www.nature.com/scientificreports OPEN Collagen Fingerprinting and the Earliest Marine Mammal Hunting in North America Received: 2 February 2018 Courtney A. Hofman 1,2, Torben C. Rick3, Jon M. Erlandson4, Leslie Reeder-Myers5, Accepted: 18 June 2018 Andreanna J. Welch6,2 & Michael Buckley 7 Published: xx xx xxxx The submersion of Late Pleistocene shorelines and poor organic preservation at many early archaeological sites obscure the earliest efects of humans on coastal resources in the Americas. We used collagen fngerprinting to identify bone fragments from middens at four California Channel Island sites that are among the oldest coastal sites in the Americas (~12,500-8,500 cal BP). We document Paleocoastal human predation of at least three marine mammal families/species, including northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris), eared seals (Otariidae), and sea otters (Enhydra lutris). Otariids and elephant seals are abundant today along the Pacifc Coast of North America, but elephant seals are rare in late Holocene (<1500 cal BP) archaeological sites. Our data support the hypotheses that: (1) marine mammals helped fuel the peopling of the Americas; (2) humans afected marine mammal biogeography millennia before the devastation caused by the historic fur and oil trade; and (3) the current abundance and distribution of recovering pinniped populations on the California Channel Islands may mirror a pre-human baseline. Recent archaeological, genomic, and paleoecological research identifes the Pacifc Coast as one of the gateways for the peopling of the Americas1–8. California’s Channel Islands fgure prominently in this research with ~13,000- 11,000 year old sites that contain human remains, sophisticated hunting tools, and diverse faunal assemblages3,9,10. Tese island Paleocoastal sites have helped reframe debates about the nature of human use of coastal ecosystems along the Pacifc Coast and around the world11,12. An important research area in coastal archaeology focuses on the interactions between people and marine mammals. Tis includes the role of marine mammals as a food source, the implications of marine mammal hunt- ing for understanding the impact of humans on newly colonized ecosystems, and how these data can help inform marine mammal conservation eforts. Some scholars have speculated that pinnipeds (seals and sea lions), with their large size and use of onshore haulouts, were attractive and vulnerable to early coastal hunters13,14, but the submergence of early coastal sites by rising postglacial seas limits knowledge of early maritime hunting practices and ancient pinniped populations3. In early Pacifc Coast archaeological sites, seal and sea lion bones are gener- ally rare, highly fragmented, and mostly unidentifable to species. For instance, at a Late Pleistocene site on Isla Cedros, Baja California, a single Guadalupe fur seal (Arctocephalus townsendi) bone dates to ~11,070-10,680 cal BP, but fsh appear to dominate the assemblage15. A larger assemblage from the ~9400 year old Kilgi Gwaii site on Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, includes harbor seal (Phoca vitulina), sea otter (Enhydra lutris), and Stellar sea lion (Eumetopias jubatus) bones but, similar to Baja California, fsh and birds were signifcantly more abundant4. In South America, Dillehay et al. (2017) recently identifed 39 marine mammal bones from Late Pleistocene localities including a direct date of roughly 13,300 cal BP, a few centuries older than the oldest specimens in North 1Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma, 455 W. Lindsey St., Norman, OK, 73019, USA. 2Center for Conservation Genomics, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, National Zoological Park, MRC 5513, Washington, DC, 20013-7012, USA. 3Department of Anthropology, National Museum of Natural History, MRC 112, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 20013-7012, USA. 4Museum of Natural and Cultural History, University of Oregon, Eugene, OR, 97403, USA. 5Department of Anthropology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, 19122, USA. 6Department of Biosciences, Durham University, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK. 7School and Earth and Environmental Sciences, Manchester Institute of Biotechnology, 131 Princess Street, University of Manchester, Manchester, M1 7DN, UK. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to C.A.H. (email: [email protected]) or M.B. (email: [email protected]) SCIENTIFIC REPORTS | (2018) 8:10014 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28224-0 1 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 1. Paleocoastal archaeological sites on California’s northern Channel Islands. Four archaeological sites span two diferent islands today but at the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and as recently as 9,000 years ago, the northern Channel Islands coalesced into a single landmass called Santarosae. (Paleo-shorelines from Reeder- Myers et al. 201539). America16. All these bones are from Otaria sp. or Otaria favescens that may have been clubbed while hauled out onshore or scavenged from carcasses