Jon M. Erlandson is an archaeologist and a retired professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Oregon. He previously served as the director of the University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History. His research focuses on how people adapted to life near the ocean, how people first came to live in North America, studying ancient ships and underwater sites, and examining how humans have affected coastal environments over time.

Education and background

Erlandson earned his B.A. in Physical Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1980. He later received his M.A. and Ph.D. in Archaeology from the same university. He helped start the Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology and was one of its founding co-editors. He has written over 400 articles for academic journals and has edited or written 29 books. In 2013, he was chosen to join the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2021, he was elected as a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Erlandson was born in Santa Barbara, California, and liked many water activities, such as swimming, surfing, and sailing. He moved to Alaska in 1982 and also lived in Washington and Oregon before moving back to California in 2023. Between 1989 and 1990, he worked to protect archaeological sites from damage caused by the Exxon Valdez oil spill. He taught at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for one year before joining the faculty at the University of Oregon. His work with scientists who study the ocean and ecosystems led him to focus on policies to protect endangered coastal fisheries and environments. He has received awards for his teaching, research, and for helping guide students from underrepresented groups. In 2001, Discover Magazine named a research paper Erlandson was involved in, “Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems” by Jeremy Jackson et al., as the top science story of that year.

Research

Erlandson has studied the early use of coastal areas and marine resources in California, Oregon, Alaska, and Iceland. For many years, scientists believed that people began using the ocean for food and other resources only about 10,000 years ago. However, Erlandson argues that this is not true. He explains that early societies that relied on the sea were often more complex and had larger populations than those that lived only on land. Research on ancient coastal societies is difficult because of challenges in the archaeological record, such as determining what defines a society that fully depends on the ocean. Environmental changes, like rising and falling sea levels and the erosion of coastlines, also make studying these societies harder. Identifying whether materials found in the ground are from natural processes or human activity, and understanding how quickly shells and bones disappear over time, are important issues in this research. Despite these challenges, Erlandson points out that evidence shows people used the sea much earlier than previously thought. For example, shell middens in Africa and Europe date back at least 150,000 years, and an early site in Chile, Monte Verde 2, had seaweed. Erlandson believes that more discoveries can be made by studying submerged coastal areas on the ocean floor, especially in deeper waters.

The “kelp highway” hypothesis is an idea developed by Erlandson and others to explain how early people reached the Americas. This theory suggests that people traveled along the Pacific Coast using a route of productive kelp forests that stretched from northeast Asia to Baja California. These forests provided food and other resources, such as kelp, fish, shellfish, and sea mammals, which could have supported early human populations. The kelp forests also offered protection from rough ocean waves. While it is hard to find direct evidence of this route due to rising sea levels after the last ice age, Erlandson has found many signs of early maritime activity along the Pacific Coast of the Americas, including on California’s Channel Islands.

One way Erlandson studies these issues is through his research on the Channel Islands near California. These islands have been inhabited by humans for over 13,000 years and provide a unique opportunity to study how people adapted to coastal life over time. The islands were home to the Chumash people for at least 9,500 years until they were removed in the early 1800s. The islands also allow researchers to explore how human activities and environmental changes influenced each other. By studying the diet of the Chumash and their ancestors, scientists can learn how these people changed their food sources over time, how they affected marine and land ecosystems, and how they survived on small islands for thousands of years.

Erlandson’s work in Iceland’s Mosfell Valley is another example of his interdisciplinary research. Along with colleagues like Jesse Byock and Philip Walker, he spent seven seasons studying three Viking Age sites from the 10th to 12th centuries. These sites, which include a well-preserved early Christian church and graveyard, a large Viking longhouse, and a ritual cremation area shaped like a ship’s prow, represent a time when Iceland was transitioning from pagan to Christian beliefs. These sites are unique because they are connected to written records and sagas about the people who lived there, and the remains were not disturbed for a long time. The evidence found at the site matches stories from the sagas, such as the movement of bodies from old pagan burials to a new Christian graveyard and signs of violence from blood feuds. This discovery also included the first evidence of cremation in Iceland, a practice common in other Viking regions. Before this, the lack of cremation evidence had caused debates about Iceland’s early settlers.

Selected publications

Braje, Todd, Jon Erlandson, and Torben Rick (2021). Islands Through Time: A Human and Ecological History of California's Northern Channel Islands. New York: Rowman & Littlefield.

Gill, Kristina M., Mikael Fauvelle, and Jon M. Erlandson (editors) (2019). An Archaeology of Abundance: Reevaluating the Marginality of California's Islands. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

Erlandson, Jon M. and Todd J. Braje (editors) (2013). When Humans Dominated Earth: Archaeological Perspectives on the Anthropocene. Anthropocene Special Issue.

