UC Davis

Abstract Key trends in California prehistory diverge from those characteris- tic of other world regions; sophisticated advances in the application of human behavioral ecology to archaeological interpretation help us to understand why. Significant interpretive advances have been stimulated by the on-going “provi- sioning” versus “costly signaling” debate. We argue that provisioning currently has the upper hand because the diet breadth model is older, better understood, and more easily assessed in light of archaeological data than is costly signaling. Archaeological research outside of California will need to confront issues of pro- visioning and prestige in their own empirical context and in light of behavioral ecology methods developed here.