Reconstructing prehistoric hunter–gatherer foraging radii: a case study from California's southern Sierra Nevada

The concept of the foraging radius is essential to understanding hunter–gatherer settlement, subsistence, and sociocultural complexity yet is notoriously difficult to reconstruct archaeologically. Late prehistoric Western Mono foraging radii in the southern Sierra Nevada were reconstructed using GIS analysis of least-cost path distances between dispersed caching features and centralized residential features. Mean distances from settlements to caches exhibit a bimodal distribution, with peaks between 0.5 and 5.0 km, and 6.0 and 8.5 km, the former representing a caching limit and the latter a foraging limit around major settlements. Combined, these data demarcate a two-part foraging radius predicated not only on sustaining winter group aggregations but also on facilitating spring and summer residential moves. These results show the efficacy of using features and simple GIS-based spatial analyses to reconstruct prehistoric foraging radii and provide the means to model the energetics of different foraging behaviors, these speaking strongly to the social and economic factors conditioning the development of complex hunter–gatherer societies.