Anthropology underwater

Abstract

Hunting and gathering is the longest human adaptation ever to exist. Foraging peoples moved over the planet, encountered every type of habitat, engaged with their environments in flexible and innovative ways, and were witnesses to vast climatic changes. One of the most notable planetary shifts since the Pleistocene is fluctuation in global water levels and its impact on the landscapes it exposed and submerged. This dynamic would have significantly impacted foraging communities across the globe, but neither water fluctuations nor human responses to them were uniform. Rates of water oscillations were variable, including long-term, slow changes, catastrophic events and others that were likely observable on a generational basis. Human adaptations to shifting water levels likely included mobility and changes in subsistence, among others. Further responses, such as the creation and sharing of traditional ecological knowledge about water level events, were likely codified in cultural practices that are not easily discernible in the archaeological record. To address these issues, this paper presents a case study of submerged archaeological sites in the North American Great Lakes, evidence of a hunter-gatherer occupation on a now submerged landscape. Nine-thousand-year-old stone-built hunting sites represent a specific subsistence strategy used during a time of lower water levels, and an archaeologically visible example of traditional ecological knowledge. This project brings together archaeology and virtual reality with indigenous partners and other knowledge holders to explore forager responses to Holocene water levels.