Abstract
Starch granule analysis can offer direct evidence of the processing of dietary plants. However, definitively assigning archaeological starch granules to plant taxa is difficult in hunter-gatherer populations that rely on a broad spectrum of plant foods, especially in floristically diverse regions such as California. This study uses a statistical approach to establish diagnostic features of four taxa from the interior central coast of California that could be used to test for acorn intensification in this region. Three oaks selected for this study are Quercus agrifolia (coast live oak), Q. douglasii (blue oak), and Q. lobata (valley oak). One additional species, Elymus elymoides (squirreltail grass) was selected as a representative of the Triticeae tribe of grasses. Distinguishing these taxa will enable a future study of the residues of archaeological ground stone to establish diachronic changes in frequencies of the starch granules of these taxa to test for acorn intensification. Results of the analysis of the reference materials demonstrate statistically significant differences between the starch granules of the oaks and the grass studied. Preliminary analysis of three handstones recovered from Camp Roberts Military Training Facility, located in the interior central coast of Monterey and San Luis Obispo counties, California, confirms the presence of starch granules from both oaks and Triticeae grasses on some specimens. Therefore, future starch granule analysis of residues from additional ground stone specimens may proceed to address the question of whether acorn intensification occurred at Camp Roberts, and if so, the timing of its occurrence. This in turn has implications concerning settlement and subsistence systems, including when intensification of stored resources was adopted.