Negotiating the coasts: status and the evolution of boat technology in California

Abstract

For the Chumash of southern California, the plank canoe (tomol) played a crucial role in food acquisition, transport, exchange, and social integration, with significant consequences for status building and sociopolitical evolution. We present new data about plank canoe construction assemblages and new marine faunal data that help to pinpoint the date of the earliest appearance of the tomol, with the ultimate goal of situating this technological development in the broader sociopolitical evolution of coastal Chumash groups. Plank canoe manufacturing by-products, including asphaltum and redwood, and the remains of large open-ocean fish species such as swordfish provide new paths to understanding this symbolically and functionally important innovation.

Keywords:

• Boating technology
• political economy
• status differentiation
• complex hunter-gatherers
• Chumash archaeology
• Pacific Coast

Acknowledgements

Fieldwork at SCRI-192 was supported by National Science Foundation grants BNS 88-12184 and SBR 95-11576. The Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History granted permission to reproduce Plate 1; we thank Ray Corbett for his assistance. We acknowledge Michael Glassow and Torrey Rick for providing information about imported lithic materials on the Channel Islands. Finally, two reviewers provided useful comments that allowed us to clarify key points.

Notes

Jeanne E. Arnold is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the California Channel Islands Laboratory in the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. She has directed research in California since 1980 and in British Columbia since 2002. Her primary interests center on the complex hunter-gatherers of western North America and the topics of craft specialization, household organization, labor, and sociopolitical evolution.

Julienne Bernard is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a member of the California Channel Islands Laboratory at UCLA. Her doctoral dissertation research focuses on resistance and culture change at Historic period inland Chumash sites.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jeanne E Arnold

Jeanne E. Arnold is Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the California Channel Islands Laboratory in the UCLA Cotsen Institute of Archaeology. She has directed research in California since 1980 and in British Columbia since 2002. Her primary interests center on the complex hunter-gatherers of western North America and the topics of craft specialization, household organization, labor, and sociopolitical evolution. Julienne Bernard is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and is a member of the California Channel Islands Laboratory at UCLA. Her doctoral dissertation research focuses on resistance and culture change at Historic period inland Chumash sites.