Comment by strken

I'm not an expert in archaeology, but this is more complicated than it appears at first glance.

My understanding is that either people are in equilibrium, or they are not. When they're not in equilibrium, they can cause extirpation or extinction of food species if the alternative is starvation. Once equilibrium is reached, resources get managed pretty well, partly because anything that's still around must be resilient and partly because people learn to manage resources. Then the climate unexpectedly changes, people leave equilibrium, food sources either become available or disappear, and we can see middens switch to different foods or become abandoned.