Crockford: Archeological evidence of Thunnus thynnus off British Columbia and northern Washington 
13 
Figure 1 
Map of the Pacific northwest coast of North America, showing the location of 
archeological sites from which bluefin tuna, Thunnus thynnus, remains have 
been recovered, ^indicates samples examined in this study. *1 = FaTt 9 Louscoone 
Point; 2 = ElSx 1 Namu; 3 = DjSp 1 Yuquot village; *4 = DjSp 3 Yuquot midden; 
*5 = DkSp 1 Kupti; *6 = DkSp 3 Tahsis midden; *7 = DiSo 1 Hesquiat; 8 = DfSi 
4 Macoah; * 9 = DfSi 5 Ch’uumat’a; *10 = DfSj 23AT’ukw’aa village; *11 = DfSj 23B 
T’ukw’aa defensive site; 12 = DhSe 2 Shoemaker Bay; 13 = 45CA24 Ozette village. 
schools of less than 10 similar-size in- 
dividuals, often less than 5 for very large 
fish. 
Analysis of stomach contents of some 
of these fish indicated that they had 
been feeding at the surface on chub 
mackerel, Scomber japonicus, and the 
opalescent inshore squid, Loligo opal- 
escens, a strongly phototactic species 
(Recksiek and Frey, 1978). Bluefin tuna 
are also reported to be phototactic 
(Bayliff, 1980). When water tempera- 
tures were recorded for these 1988 
catches, they indicated lower than av- 
erage sea-surface temperatures (mean 
14.1°C) for southern California waters 
in the eastern Pacific. Bluefin tuna are 
generally found associated with water 
temperatures of 17-23°C (Bell, 1963). 
The commercial catch of such high 
numbers of large fish in 1988 has raised 
the possibility that adult bluefin tuna 
may occur regularly off California but 
are only occasionally recognized or ob- 
served. Foreman and Ishizuka (1990) 
have suggested that small schools of 
adult bluefin tuna may go unrecognized 
if mistaken for pods of marine mammals 
or go undetected if travelling or feeding 
at depth. If so, it may be that the condi- 
tions that govern their infrequent move- 
ment into inshore feeding areas are very 
specific and thus rarely occur. 
Analyses and results 
The archeological sample 
Vertebrae were examined from 8 of the 
13 sites from which remains of bluefin 
tuna were found. As is typical for fau- 
nal remains recovered from archeological sites, chro- 
nological dates for tuna specimens are estimated in 
relation to the 14 C-dated strata from which they were 
recovered: none of the bluefin tuna remains have yet 
been dated directly. 
The northernmost archeological evidence for the 
occurrence of bluefin tuna is from the southern Queen 
Charlotte Islands (Fig. 1), whereas Namu on the cen- 
tral British Columbia mainland is the oldest known 
deposit yielding bluefin tuna remains ( dated at 4050- 
3050 BC). Bluefin tuna have also been recovered from 
sites at Hesquiat Harbour and Shoemaker Bay on 
the west coast of Vancouver Island and from the 
Ozette site near Cape Flattery, Washington (see Table 
1 for more details). Vertebrae are the only traces of 
bluefin tuna recovered from the above sites, and only 
specimens from the Hesquiat Harbour and Queen 
Charlotte Islands were available for analysis. 
Archeological excavations at four sites each in both 
Nootka and Barkley Sounds on the west coast of 
Vancouver Island also yielded bluefin tuna remains 
and, in contrast to other area sites, both vertebral 
and nonvertebral skeletal remains are represented. 
Neither scales nor otoliths, however, were found. 
Tuna were reported from all strata of the 1966 exca- 
vation at the village of Yuquot on Nootka Sound 
