Stable isotope evidence of juvenile foraging in prehistoric Central California

Ethnographic evidence demonstrates that hunter-gatherer children may forage effectively enough to supplement an adult provisioned diet, where ecology, subsistence strategies, and social organization are conducive to juvenile participation. We use stable isotope measures (delta N-15 and delta C-13) from bone collagen and serial-samples of dentinal collagen extracted from first molars to examine childhood dietary patterns among 24 individuals from the Late Holocene Central California site CA-ALA-554. We identify weaning age and early childhood dietary patterns, and find evidence for independent child foraging among 25% of the sample population (n = 6), the majority of whom lived during the high-stress Medieval Climatic Anomaly (1100-700 BP). (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.