washed ashore. The dearth of identified bones from Paleocoastal sites limits our understanding of the structure of Late Pleistocene and early Holocene marine mammal communities and the potential efects of human lifeways on marine mammal populations17–22. Known Late Pleistocene archaeological sites are ofen several kilometers from the submerged ancient shorelines, and people would likely have butchered carcasses near the shore rather than hauling them to interior camps3. Due to these processing and transport issues, as well as fragmentation of faunal remains at some sites, potential marine mammal bones are ofen undiagnostic fragments that could be from pinnipeds, sea otters, or cetaceans. Better taxonomic identifcation of marine mammals in early archaeological sites would provide a more precise picture of the species available for human consumption along the Pacifc Coast when people frst arrived and the potential impact of humans on pinniped populations in the Late Pleistocene. Today, many marine mammal populations have recovered from near extinction during the historical fur and oil trade and their recovery is a major conservation success. However, the long-term context for that recovery is important for understanding the implications of recent shifs in species composition from the late Holocene to the present13,17–23. We seek to address this gap by using collagen fngerprinting to identify fragmentary marine mammal remains from Paleocoastal sites on Alta California’s Channel Islands to understand the nature of Paleocoastal marine mammal exploitation and how these data compare to late Holocene and modern marine mammal distributions and abundance. Results We performed collagen fngerprinting taxonomic identifcation of 20 unidentifed marine mammal bone frag- ments from four Paleocoastal sites on the Channel Islands dated between ~12,500-8500 cal BP. When occupied, the sites were located within 10 km of the northern coast of Santarosae Island (Fig. 1). Our sample size is relatively small, but bone fragments were selected from stratifed and well-dated excavation contexts (discrete strata, test units, etc.) to minimize the potential of sampling the same individual (Fig. 2, Table 1). For taxonomic identif- cation, collagen fngerprints of bone fragments were compared to known collagen fngerprints from modern specimens (Supplementary Information Figs S1–3). Seventeen of the 20 bone samples yielded identifable colla- gen fngerprints, six specimens were identifed to species, eleven to the family Otariidae (eared seals), and three produced ambiguous fngerprints or poor collagen (Fig. 3). Te difculty in diferentiating collagen fngerprints in ancient samples and modern comparative specimens of Otariidae is unsurprising given the recent radiation of the family24. Marine mammal biogeography narrows the otariid samples to four likely species with prehistoric or extant distributions in this region: Guadalupe fur seal, northern fur seal (Callorhinus ursinus), California sea lion (Zalophus californianus), and Steller sea lion. At CA-SMI-261 (Daisy Cave), three elephant seal (Mirounga angustirostris) bones were identifed: two from a terminal Pleistocene stratum (12,500-11,220 cal BP) that may be from a single individual and one dated to ~8900- 8500 cal BP, along with two sea otter bones dated to the early Holocene and four otariids. One of these elephant seal fragments (514-6888b) exhibited possible cutmarks indicative of human processing. CA-SMI-522 yielded two otariids dated to ~10,190–9540 cal BP. Six bone fragments were identifed from the Santa Rosa Island sites, CA-SRI-26 and CA-SRI-512, both dated between ~12,000-11,210 cal BP. An elephant seal bone was identifed at CA-SRI-512, along with four otariid bones. A single bone from CA-SRI-26 yielded enough collagen to be iden- tifed as an otariid. SCIENTIFIC REPORTS | (2018) 8:10014 | DOI:10.1038/s41598-018-28224-0 2 www.nature.com/scientificreports/ Figure 2. Sample of the fragmented marine mammal bones analyzed and identifed in this study from archaeological contexts. Site No. (CA-) Provenience Stratum/Level Catalog Number ZooMS ID Date (cal BP)1 SMI-261 Column E6 E1 514–380b Otariidae ~8900-8500 SMI-261 Unit D5 E2 514–5710 Sea otter ~8900-8500 SMI-261 D5/6 E2b 514–7631 Elephant seal ~8900-8500 SMI-261 Unit 98- E6 E3 514–7787 Ambiguous ~9200-8900 SMI-261 Column E6 E3 514–7700b Otariidae ~9200-8900 SMI-261 Profle E6 E 514–7919 Otariidae ~9200-8500 SMI-261 Sea clif E/F 6908 Otariidae 10,130-8500 SMI-261 Sea clif E/F Ambiguous 10,130-8500 SMI-261 Unit E6 F1 514–6809b Sea otter 9630-9150 SMI-261 Sea clif G or below 514–6888b Elephant seal 12,500-11,220 SMI-261 Sea clif G or below 514–6888a Elephant seal 12,500-11,220 SMI-522 Sea clif Paleocoastal 522–78b Otariidae 10,190-9540 SMI-522 25 2 522–247b Otariidae 10,190-9540 SRI-26 Unit 2 5 Otariidae 11,980-11,210 SRI-26 Gully wall A4 Poor collagen 11,980-11,210 SRI-512 Unit 3 profle 512–369b Elephant seal 11,960-11,360 SRI-512 Unit 4 5 Otariidae 11,960-11,360 SRI-512 Unit 4 4 512–419Ab Otariidae 11,960-11,360 SRI-512 Unit 7 2 Feature 1 Otariidae 11,960-11,360 SRI-512 Unit 6 39-43 cm Otariidae 11,960-11,360 Table 1.