McBrin

Everything Old Is New Again: Recent Approachesto Research on the Archaic Period in the WesternUnited States

Maxine E. McBrinn

Published online: 3 February 2010

� Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract There are regional differences in how archaeologists conduct their

research on the Archaic period. The rich array of techniques and approaches used to

examine this period in the West include human behavioral ecology and other

evolutionary perspectives, technological style and aspects of practice theory, neu-

ropsychological theory, and more. Recent research in the Great Basin, Southwest,

Great Plains, Columbia-Fraser Plateau, and coastal California is surveyed to high-

light commonalities and differences in the questions asked of the archaeological

data and in the techniques that are used.

Keywords Western North America � Archaic period � Hunters and gatherers �Early agriculture

Introduction

This article reviews recent research on the Archaic period in the western United

States (Fig. 1), a huge geographic area incorporating the Southwest, the Great

Basin, the Columbia-Fraser Plateau, and the Pacific Coast. Research in northern

Mexico and southern Canada also is addressed in some discussions. The Great

Plains is minimally covered due to space constraints and its broader geographic

affinities. The Archaic period, characterized by generalized hunting-and-gathering

subsistence patterns, follows the Paleoindian period throughout the region and ends

in some areas with sedentism and horticulture. In other places, especially in the

Great Basin, the Archaic period lasts until European contact. By focusing on recent

research, I intend to familiarize the reader with the nature of current topical

investigations and theoretical approaches and hope to promote theoretical cross-

M. E. McBrinn (&)

PaleoCultural Research Group, P.O. Box 745309, Arvada, CO 80006, USA

e-mail: [email protected]

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DOI 10.1007/s10814-010-9039-5

fertilization and facilitate greater communication among researchers across the

region.

Throughout the western United States, archaeologists are asking similar

questions about the Archaic period, addressing topics such as changes in subsistence

strategies, subsistence intensification, the effect of climate change on social

organization, migration, the introduction of new technologies, and how and why

peoples developed sociopolitical complexity. In addition, researchers are attempting

to reconcile archaeological data and data derived from other disciplines, including

linguistics and genetics. Although archaeologists throughout the West are asking

similar questions, they often use markedly different approaches. For example, while

human behavioral ecology and other evolutionary theoretical bases are prevalent in

the Great Basin, some southwestern archaeologists use the concepts of habitus,

learned, durable dispositions toward certain views and practices (Bourdieu 1977,

p. 72; Dietler and Herbich 1998; S. Jones 1997, pp. 88, 120–123), and chaıneoperatoire, or the manufacturing sequence (Lemmonier 1986), to understand the

Fig. 1 Western United States. The dotted lines indicate the four geographically largest regions coveredin this article

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Archaic period. Nonetheless, there are some theoretical approaches that are widely

used. Rock art researchers throughout the region have embraced the neuropsycho-

logical approach, while all archaeologists who specialize in the study of perishable

artifact classes use the concepts of habitus and craft-training networks to support

their research.

Because of the expansive temporal and geographic breadth of this article, I

generally limit my review to peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. The

huge amount of data presented in CRM and government reports is not included here

because it is not presently feasible to synthesize this corpus of unpublished—yet

valuable—data. Similarly, I restrict my overview largely to papers published since

1995, an arbitrary cutoff point, to ensure that the discussion stays focused on recent

research. Finally, I do not claim to provide a comprehensive review of all the work

done on the Archaic period in western North America over the past 14 years, but

instead focus on the theoretical approaches and methodologies used to examine

topics of interest, many of which are also interesting to researchers outside the

region.

For readers interested in more detail on a given region, there are many excellent

reviews on the Archaic period in the Great Basin (C. Beck 1999; C. M. Beck 1999;

Bettinger 1999; Grayson 1993; Kelly 1997; Rhode 1999; Simms 2008; Sutton 1996)

and Southwest (Cordell 1997, pp. 101–151; Huckell 1996). Several books have

detailed the prehistory of the California coast, especially the Greater Santa Barbara

area (Atschul and Grenda 2002; Erlandson 1994; Erlandson and Colton 1991; Jones

and Klar 2007a; Rick 2007). Reviews of the Great Plains Archaic include Frison

(1991) and Wedel (1986). A volume edited by Prentiss and Kujit (2004) provides an

overview of Plateau prehistory.

