: | 1556-1828 1556-4894 |
| Popis: | Sea urchins (echinoids) were integrated into many aspects of prehistoric Oceanic society as they provided food, raw material for abrading tools and rare ornaments, and were used as offerings on shrines (ko‘a) in the Hawaiian Islands. We privilege seven habitation and shrine assemblages (mostly dating to late prehistory; i.e., post AD 1500s) situated along a ∼12-km length of the rocky windward coast of Moloka‘i, Hawaiian Islands, where some of the densest concentrations of urchins have been recorded from Oceania. We examined >185,000 urchin fragments weighing nearly 11.7 kg which, we believe, is the largest analyzed sample to date. Focusing primarily on the helmet urchin (Colobocentrotus atratus), found throughout the Indo-Pacific, we used a protocol for accurately calculating the minimum numbers of individuals using unique test (endoskeleton) plates and internal mouthparts, demonstrated the dietary importance of urchins for marine subsistence, constructed an allometric formula for calculating individual urchin size, and discussed the relevance of urchins for monitoring long-term human impacts to this important coastal resource. While the study sites contained overwhelmingly limpets (Cellana spp.), urchins supplied >80% fat and nearly 40% protein of some of the invertebrate assemblages. It was documented that slightly larger urchins were placed as offerings on a shrine in contrast to smaller individuals associated with habitation structures. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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