Abstract
Leporids were a commonly exploited food resource represented in pre-contact zooarchaeological assemblages across western North America. Identification of specimens to species from dated archaeological contexts can provide information used in paleoenvironment reconstruction, for establishing the biogeography of the species, and to reconstruct human behavior. The first goal of this thesis aimed to develop identification measures to discriminate postcranial skeletal remains of Sylvilagus bachmani and S. audubonii, expanding upon previous methods of leporid identification. The present research found that S. bachmani and S. audubonii may be generally distinguished using metric data, although the sample size was less than optimal. The second objective of this thesis is to use the resulting morphometrics to discriminate S. audubonii and S. bachmani to evaluate whether the relative abundance of the two taxa shift through time at CA-BUT-301 (Kathy’s Rockshelter) in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills, California. The presented research found no statistical change in the relative frequencies of S. audubonii to S. bachmani, although the former does appear in deposits dating to the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. The lack of observed change suggests foraging efficiency, rather than local environmental trends associated with climate change, may have resulted in an overall increase in Sylvilagus over time. Future research should add to the metric data of modern specimens and apply the distinguishing metrics to other archaeological contexts to better understand the prehistoric distribution of the two species in California.