This article opens with a brief overview of how the Archaic period is defined and

categorized across the West. The rest of the article is organized temporally and then

by research topic. I begin with the transition between the Paleoindian and Archaic

periods and follow with a brief overview of data from the Middle Holocene. The

majority of the article focuses on the Late Holocene and presents research on

subsistence strategies, the development of social complexity, the adoption of

agriculture, social identity and migration, and ritual and symbolism.

Terminology: What and where is the Archaic?

The term ‘‘archaic’’ is used by archaeologists to refer to a lifeway (generalized,

mobile foragers) and to a time period during which people lived in a supposedly

archaic manner. This linked meaning is derived from Willey and Phillips (1958,

p. 107) and has created some confusion, although the practice of capitalizing

the chronological period and using lowercase for the lifeway mitigates most of the

misunderstanding. Although most people in the eastern half of the U.S. were

farmers at contact, many in western North America, especially in arid areas, were

generalized foragers, leading archaeologists in those areas to extend the Archaic

period to the advent of the historic period. Thus the meaning of the ‘‘Late Archaic

period,’’ for example, varies across the West. This explains, in part, why there is no

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macroregional chronological organization of the western U.S. archaeological

record.

Within each western region, there are many subregional traditions with long

historical roots that are often tightly linked to projectile point typologies. Because

my scope is macroregional, only a few important subregional chronological

schemes are considered. Otherwise, I focus on the more general regional

classifications. Throughout this article, B.P. refers to radiocarbon years ago.

Figures 2 and 3 summarize the discussion below.

On the Great Plains, the Archaic period follows the Paleoindian period,

commencing around 8000 B.P. (Frison 1991, p. 20), and ends with the arrival of the

bow and arrow and ceramics, both diagnostic technologies of the Late Prehistoric

period, c. 1500 B.P. (Frison 1991, p. 111). Across the region, transitions between the

Early, Middle, and Late Archaic periods vary slightly, reflecting the varying

archaeological record and professional traditions.

The situation is similar in the Southwest, where Huckell (1996) divides the

Southwest Archaic period into the usual three subperiods and identifies the Early

Fig. 2 Archaic period chronology for the Southwest (Huckell 1996), Great Plains (Frison 1991, p. 20),western Great Basin (Hildebrandt and McGuire 2002; Jones and Beck 1999), eastern Great Basin(Spangler 2000b, p. 50, Fig. 5.2), and the Plateau region (Andrefsky 2004)

Fig. 3 Chronology for the California Bight (Erlandson 1994, pp. 43–48) and the central California coast(Jones et al. 2007, Fig. 9.4)

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Archaic by the first intensive use of milling stones, between 8500 and 5500 B.P. The

Middle Archaic, ranging between 5500 and 3500 B.P., is marked by hot and arid

conditions. The Late Archaic or Early Agricultural period, noted for an essentially

modern climate but before ceramics were widely used, spans 3500 to c. 1500–2000

B.P. As in the Plains, regional variations in southwestern Archaic chronology exist

(Vierra 2005, Fig. 1.2). Use of the term ‘‘Late Archaic’’ has sparked a great deal of

discussion in the Southwest due to the utilization of some cultigens throughout

much of the region and the recent discovery of intensive agriculture in southern

Arizona and northern Chihuahua. These new discoveries are discussed in more

detail below, but the apparent patchiness in the record for prehistoric acceptance of

cultigens and for a significant shift to sedentism means that the term ‘‘Early

Agricultural’’ is appropriate only in some areas. In addition, the termination date of

the Late Archaic/Early Agricultural period is debated. The first appearances of

cultigens and/or ceramics in the material record have been traditional markers of the

beginning of a new way of life, but in the Southwest these are separated by up to

two thousand years. Ceramics were available shortly after 2000 B.P., but the earliest

maize in the region dates to 3500 years ago and earlier. For the sake of clarity, I

follow Huckell (1996) in using the most inclusive terminology: Late Archaic/Early

Agricultural period.

Terminology differs internally across the Great Basin, in part due to the farming

Fremont peoples who populated parts of the eastern basin. Some archaeologists,

such as Grayson (1993) and Kelly (1997), wisely steer away from subperiod

designations, using Early, Middle, or Late Holocene to provide a general sense of

chronology and reporting site-specific dates in their discussion. In the western basin

(Hildebrandt and McGuire 2002; Jones and Beck 1999), the Early Archaic

commences around 7500–8000 years B.P. and persists until 4500–5000 years ago.

