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Archaeological study shows human activity may have boosted shellfish size

In a counter-intuitive finding, new research from North Carolina State University shows that a species of shellfish widely consumed in the Pacific over the past 3,000 years has actually increased in size, despite ? and possibly because of ? increased human activity in the area.?What we?ve found indicates that human activity does not necessarily mean that there is going to be a negative impact on a species ? even a species that people relied on as a major food source,? says Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick, associate professor of sociology and anthropology at NC State and co-author of the study. ?The trends we see in the archaeological record in regard to animal remains are not always what one would expect.?At issue is the humped conch, Strombus gibberulus, a small mollusk that has been a food source in the Pacific islands for thousands of years. The researchers dated and measured more than 1,400 humped conch shells found at an archaeological site on the island of Palau in the western Pacific. They expected the size of t

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