archaeology.org 19ANIMAL ARCHAEOLOGY
S
everal of the sea otters that frequent
Bennett Slough Culverts at Moss
Landing in central California
are in the habit of smashing mussels on
waterside boulders to extract their meat.
An interdisciplinary team of researchers has
identified telltale evidence of this behavior,
including visible patches of wear on points and
ridges of the rocks facing the water, as well as a
distinctive breakage pattern in the shells, with
the left side intact and the right side broken in
half diagonally. Underwater middens at the site
are estimated to contain tens to hundreds of
thousands of similarly smashed shells. Natalie
Uomini, an archaeologist at the Max Planck
Institute for the Science of Human History,
says this type of research shows a new way to
apply archaeological methodology to animal
behavior. “Archaeology is a set of tools that
allow us to study past behavior,” she says. “But there’s nothing inherent about it that
says it has to be used on humans.”
—danieL weiSSSea otter, Moss Landing, CaliforniaBroken mussel shells, Moss
Landing, California1-800-552-4575
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