The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce that Dr. Gabriel Sanchez has been awarded a National Geographic Early Career Grant in support of his research project, “Archaeology as Conservation Science: Investigating the Historical Range of California’s Endangered Coho Salmon.” Dr. Sanchez joined the Department as a College of Social Science Dean’s Research Associate and specializes in Indigenous and environmental archaeology. Working through the lens of historical ecology, he studies ancient fisheries along the Pacific Coast of North America and how data from archaeological sites can inform contemporary resource management and conservation.

The National Geographic Society funds “bold, innovative, and transformative projects” through a highly competitive grant program, with a particular focus on projects aligned with conservation, research, education, technology, or storytelling. The National Geographic Early Career Grant is a one-year funding award, which offers an exceptional opportunity for early career scholars to join an international community of National Geographic Society Explorers.

Dr. Sanchez’s collaborative eco-archaeological project employs archaeological datasets and molecular archaeology methods, such as collagen peptide mass fingerprinting and ancient DNA analysis, to define which salmon species were historically present in California streams over the last ~7,000 years. This research is pertinent for the endangered Coho salmon as their historical biogeography is debated; researchers argue that Coho salmon are not native south of the San Francisco Bay, while others suggest Coho are native as far south as Santa Cruz County. The field of archaeology is uniquely situated to inform the debate of salmon biogeography given the preservation of animal remains in archaeological sites and the broad use of resources by Native Californians, which provides a wealth of baseline environmental information prior to the arrival of Euro-Americans and subsequent landscape-level transformations.

This research project will define which salmon were native to coastal streams and illuminate their genetic diversity as a means of helping tribal and state resource managers prioritize salmon restoration, stream protection and restoration, water allocation, and also inform land-use practices.