Conservation Biology and Applied Zooarchaeology

9. The Past, Present, and Future of Small Terrestrial Mammals in Human Diets

179 CHAPtEr ninE the Past, Present, and Future of Small terrestrial mammals in Human diets Karen Gust Schollmeyer and Jonathan C. Driver Sustainable use of bushmeat game is an important issue for conservation biology. in some areas wild game is a major food source for subsistence hunters and farmers. the need for sustainable hunting is urgent as formerly thinly populated landscapes witness substantial human population growth, with accompanying expansions in the demand for meat and the rate at which wild vegetation is converted to farms and other uses. there are many cases of declines in wild game as human populations increase (milner-Gulland et al. 2003), and some studies suggest that small mammals , particularly those adapted to anthropogenic habitats, may be sustainably hunted when larger species decline (Cowlishaw et al. 2005; Fa et al. 2005). Zooarchaeological data represent a record of these long-term processes that can be used to assess the sustainability of small mammal hunting. Small terrestrial mammals have been a part of human diets throughout (pre)history. in several times and places, their importance increased substantially with increasing human sedentism and population density (e.g., Stiner et al. 2000). Here we examine factors linked to changes in the dietary use of small mammals (1–20 kg), including their sustained 180 Schollmeyer and Driver use under hunting pressure and tolerance to human landscape disturbance . We then explore links between zooarchaeological data on longterm use and modern studies of contemporary hunting of small mammals . the zooarchaeological record indicates that in some areas, small mammals were an important meat source for thousands of years, particularly as large game species declined in the face of prolonged hunting and landscape change. Understanding cases in which small mammal hunting was viable for long periods contributes valuable information to modern efforts aimed at identifying taxa and hunting approaches likely to be associated with sustainable long-term use. Humans have the potential to alter the abundances of species through predation and habitat change. Some species may decline in abundance upon experiencing a predation intensity threshold; resilient species (e.g., Balmford 1996; Cowlishaw et al. 2005) maintain abundance levels despite intense predation. mammal populations are “resilient” if they live and reproduce successfully in the face of local fluctuations in conditions (Holling 1973; White and Harrod 1997). Humans often make substantial changes to habitats, for example, by burning or by creating agricultural landscapes. Some species maintain or increase their abundance with such changes, whereas less resilient species experience population declines, extirpation, or extinction. resilience is closely linked to the concept of sustainable use, or the loss of individuals at a rate within a species’ capacity for renewal (Bolton 1997:35). loss of individuals may occur directly (through hunting) or indirectly (via anthropogenic landscape change). We suspect that species that were sustainably hunted in the past were those resilient to environmental fluctuations and hunting demands associated with human land use. resilience is difficult to measure zooarchaeologically. in this chapter, we use relative abundance indices to suggest that in many cases metapopulations of small mammals remained stable relative to larger taxa for thousands of years, suggesting that small mammals were a long-term sustainable resource. Wild terrestrial animals have the potential to supply food (particularly protein) to people in many parts of the world. Although large mammals are often hunted quickly to low population levels, even intensively farmed and urbanized landscapes contain wild animals, and less intensively cultivated areas may have substantial populations (naughton-treves 2002; naughton-treves et al. 2003; Smith 2005). if harvests of small mammals were sustainable, it might be possible to maintain diverse wild populations today. We use information from modern studies to examine important ecological variables concerning the resilience of small mammals and then use zooarchaeological data to assess long-term sustainability of small mammal procurement in two prehistoric contexts. Past, Present, and Future of Small Mammals in Human Diets 181 Contemporary Studies of Human–Terrestrial Mammal Interactions A commonly documented modern impact of human hunting on mammals is a decrease in populations of nonresilient taxa. the effects of hunting and anthropogenic habitat changes (particularly replacement of wild vegetation with gardens or other managed areas) on local mammal populations are difficult to separate. distinguishing them is important for modern studies but is less crucial for archaeological studies in which the majority of bones in assemblages come from hunted animals that derived from anthropogenic landscapes around sites. Zooarchaeological assemblages reflect hunting and land...