Defining and identifying sustainable harvests of resources: Archaeological examples of pinniped harvests in the eastern North Pacific

The causes of these extirpations are not known, but the timing does not correspond well with known climatic changes, suggesting that subsistence, and perhaps commercial, hunting may have played a role. These examples underscore the need to recognize that patterns of resource use are highly variable - different cultures have had varying levels of effects on economically important species, and these effects have varied temporally, spatially, and taxonomically.