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Response to “Coastal Versus Interior: Some Thoughts on the Archaeology of California's Channel Islands”

Erlandson raises two issues of concern: our definition of “interior” and our focus on sites post-dating the earliest few millennia of human occupation of the Channel Islands. The first relates to how we decided to delineate “interior,” which could be defined in a variety of ways in coastal environments based on different environmental variables. We decided on a 400-meter threshold because it effectively excludes the large, mounded habitation sites that were the focus of large-scale excavation on the Channel Islands prior to 1975, this being a principal objective in compiling our database. Erlandson proposes that 1,000 meters would be more reasonable because the effort to walk 400 meters is minimal. Although the effort is trivial, it is more than would be the case if the island inhabitants were living right at the shoreline. We argue that the various reasons we discussed for living away from the coast would have been in operation at distances as short as 400 meters. This point is not lost on the students Perry has led over the years on interpretive hikes around Scorpion Canyon on the eastern end of the island. After we disembark from the boat, hike up a road that ascends the canyon walls, andarriveat adenseshellmiddeneroding from a sheer cliff overlooking the ocean