What were the people doing at the site?
The kinds of tools, plant and animal remains, and other items found at a site, can tell the archaeologist a lot about what people were doing there. This information can also help us to know whether the site was a temporary camp or a more permanent village, and sometimes even what season(s) of the year it was inhabited. By answering these questions, and by comparing our answers with what we know about other sites in an area, we begin to understand how ancient people used the land, and how that compares with the way we use it today.
How did the people use their natural environment?
What were they eating?
Did the people use all of the resources available to them? If not, then which ones did they use, and why? How did they prepare these foods? Did the people suffer times of famine? How did they adjust to hard times - did they move away, buy food from their neighbors, start eating foods that they hadn't eaten before?
Were some of the site inhabitants wealthier, or have higher social status, than others?
If so, were these wealthy or important individuals more often women or men? Were they always adults, or did some children also have special status? Did the high-status people suffer as many injuries and illnesses as the lower-status ones, or were their lives easier because of their position in the group? Did any of these patterns change through time?
Did the people trade with their neighbors for exotic goods?
Did these trade relationships change over time?
Archaeologists also are interested in the trade relationships between different prehistoric groups who lived near each other, and about how extensive these relationships were: who traded with whom, and for what? How far did trade goods travel, and in which directions? Were there conflicts between certain groups that kept them from trading, or otherwise interacting, with each other?
Why was the site abandoned?
We know that some native villages were still inhabited when the Spanish arrived in Central California. But many others had been abandoned long before that - sometimes hundreds or even thousands of years before. Why did this happen? Did the local environment change, or did the people use up all the resources in the area and have to move on? Were they forced out by disease, natural catastrophe, or hostile invaders? And where did they go?
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