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Archaeological data provide alternative hypotheses on Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii) distribution, abundance, and variability

Iain McKechnie, Dana Lepofsky, Madonna L. Moss, Virginia L. Butler, Trevor J. Orchard, Gary Coupland, Fredrick Foster, Megan Caldwell, and Ken Lertzman
PNAS published ahead of print February 18, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1316072111
Iain McKechnie
aDepartment of Anthropology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1;
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  • For correspondence: iain@alumni.ubc.cadlepofsk@sfu.ca
Dana Lepofsky
bDepartment of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6;cHakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6;
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Madonna L. Moss
dDepartment of Anthropology, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403;
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Virginia L. Butler
eDepartment of Anthropology, Portland State University, Portland, OR 97207;
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Trevor J. Orchard
fInterdisciplinary Studies, Lakehead University Orillia, Orillia, ON Canada L3V 0B9;
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Gary Coupland
gDepartment of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 1A1;
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Fredrick Foster
hDepartment of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 8901-1414;
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Megan Caldwell
iDepartment of Anthropology, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada T6G 2H4; and
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Ken Lertzman
cHakai Network for Coastal People, Ecosystems and Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6;jSchool of Resource and Environmental Management, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada V5A 1S6
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  1. Edited by Patrick V. Kirch, University of California, Berkeley, CA, and approved December 6, 2013 (received for review September 17, 2013)

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Significance

Over the last century, Pacific herring, a forage fish of tremendous cultural, economic, and ecological importance, has declined in abundance over much of its range. We synthesize archaeological fisheries data spanning the past 10,000 y from Puget Sound in Washington to southeast Alaska to extend the ecological baseline for herring and contextualize the dynamics of modern industrial fisheries. While modern herring populations can be erratic and exhibit catastrophic declines, the archaeological record indicates a pattern of consistent abundance, providing an example of long-term sustainability and resilience in a fishery known for its modern variability. The most parsimonious explanation for the discrepancy between herring abundance in the ancient and more recent past is industrial harvesting over the last century.

Abstract

Pacific herring (Clupea pallasii), a foundation of coastal social-ecological systems, is in decline throughout much of its range. We assembled data on fish bones from 171 archaeological sites from Alaska, British Columbia, and Washington to provide proxy measures of past herring distribution and abundance. The dataset represents 435,777 fish bones, dating throughout the Holocene, but primarily to the last 2,500 y. Herring is the single-most ubiquitous fish taxon (99% ubiquity) and among the two most abundant taxa in 80% of individual assemblages. Herring bones are archaeologically abundant in all regions, but are superabundant in the northern Salish Sea and southwestern Vancouver Island areas. Analyses of temporal variability in 50 well-sampled sites reveals that herring exhibits consistently high abundance (>20% of fish bones) and consistently low variance (<10%) within the majority of sites (88% and 96%, respectively). We pose three alternative hypotheses to account for the disjunction between modern and archaeological herring populations. We reject the first hypothesis that the archaeological data overestimate past abundance and underestimate past variability. We are unable to distinguish between the second two hypotheses, which both assert that the archaeological data reflect a higher mean abundance of herring in the past, but differ in whether variability was similar to or less than that observed recently. In either case, sufficient herring was consistently available to meet the needs of harvesters, even if variability is damped in the archaeological record. These results provide baseline information prior to herring depletion and can inform modern management.

  • historical ecology
  • fisheries
  • forage fish
  • Northwest Coast
  • archaeology

Footnotes

  • ↵1To whom correspondence may be addressed. E-mail: iain{at}alumni.ubc.ca or dlepofsk{at}sfu.ca.
  • Author contributions: I.M. and D.L. designed research; I.M., D.L., M.L.M., T.J.O., F.F., and M.C. performed research; I.M., D.L., M.L.M., V.L.B., T.J.O., G.C., F.F., and K.L. analyzed data; and I.M., D.L., M.L.M., V.L.B., T.J.O., G.C., F.F., M.C., and K.L. wrote the paper.

  • The authors declare no conflict of interest.

  • This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.

  • This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1316072111/-/DCSupplemental.

Freely available online through the PNAS open access option.

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Archaeological perspectives on herring variability
Iain McKechnie, Dana Lepofsky, Madonna L. Moss, Virginia L. Butler, Trevor J. Orchard, Gary Coupland, Fredrick Foster, Megan Caldwell, Ken Lertzman
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Feb 2014, 201316072; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1316072111

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Archaeological perspectives on herring variability
Iain McKechnie, Dana Lepofsky, Madonna L. Moss, Virginia L. Butler, Trevor J. Orchard, Gary Coupland, Fredrick Foster, Megan Caldwell, Ken Lertzman
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Feb 2014, 201316072; DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1316072111
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