The Middle Archaic ends at 1000–1500 years B.P., leaving the thousand or more

years before European contact for the Late Archaic. Some believe that the Late

Archaic is marked by the arrival of Numic-speaking peoples into the region

(Bettinger 1999; Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982). In the eastern basin (Spangler

2000b, p. 50, Fig. 5.2), the Late Archaic terminates around 1500 B.P. and is

followed by the Fremont period.

The Archaic chronology for the Columbia Plateau (Andrefsky 2004) begins with

the Early Archaic from 8000 to 5000 B.P., known for the appearance of leaf-shaped

bifaces and edge-ground cobbles. The Middle Archaic, from 5000 to 2000 B.P.,

lacks a uniform signature of artifacts from throughout the region and instead is

characterized by the first appearance of semisubterranean pithouses. The Late

Archaic lasts until 200 B.P., when the horse was probably introduced to the region

(Andrefsky 2004, p. 32).

California’s Archaic period nomenclature (Fig. 3) has been strongly influenced

by the chronology of the well-studied Santa Barbara coast. There is a sparse

Paleoindian material record stemming from the Terminal Pleistocene (Erlandson

1994, p. 43). The earliest well-defined culture is the Oak Grove or Millingstone

Horizon, which dates from around 10,000 B.P. and persisted until c. 5000 B.P.

(Erlandson 1994, pp. 45–47). This cultural horizon is marked by the appearance of

manos and metates and is characterized by a subsistence pattern focused on seeds

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and shellfish. It was followed by the Hunting People or Intermediate Horizon

(Erlandson 1994, p. 47), dating from 5000 B.P. until about 2000 B.P. and associated

with a wider use of plant foods such as acorns and exploitation of land mammals,

sea mammals, and fish. The Late Prehistoric period spans 2000 B.P. until European

contact (Erlandson 1994, pp. 47–48). The chronology for California’s central coast

(Jones et al. 2007, Fig. 9.4) is similar to that of the Santa Barbara area, the only real

difference being a later onset of the Late period and a well-defined Middle-Late

transition.

In summary, the categories of Early Archaic/Middle Archaic/Late Archaic are

uniquely defined in each region. Therefore, when possible, I follow Grayson’s

(1993) example and refer to general time periods as Early, Middle, or Late

Holocene, rather than using regional terminology to provide the necessary

chronological element.

The Paleoindian/Archaic transition

Reference to the beginning of the Archaic immediately raises the question of what

separates that period from the earlier Paleoindian period. The answer varies across

North America. On the Great Plains, where much of our image of what it means to

be ‘‘Paleoindian’’ was first defined, the transition is marked by a shift from

lanceolate and stemmed projectile points to side-notched points (Frison 1991, p. 79),

as well as an increasing appearance of milling stones (Frison 1991, p. 89), indicating

a growing reliance on plant foods in addition to the continued importance of large-

game hunting.

In the Southwest, there is a clear Paleoindian period, when now extinct

megafauna were hunted, but much of the later parts of the period, especially in the

western part of the region, show a more generalist subsistence lifeway (Huckell

1996, pp. 327–328). The eastern parts of the Southwest, however, show a strong

cultural affinity with the peoples on the Great Plains. The beginning of the

southwestern Archaic period at 8000 B.P. is probably the result of these ties to the

Great Plains rather than any marked evidence for a shift in subsistence or mobility at

that time.

One of the unique features of Great Basin temporal nomenclature is the use of the

term ‘‘Paleoarchaic’’ to describe the earliest peoples found in the region, a word that

could just as easily be applied to the post-Clovis Paleoindian period in the western

Southwest. The term explicitly acknowledges the historical reasons for positing a

separation between the earliest cultural remains and those of the Middle to Late

Holocene, while it acknowledges the evidence that even the earliest peoples in the

Great Basin lived a generalist lifeway (e.g., Jones and Beck 1999, p. 94).

In California, and especially in the northern Channel Islands, paleocoastal sites

are the focus of renewed interest due to the recent discussion of a possible coastal

migration to the Americas toward the end of the last glacial period (Arnold et al.

2004, pp. 9–12; Byrd and Raab 2007; Cassidy et al. 2004; Dixon 1999; Erlandson

et al. 2005a, 2007; Jones et al. 2002; Porcasi et al. 2000; Rick et al. 2001). Much of

the recent research on this period has focused on technology (e.g., Cassidy et al.

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2004; Erlandson et al. 2005a; Rick et al. 2001; Rondeau et al. 2007) and subsistence

adaptation (e.g., Erlandson 2002; Erlandson et al. 2005a; Porcasi et al. 2000; Rick et al.

2001) as a means through which the lifeways of early coastal settlers can be inferred.

