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Dental Evidence for Prehistoric Dietary Change on the Northern Channel Islands, California

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Phillip L. Walker  and
Jon M. Erlandson
Phillip L. Walker
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Jon M. Erlandson
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106
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Abstract

Santa Rosa Island skeletal collections, dating from between 4000 and 400 B.P., were analyzed for evidence of dental caries. Carious lesions were found to decrease significantly through time, as were sexual differences in caries rates. These trends in dental health appear to reflect changes in diet and sexual division of labor associated with a subsistence shift from the exploitation of roots, tubers, and other cariogenic plant foods to the intensive exploitation of fish. Analysis of dental caries can provide information on prehistoric carbohydrate intake that is unavailable using conventional methods of faunal and artifactual analysis.

Type
Reports
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 1986 , pp. 375 - 383
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1986

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