Ancient DNA Analysis of Salmonid Remains at Housepit 54, Bridge River, British Columbia
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Salmon was critical to the Indigenous populations of the Pacific Northwest, and the variation in Pacific salmon species has played a vital role in the behavior of fisher-hunter-gatherer societies. This project involves using ancient DNA (aDNA) analysis to identify salmon species in order to test varying evolutionary models. These models include the Diet Breadth Model of Human Behavioral Ecology (HBE), cultural transmission theory, and the parameters of social rank among members at the Housepit 54, Bridge River archaeological site in British Columbia. In essence, these models help understand the social and economic impacts on the fishing behavior of members at Housepit 54. aDNA analysis is conducted on thoracic vertebrae sampled from a sequence of 15 stratigraphic floors. The samples of salmon vertebrae vary in size, and the spatial distribution is considered before selection to eliminate the risk of sampling from the same individual fish specimen. Furthermore, the sequence of floors can be separated by two occupational periods: Bridge River 2 (1600-1300 cal. B.P.) and Bridge River 3 (1300-1000 cal. B.P.). This provides a better understanding of the temporal distribution of each salmon species. The Fraser River was the primary watershed accessed by Housepit 54 occupants. There are five Pacific Salmon species that spawn within the Fraser River and its tributaries: sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka), Chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), coho (Oncorhynchus kisutch), pink (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) and chum (Oncorhynchus keta). Salmon species are not morphologically distinct; thus, aDNA analysis is necessary to determine species variability. Determining which species were consumed based on socio-economic value helps archaeologists understand cultural bias and optimal foraging theory. Furthermore, given that each species exhibits different spawning behaviors, environmental impacts on salmon populations, such as changes in climate and watershed temperatures, may also be inferred from this data.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".