Throughout the western U.S., Paleoindian researchers, including those of the

Paleoarchaic, are amassing additional data, most often on lithics. They have been

hampered, however, by a limited number of sites, especially nonkill sites, that

reveal greater variability in subsistence practices. Despite this, some archaeologists

are bringing fresh perspectives, often borrowed from research on the Archaic

period, to broaden what we know about early peoples in the region. They are using

ethnographic analogy (Waguespack 2005) and behavioral ecology (Elston and

Zeanah 2002) to examine gender roles, expanding their research to incorporate

classes of data beyond lithics and faunal remains (Connolly et al. 1995; Rhode et al.

2006; Rick et al. 2001), and combining existing lithic analytic techniques to

examine temporal shifts in mobility (Jones et al. 2003). These new studies should

affect Archaic period research by extending our knowledge of the preceding period

and by encouraging expansions of theoretical perspective and analytical technique.

The Middle Holocene: Climate change or stratigraphic invisibility?

Although the Early Holocene archaeological record is sparse, in many regions it is

greater than that for the Middle Holocene, a fact that seems counterintuitive. If

prehistoric populations grew continuously, there should be more Middle Holocene

sites per unit of time than Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene sites. There are two

explanations: either there were not as many people on the landscape of the West as

in the earlier Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene, or we are simply not finding the sites

from that period. The former argument has a considerable history in the profession,

stemming as it does from Antevs’s (1948) formulation of three major climatic

regimes during the Holocene, especially his conclusion that the Middle Holocene

was anomalously hot and dry (see Grayson 1993, pp. 208–210 for a summary of

Antevs’s research). Table 1 summarizes Antevs’s scheme, using his later refined

start and end dates for each temperature age (Antevs 1948, 1955). By using lake

varves, Antevs was able to assign calendrical dates to the beginning and end of each

of these ages. Antevs’s description of Holocene climatic variation was influential in

the Southwest and Great Basin (Grayson 1993; Rhode 1999, pp. 36–40) and was

used, sometimes uncritically, by many archaeologists who valued it because they

could reverse engineer it. If they found evidence of an extended hot, dry period with

modern fauna, they could assign it to a chronological interval of 7500 to 4500 years

ago.

Table 1 Antevs’s neothermal

climatic regimes (Antevs 1948,

1955)

Temperature age Time span (years ago) Climates

Anathermal 10000–7500 Warm and moist

Altithermal 7500–4500 Hot and dry

Medithermal 4500–present Cooler and moister

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Later paleoecological research largely supported Antevs’s conclusion that the

Middle Holocene was relatively warm and dry (Grayson 1993, pp. 208–216, 244;

Irwin-Williams 1979, pp. 31–32; Rhode 1999), although the severity and duration of

the droughts was highly variable, ranging from nonexistent in some areas to severe

and long in others. Huckell (1996, pp. 317–318) discusses the data in the Southwest

and shows that for the southern part of that region, the Altithermal may have been a

period of warm and wet conditions. This patchy record departs from Antevs’s

original formulation, which postulated a single long-lasting drought across the

world during this period, and may be part of the reason that many archaeologists no

longer use the terms ‘‘Altithermal’’ or ‘‘Hypsithermal,’’ preferring to call the period

the Middle Holocene. Archaeologists can no longer assume that a given locality

suffered drought for all or part of the Middle Holocene until evidence has been

collected to support the idea.

In some parts of the West, the archaeological record reveals marked changes

during the Middle Holocene. In a classic case, Meltzer’s (1991) research at Mustang

Springs, in the panhandle of Texas, revealed more than 60 water wells up to 3 m

deep dating from the onset of the Altithermal. Meltzer believes that people dug

these wells to reach the retreating ground water and that this indicates continuing

use of this area despite the extra effort required to acquire drinking water. In a later

publication, Meltzer (1999) reviews the evidence for a Middle Holocene drought,

possible population abandonment of the Plains during the period, and other possible

explanations for the scarcity of sites and radiocarbon dates. He finds that while the

peoples of the southern high plains were undoubtedly affected by harsh climatic

conditions, the data from the central and northern plains are more equivocal. There,

the lack of sites may have more to do with geomorphic processes that have removed

or deeply buried the material record from this period, a factor that I discuss below

(see Artz 1996; Sheehan 1995, 1996 for discussion about whether a relative lack of

sites in the northern plains is a cultural response to climate change or a result of

geological processes).

