Protohistoric artiodactyl rebound and resource deintensification in northern California

Prehistoric increases in human population densities frequently correspond with overexploitation of large game and a greater dependency on high cost resources. Similarly, there is an expectation that when human population densities decline significantly, there should be a reversal in resource intensification and a rebound in large game populations due to the relaxation of hunting pressures. Multiple lines of evidence from Kathy's Rockshelter, located in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills, California, indicate that local abundances of artiodactyls increased and the use of small game and plant resources declined over the past four hundred years. The timing of this deintensification coincides with European contact with distant indigenous peoples but prior to direct contact with local indigenous groups. While suggestive of a demographic collapse of interior indigenous populations due to the spread of epidemics into the interior, further studies in human paleodemography in the region are necessary.