UCLA

One of the central and ongoing efforts of contemporary archaeology lies in identifying explanatory mechanisms for change through time in human societies. Details of the pace, impetus, material culture correlates, and sociopolitical context for these changes are often hotly debated. For researchers studying Chumash society of the Santa Barbara Channel region, the archaeological record provides a basis for understanding these dynamics through time, reflected in both settlement systems and labor organization (Arnold 2001a; Perry and Glassow 2015). I analyze Laguna Canyon, a major drainage located on the south side of Santa Cruz Island in the Santa Barbara Channel, where evidence of resource use during the late Middle period (600-1150AD) reveals a locally focused trajectory of residential tool manufacture, reflecting a nuanced response to contemporary sociopolitical change. Two patterns emerged during this work. First, Laguna was most intensively occupied during the late Middle period with ten sites dating to that span. By contrast, during the Transitional period (1150-1300 A.D.) use of the canyon focused on a single site. The pattern in Laguna is like that of canyons with large permanent villages (Arnold 2001b, Peterson 1994; Perry and Glassow 2015). Second, the occupants of Laguna made microliths from local igneous materials during the late Middle period but imported formal chert microtools during the Transitional period. Locally-oriented systems of occupation and production in the late Middle period were supplanted by regional ones during the Transitional period. In this assemblage I identify change through time that suggests a nuanced process of accommodation with both intra-island and regional dynamics, inflected by cultural preferences in lithic procurement and a continuing emphasis on local raw materials that makes the record of Laguna Canyon an important source of data for understanding change through time in Chumash society and among complex hunter-gatherers generally.