Despite the fact that some areas suffered drought during the Middle Holocene,

other areas in the West have yielded surprises. For example, at least 41 house pits

dating to this period have been found in the arid Wyoming Basin (Smith 2003), not

a place where one would expect to find substantial investment in infrastructure from

hunters and gatherers. Smith (2003, p. 179) posits that these houses were built with

the expectation of frequent reuse rather than for long-duration occupation, as

unequivocal storage features are not found. A few mid-Holocene house pits also

have been found at the Yarmony site in western Colorado, although those houses

have been interpreted as a residential base during the winter season by logistically

organized foragers (Magennis et al. 2000). These Middle Holocene houses can be

added to the growing list of early domestic structures in the Southwest (Huckell

1996, pp. 334, 341–342, Fig. 6; Schmader 2001) and the Great Basin (Grayson

1993, pp. 248–249). If future research uncovers additional examples of houses we

may become more certain about their season and duration of occupation as well as

their frequency of use.

As on the Great Plains, the Middle Holocene in the Great Basin has thus far

produced a cultural record where some areas show significantly fewer sites than

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would otherwise be expected (Grayson 1993, p. 246; Rhode 1999, pp. 37–40;

Spangler 2000b, p. 50). The exception to this paucity of sites is the Bonneville Basin

in the eastern Great Basin, where Danger Cave, Hogup Cave, and other sites near

persistent water sources saw continued occupation (Grayson 1993, p. 248; Madsen

et al. 2005). Upland areas near the Bonneville Basin also saw increased utilization

in comparison to earlier periods, as did sites near lake margins, possibly indicating

an increased local population in the area (Madsen et al. 2005, pp. 33–34).

There also is a dearth of archaeological evidence from the Middle Holocene in

some areas of the Southwest. Matson (1991, 2007) notes that the Colorado Plateau

witnessed a marked reduction in population during this period (Matson 1991, p. 150,

2007, p. 104), where many caves have Early Holocene components followed by a

sterile layer, and then by Late Holocene occupations. Similarly, Carpenter et al.

(2002, 2005) note that the archaeological evidence supports the idea that the La

Playa, Sonora area, like the rest of the lowland desert along the Mexico-U.S. border,

was abandoned for at least portions of the Altithermal (Carpenter et al. 2002, 2005,

p. 30; see also Cordell 1997, p. 117).

In contrast, in the northern Channel Islands (Kennett 2005, pp. 128–153), Middle

Holocene sites are more numerous than those from the Early Holocene. Some of

these sites appear to be ‘‘relatively permanent villages’’ (Kennett 2005, p. 153), and

associated burials indicate that some individuals were buried with elaborate goods,

although there is no indication of inherited status.

For some parts of the West, however, there is evidence that the Middle Holocene

record is sparse because geological processes have removed or deeply buried the

land surfaces from that period (Meltzer 1999, p. 408). Waters and Kuehn (1996)

argue that in southern Arizona and the North Dakota Badlands, many deposits from

periods earlier than the Late Holocene are no longer accessible to archaeologists.

Moreover, not all landforms in a region are affected the same way by geomorphic

processes. Thus deposits near stream and river beds, probably attractive areas in

antiquity as they are today, may have been subjected to greater geological activity,

either removing them or burying them deeply. Sediments that remain from the far

past in a given area may be on landforms, such as uplands, that were not intensively

used. The archaeological record from this period has probably lost much of its

richness and variety.

Proving that geomorphology is a concern not only for those working in earlier

periods, Minor and Grant (1996) draw on a wide body of geological seismic

research to show that Late Holocene sites along the northern Oregon coast were

subject to burial through earthquake-induced subsidence. This process also may

explain the paucity of earlier cultural remains along the coast, given that seismic

activity in that region dates from before human occupation.

The Late Holocene

The vast majority of archaeological research on the Archaic period in the West is

focused on the Late Holocene, for several reasons: the greater accessibility and

visibility of later sites in the archaeological record, the culture-historical links that

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can sometimes be made connecting the practices of historic peoples to those of their

ancestors, and the lure of attempting to explain why past peoples in some cases did

not conform to the historic behaviors noted by ethnographers. In all parts of the

western U.S., researchers have utilized new theoretical approaches and methodol-

ogies and have generated new and revitalized research questions to better

understand the Late Holocene.

