Abstract
Zooarchaeological studies in Owens Valley and the broader Great Basin have emphasized the substantial impacts to local animal populations and their distributions during the late Holocene stemming from both anthropogenic and natural causes. The abundance of climate-sensitive grebes (Podicipediformes) recovered from late Holocene assemblages in the Owens Valley may be particularly useful for understanding local effects of climate change on lake levels, resources, and settlement patterns. During periods of lake regression, such as proposed for the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (MCA), grebe populations would be unable to inhabit the regions and their exploitation would be severely diminished. If lake levels were not substantially lower during the MCA, grebes are expected to remain abundant and should have been continuously exploited. To identify the prehistoric condition of Owens Lake during the late Holocene, I examined the temporal distribution of grebe specimens in archaeological deposits surrounding Owens Lake. Results indicate that grebes remain abundant throughout the late Holocene, even during the MCA, indicating that environmental changes did not have a significant impact on Grebe exploitation in the Owens Valley. While there are no significant changes in grebe exploitation through time, there is a significant increase in the abundance of other waterfowl taxa during the Marana Period (650 BP to contact) compared to preceding periods. Grebes were still being exploited in great numbers during the Marana, but it appears that other waterfowl were being increasingly integrated into the diet in the Marana period through economic intensification processes.