Erlandson, Jon M. and Sarah B. McClure (text editors) (2010). 10,000 Years of Shoes: With Photos by Brian Lanker. Eugene: University of Oregon Museum of Natural and Cultural History.

Erlandson, Jon M., Torben C. Rick, and René L. Vellanoweth (2008). A Canyon Through Time: The Archaeology, History, and Ecology of Tecolote Canyon, Santa Barbara County, California. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press.

Erlandson, Jon M. and Todd J. Braje (volume editors) (2008). Tracking Technologies: Contributions to Understanding Technological Change on California’s Channel Islands. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 40(1).

Rick, Torben C. and Jon M. Erlandson (editors) (2008). Human Impacts on Ancient Marine Ecosystems: A Global Perspective. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Erlandson, Jon M. and Terry Jones (editors) (2002). Catalysts to Complexity: The Late Holocene on the California Coast. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.

Erlandson, Jon M. and Michael A. Glassow (editors) (1997). The Archaeology of the California Coast during the Middle Holocene. Los Angeles: Institute of Archaeology, University of California, Los Angeles.

Erlandson, Jon M. (1994). Early Hunter-Gatherers of the California Coast. New York: Plenum Press.

Moss, Madonna L. and Jon M. Erlandson (editors) (1992). Beyond Culture Areas: Relationships Between Maritime Cultures of Southern Alaska. Arctic Anthropology Volume 29.

Erlandson, Jon McVey (1988). Of Millingstones and Molluscs: The Cultural Ecology of Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherers on the California Coast. Ph.D. Dissertation, UCSB. University Microfilms International, Ann Arbor.

Erlandson, Jon M. (2013). "Shell Middens and other Anthropogenic Soils as Global Stratigraphic Signatures for the Anthropocene." In When Humans Dominated the Earth: Archaeological Perspectives on the Anthropocene, edited by J.M. Erlandson and T.J. Braje. Anthropocene 4:24–32.

Erlandson, Jon M. (2001). "The Archaeology of Aquatic Adaptations: Paradigms for a New Millennium." Journal of Archaeological Research Vol. 9 No. 4: 287–350.

Erlandson, Jon M. et al. (2007). "The Kelp Highway Hypothesis: Marine Ecology, the Coastal Migration Theory, and the Peopling of the Americas." Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology Vol. 2 Issue 2: 161–174.

Erlandson, Jon and Todd J. Braje (2012). "Foundations for the Far West: Paleoindian Cultures on the Western Fringe of North America." In The Oxford Handbook of North American Archaeology, edited by Timothy R. Pauketat. Oxford University Press.

Erlandson, Jon M. and Torben C. Rick (2010). "Archaeology Meets Marine Ecology: The Antiquity of Maritime Cultures and Human Impacts on Marine Fisheries and Ecosystems." Annual Review of Marine Science 2:165–185.

Erlandson, Jon M., Torben C. Rick, and Todd J. Braje (2009). "Fishing up the Food Web?: 12,000 Years of Maritime Subsistence and Adaptive Adjustments on California’s Channel Islands." Pacific Science Vol. 63 Issue 4:711–724.

Erlandson, J.M., T.C. Rick, T.J. Braje, M. Casperson, B. Culleton, B. Fulfrost, T. Garcia, D. Guthrie, N. Jew, D. Kennett, M.L. Moss, L. Reeder, C. Skinner, J. Watts, and L. Willis (2011). "Paleoindian Seafaring, Maritime Technologies, and Coastal Foraging on California’s Channel Islands." Science 441:1181–1185.

Rick, Torben C. and J.M. Erlandson (2009). "Coastal Exploitation: How Did Ancient Hunter-Gatherers Influence Coastal Environments?" Science 352:952–953.

Jackson, J., M. Kirby, W. Berger, K. Bjorndal, L. Botsford, B. Bourque, R. Bradbury, R. Cooke, J. Erlandson, J. Estes, T. Hughes, S. Kidwell, C. Lange, H. Lenihan, J. Pandolfi, C. Peterson, R. Steneck, M. Tegner, and R. Warner (2001). "Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems." Science 293:629–638.

Erlandson, Jon M. (1988). "The Role of Shellfish in Coastal Economies: A Protein Perspective." American Antiquity 53(1):102–10.

Erlandson, Jon M. (1984). "A Case Study in Faunalturbation: Delineating the Effects of the Burrowing Pocket Gopher on the Distribution of Archaeological Materials." American Antiquity 49:785–790.

Braje, Todd, D.J. Kennett, J.M.