Subsistence organization and technology

Subsistence strategies in the Great Basin and beyond

The Great Basin has traditionally served as a laboratory for anthropological theory

applied to the study of hunters and gatherers (Kelly 1997, p. 1). Much of the

research in that region has examined the effects of environmental constraints on the

lives of people, and current investigations have continued in the long tradition of

ecologically oriented study that dates from Steward (1938) and Jennings (1957,

1973). Most recently, Great Basin archaeologists have been applying evolutionary

perspectives to questions of subsistence, mobility, and gender. Human behavioral

ecology, which seeks to explain behavioral variability, currently provides a common

framework for the region, although other evolutionary perspectives also are utilized.

Human behavioral ecology often involves the use of optimal foraging theory,

including central place, diet breadth, and patch choice models, and concepts such as

the marginal use theorem, resource variability, risk-sensitive behavior, and

opportunity costs (Bettinger 1991; Broughton and O’Connell 1999; Kelly 1995,

pp. 50–58; Winterhalder and Kennett 2006). Kelly (1999a, p. 112) writes:

‘‘(B)ehavioral ecology focuses on phenotypic rather than genetic optimization and

assumes that much of the variation in human behavior is not undirected, that is, that

people can and do alter their behavior to meet new goals and to respond to new

conditions.’’ Great Basin archaeologists and anthropologists have been quick to

apply the modeling tools offered by behavioral ecology, perhaps because the long

tradition of paleoecology in the region has produced a data set that is ready for

immediate use (Grayson and Cannon 1999; Kelly 1997, pp. 7–8, 1999a; Rhode

1999; Zeanah and Simms 1999).

The Carson Desert of western Nevada recently served as a research focus for

Kelly (1999b, 2001) and Zeanah (2004), both of whom used behavioral ecology to

look at gendered resource use and optimal residential camp locations. By examining

available foods, their pre- and postprocessing caloric return rates, transportation

costs between logistic foraging locations and residential camps, and other factors,

Kelly and Zeanah have created reasonable and testable sets of conclusions based on

optimal foraging models. Using ethnographic analogy based on historic Great Basin

populations to assign gender roles, both researchers agree that the wetlands in the

Basin would have been the focus of women’s foraging efforts, while men would

have devoted time to hunting sheep and other animals in the nearby mountains.

They agree that it is unlikely that there would have been many residential camps in

the mountains before the arrival of pinon pine in the region because in almost all

seasons the caloric yields from women’s foraging would have been too great to

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relegate them to logistical procurement. In addition, with the possibility of fishing

(Kelly 1999b, 2001) and hunting (Zeanah 2004) in the lowlands, the men also would

have been able to provide significant resources from a near-marsh residential base.

Behavioral ecology assumes that humans make rational decisions for the

betterment of the family group and that they perceive their individual well-being as

tied to that of the group. So, for example, in the studies above, male foragers may

choose to hunt bighorn sheep in the mountains, but only when that choice does not

place their family in peril of starvation. Kelly and Zeanah conclude that hunting

bighorn sheep would have been accomplished through logistical forays, because

moving the family unit away from the marshes would have so reduced the women’s

foraging returns as to disadvantage the entire family.

In contrast, Hildebrandt and McGuire (2002, 2003; McGuire and Hildebrandt

2005) propose that men focused primarily on hunting large game, potentially at a

cost to their families. Using a costly signaling argument (e.g., Bliege Bird and Smith

2005; Bliege Bird et al. 2001; Hawkes 1990, 1991; Hawkes and Bliege Bird 2002),

they suggest that men derived much of their social status through hunting large

game, such as pronghorn antelope and bighorn sheep, and by sharing the meat with

the entire camp. Returning to camp with large packages of meat would have

provided men with greater mating opportunities and other benefits of high status.

Hildebrandt and McGuire support their argument by noting an increase in the

percentage of artiodactyls in faunal assemblages of site components dating after the

Middle Holocene, production of representational rock art showing artiodactyls and

hunters in the Coso Range of California, standardization of bifacial lithic

technology, and an increased use of obsidian.

In a recent paper, McGuire and Hildebrandt (2005) suggest that women may have

reacted to men’s focus on costly signaling by enacting their own forms of costly

signaling, such as producing elaborate baskets and, in the eastern Great Basin,

making technically sophisticated thin-walled and painted ceramics. If skill at

manufacturing articles used in women’s provisioning had broader implications with

regard to signaling, ‘‘women are far from passive players in these signaling

systems’’ (McGuire and Hildebrandt 2005, p. 707). Parents possessing higher status

through costly signaling may not fully provision their families but reap rewards

through a central position when the group is making decisions about security,

resource distribution, alliances, and other matters. However, a system of women and

men each vying for additional status and using their energy for that rather than for

maximizing provisioning could become ‘‘increasingly unstable and burdened by

potentially run-away investments in social display’’ (McGuire and Hildebrandt

2005, p. 708).

