Organizer: Carola Flores and Marcelo Rivadeneira
The objective of the symposium is to present and discuss studies from different places along the PacificCoast (and from other shorelines as well) related to malacological and isotopic analyses on mollusk shells and their applications on research questions about marine resource exploitation and human adaptation on their broadest aspect. The symposium will emphasize the interaction between archaeologists working on coastal settings with malacological remains and scientists from related disciplines such as ecology, paleoecology, oceanography and paleoceanography. Also, we want to provide an opportunity to discuss different methodological approaches related to natural and cultural differences of particular research settings along the coasts. The studies presented at the symposium have to be contextualized within research questions related to aspects of human adaptation such as subsistence strategies, processes of social and/or technological complexity, raw material acquisition, site occupations dynamics, and group interactions. Descriptive papers will not be accepted.
We have potential participants, already committed to participate, working on the coast of California, Mexico and Chile and we hope to include geographical areas such as Peru, Ecuador, Canada, Japan, and Australia among others.