Erlandson was born in Santa Barbara, California, and enjoyed many different water-based activities, including swimming, surfing and sailing.
His collaborative efforts with marine biologists and ecologists have inspired him to become involved in policy issues about the conservation biology of endangered coastal fisheries and ecosystems.
[3] Discover Magazine named a paper Erlandson was involved in, “Historical Overfishing and the Recent Collapse of Coastal Ecosystems” by Jeremy Jackson et al., the top science story of 2001.
Working in California, Oregon, Alaska, and Iceland, Erlandson has extensively researched the beginnings of coastal adaptations and the exploitation of marine resources.
Although it was long held true in anthropological theories that access to marine adaptations developed late in human history (the last 10,000 years or so), Erlandson believes otherwise.
[4]: 299–302 Distinguishing natural from cultural deposits and the rates in which shell and bone disappear from the archaeological record, or taphonomy, are also important issues.
Shell middens in Africa and Europe go back at least 150,000 years, for instance, and one of the earliest archaeological sites in the New World, Monte Verde 2 in Chile, contained several types of seaweed.
[4]: 312–313 Erlandson believes that much more is to be learned from the growing number of submerged coastal sites found on the world's continental shelves, especially as such research is extended into deeper waters.
The “kelp highway” hypothesis is a corollary to the coastal migration theory developed by Erlandson and his colleagues to help explain the peopling of the Americas and the presence of pre-Clovis sites such as Monte Verde and Oregon's Paisley Caves that date to ~14,000 years ago, before the ice-free corridor appears to have opened.
The Channel Islands have been populated by humans for more than 13,000 years, and offer a unique opportunity to study coastal adaptations and historical ecology because they have a long and continuous habitation.
Working with Jesse Byock (UCLA), Philip Walker (UCSB), and other colleagues, he spent seven field seasons excavating three archaeological sites that were occupied during the Viking Age, from the early 10th to mid-12th Century.
[10]: 195–215 These sites—including the well-preserved remains of an early Christian church and graveyard, a large Viking longhouse, and a ritual cremation feature located atop a knoll modified to resemble the prow of a ship—span the transitional time period between pagan and Christian Iceland, and are unique for several reasons: there are a host of written records and sagas associated with the farm and its earliest inhabitants, and the fact that the deposits had remained undisturbed.
[10]: 200–201 The archaeological evidence at that site showed correlations to the sagas, including the movement of bodies from previous pagan burials to the new Christian graveyard associated with the recently constructed church and the presence of violence related to blood feuds.
[10]: 212–214 Finally, the sites included the first archaeological evidence for cremation discovered in Iceland, a common mortuary ritual elsewhere in the Viking world.
Gill, Kristina M., Mikael Fauvelle, & Jon M. Erlandson (editors) (2019) An Archaeology of Abundance: Reevaluating the Marginality of California's Islands.
Erlandson, Jon McVey (1988) Of Millingstones and Molluscs: The Cultural Ecology of Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherers on the California Coast.
Moss, L.. Reeder, C. Skinner, J. Watts, & L. Willis (2011) Paleoindian Seafaring, Maritime Technologies, and Coastal Foraging on California’s Channel Islands.
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, & R. Warner (2001) Historical overfishing and the recent collapse of coastal ecosystems.
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.
Erlandson, & B. Culleton (2007) Human Impacts on Nearshore Shellfish Taxa: A 7,000 Year Record from Santa Rosa Island, California.
Connolly, Thomas, Jon M. Erlandson, & Susan E. Norris (1995) Early Holocene Basketry from Daisy Cave, San Miguel Island, California.
Moss, Madonna L., Jon M. Erlandson, & Robert Stuckenrath (1989) The Antiquity of Tlingit Settlement on Admiralty Island, Southeast Alaska.
Walker, Phillip L. & Jon M. Erlandson (1986) Dental Evidence for Prehistoric Dietary Change on the Northern Channel Islands, California.