A number of other researchers have directly (Broughton and Bayham 2003;

Byers and Broughton 2004; Codding and Jones 2007; Hockett 2005; Zeanah 2004)

and indirectly responded to Hildebrandt and McGuire. The counter arguments take

several different tacks, although most note that after the warmer and drier Middle

Holocene, artiodactyl populations grew quickly in the wetter conditions of the Late

Holocene, providing hunters with a much more productive resource base. Byers and

Broughton (2004), using the prey choice model, note that when larger prey are

available, they are the preferred hunting target. Using data from Homestead Cave,

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Hogup Cave, and Camel’s Back Cave, they demonstrate that Late Holocene

components show a marked increase in artiodactyl remains; they posit that while

there is regional variability, there was a marked increase in the availability of large

game at the beginning of the period. Thus hunters of all kinds, not just those intent

on individual glory, would have been much more successful in procuring large

game. Broughton and Bayham (2003) provide an analysis that shows the same

pattern for California; Byers et al. (2005) do the same for the Wyoming Basin.

Hockett’s (2005) contribution to the debate takes a critical look at the data used

to support the idea that artiodactyl remains are more prevalent in Late Holocene

archaeological sites than in Middle Holocene sites (Broughton and Bayham 2003;

Byers and Broughton 2004; Byers et al. 2005; Hildebrandt and McGuire 2002,

2003; McGuire and Hildebrandt 2005). Hockett uses a taphonomic and site integrity

analysis of cave sites used in these studies, a critical examination of how

components are slotted chronologically, a demonstration of the relevance of the

chronological scale for evaluating the relative intensity of large- and small-game

hunting at the individual sites, and a discussion of the availability of large game to

human hunters due to site location and elevation. He concludes that for several cave

sites, artiodactyl hunting was more important during the Middle Archaic than

previously thought. Hockett examines the open-air archaeological site record and

proposes that antelope corrals and communal hunting of pronghorns have significant

antiquity in western Nevada, beginning perhaps as early as 5000 B.P. Rather than

costly signaling, he believes that the social and technological changes that appeared

in some parts of the Great Basin shortly after the end of the Middle Holocene show

similarities to historic group hunting practices noted by ethnographers. In general,

Hockett calls for careful examination of data, including site taphonomy, site

location, chronological control, and the manner in which data are reported. He

argues for regional variation and suggests that a shift to communal hunting required

changes in how foragers thought about their environment and their relationships

with each other that should be examined further for both cave and open-air sites.

Finally, Zeanah (2004, p. 26) cautions us to carefully think about women’s

subsistence options in the past. Specifically about Hildebrandt and McGuire (2002)

and others, Zeanah (2004, p. 28) notes: ‘‘some of these approaches have invoked

explanations about foraging efficiency, ethnic identity, and gender prestige that are

difficult to test archaeologically.’’

Use of human behavioral ecology is not unique to the Great Basin, although it is

striking how ubiquitous it is in that region. A number of California archaeologists

(e.g., Broughton 1997, 2002; Hildebrandt and Jones 1992; Hildebrandt and McGuire

2002; Jones 1996; Jones and Hildebrandt 1995; Jones and Richman 1995; Kennett

2005) also are using the approach to examine subsistence strategies and the origins

of social complexity.

California Bight and points north: The story of the acorn

Along the California coast, the mortar and pestle, thought to have been used

primarily for processing acorns, first appeared during the Middle Holocene (Arnold

et al. 2004, pp. 15–16). The addition of acorns to the diet significantly increased

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foraging returns and also presented a resource that could be stored for later

consumption. The timing and social context for that development are important for

understanding the rise of social complexity in that region (see Byrd and Raab [2007]

for a southern California Bight perspective; Glassow et al. [2007] for the northern

Bight; Hildebrandt [2007] for northwestern California; Rosenthal et al. [2007]for

the Central Valley).

At the same time that mortars and pestles appeared in the archaeological record,

use of milling stones declined. This shift toward acorns from a postulated seed-

based subsistence might have been fostered by climate change (Glassow et al.

1994). In contrast, Jones (1996, p. 245), working largely on the central California

coast, believes that this shift was due to ‘‘population circumscription and the

emergence of a lineal descent organization from an earlier system associated with

more mobile lifeways, lower population densities, and perhaps bilateral kin

reckoning.’’ This set the stage for the pattern of subsistence intensification and

social complexity well known in later periods, especially along the Santa Barbara

coast. Of course, it is possible, and even likely, that climate change contributed to

this cultural transformation, especially when that climate change may have made

maritime resources more productive (Glassow et al. 1994.)

