Abstract
The study of human population has a long history in American archaeology, where it has played a central role in the study of settlement and subsistence patterns, sociocultural evolution, and technological change. Population estimates for Owens Valley, California have historically relied on ethnographic accounts and an underlying assumption that populations were small and grew gradually over time. This research seeks to improve our understanding of human population dynamics over the last 3200 years in Owens Valley using archaeological, ethnographic, and carrying capacity data. The archaeological data include the number and location of prehistoric sites, projectile point and handstone counts, obsidian hydration readings, and number of structures. Ethnographic evidence consists of population estimates made by Steward (1938), Wilke and Lawton (1976), and others. Finally, carrying capacity was assessed on the basis of aboriginally exploited plant and animal food resources documented in archaeological and ethnographic sources.
Analysis suggests that the human population of Owens Valley grew slowly through the early Newberry period, but gained momentum at the Newberry-Haiwee period transition (ed. 1500-1300 BP), and thereafter until historic contact in the mid 19th century. The evidence indicates that populations doubled every 550 to 750 years during this interval. The correlation of subsistence resources and increasing population is supported by a combination of both archaeological and ethnographic data. All of the data indicate that ethnographic estimates of1000 people at Euroamerican contact are more accurate than the higher figures proposed by some investigations. Evidence further suggests that the number of sites, projectile points, and obsidian hydration afford the best predictors of human population dynamics in prehistory. Changes in the number of handstones, by contrast, appear to signal technological shifts that accompanied an intensification in seed use, rather than population growth alone. Finally, the use or number of structures remains inconclusive, but promising, as a proxy measure for demographic change. In sum, the combination of archaeological, ethnographic, and carrying capacity data allow for more reliable population estimates and growth rates than previous approaches to this longstanding issue in prehistory.