A land of work: foraging behavior and ecology

Work is a core theme in many of the major issues and debates in California archaeology. Work is central in understanding why the first Californians entered the region (e.g., Erlandson, this volume): how thousands of years of work following colonization resulted in the overexploitation of particular resources (e.g., Broughton 1994), the economic intensification of work effort (e.g., Basgall 1987), shifts in the patterns of population growth (e.g., Hull, this volume), changes in the currencies that drive work (e.g., Hildebrandt and McGuire, this volume), and the emergence of social hierarchies in politically complex societies (e.g., Arnold 1992, 1993). All of these were punctuated by environmental events which alter the very foundations of work (e.g., Jones and Schwitalla, this volume).