Social organization and complexity

One of the enduring issues for archaeologists working on the Pacific Coast is the

development of socioeconomically complex foraging societies during the Middle

and Late Holocene. This entails explaining the cultural shift from an egalitarian

lifeway to the socially ranked, dense populations living in villages in southern

California and in the Pacific Northwest at the time of European contact.

A very large body of research has been published on the Santa Barbara region,

including the northern Channel Islands. Although there are many mainland

archaeological sites, sites on the islands offer some advantages, including less

bioturbation and more intact stratigraphy. Much of this work, on both the islands

and the mainland, focuses on subsistence strategies (e.g., Braje et al. 2007;

Erlandson et al. 2005a, b; Rick and Glassow 1999; Rick et al. 2001; Vellanoweth

and Erlandson 1999), with a special interest in understanding how the exploitation

of fisheries and sea mammals evolved over time to eventually become the familiar

ethnohistoric patterns known from the Chumash and other native peoples. Other

researchers have looked at other lines of evidence such as cordage, nets, baskets,

and bottles (Braje et al. 2005; Connolly et al. 1995) to infer the nature of subsistence

activities.

Climate change is one of the postulated triggers for the emergence of

sociopolitical complexity along the California coast, especially the Santa Barbara

Channel, with drought or El Nino events imposing climatic stresses (Arnold 1992;

Gamble 2005; Glassow 1996; Jones et al. 1999; Kennett and Kennett 2000; Raab

and Larson 1997; Raab et al. 1995). Research has focused on both the validity of the

events themselves and what, if any, effects these events would have had on area

populations. Raab (1996) evaluates two competing explanatory models for

prehistoric cultural change along the southern California coast, one focusing on

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resource intensification and the other on political economic theories. He finds that

while there is support for both explanations, research focusing on resource

intensification is more likely to inspire new research and thus is a more productive

approach.

In another approach, Arnold (1995, 2007; Arnold and Bernard 2005) proposes

that the invention of the plank canoe and the practice of limited, private ownership

of the vessels accelerated social complexity in the Santa Barbara region. Gamble

(2002) suggests that the boats were available earlier than previously thought and,

consequently, that social complexity likewise developed earlier. In turn, Fagan

(2004) argues that planked watercraft were first developed more than 8000 years

ago, even though social complexity was especially fueled by more a sophisticated

version of the plank canoe around 1500 B.P. California researchers working some

distance from Santa Barbara also have examined such issues as the relative

importance of estuarine and lake resources (Hildebrandt 1997a, b; T. Jones 1997)

and archaeobotanical reconstructions of central California subsistence (Wohlge-

muth 1996).

An explicitly Darwinian macroevolutionary perspective is used by Chatters and

Prentiss (2005) to provide a framework for the prehistoric cultural evolution of

collector-based subsistence in the northern Northwest Coast. They posit that cultural

change is discontinuous and rapid, punctuated equilibrium sensu Eldredge and

Gould (1972), and then apply this model to explain the eventual adoption of the

Locarno Beach collector subsistence organization across the region by 3000 cal.

B.P. Their model is plausible, although their use of data is vague and general. A

more detailed model would be welcome.

The timing of the emergence of complexity at the Keatley Creek site in British

Columbia has generated a vigorous debate (Hayden 2005; Hayden et al. 1996; A.

Prentiss et al. 2007; W. Prentiss et al. 2003, 2005). This well-studied site lies on the

Frasier Plateau, in the northernmost part of the Plateau region. This debate has

larger implications for the prehistory of the greater Columbia Plateau, as the

emergence of complexity among the hunters and gatherers of that region is a major

focus of scholarly enquiry. Hayden et al. (1996) believe that they have found long-

lived corporate groups, perhaps clans or something analogous, who occupied large

pithouses in the village of Keatley Creek. Over the period of 1000 years, from c.

2600 to 1100 B.P., each large house shows a unique and consistent pattern of lithic

raw material usage. The authors believe that the materials came from sources to

which the house occupants, as a group, had economic rights.

Others (A. Prentiss et al. 2007; W. Prentiss et al. 2003, 2005) have reexamined

the evidence used by Hayden et al. (1996) and conclude that the large house pit at

the center of their analysis was not in existence for the entire period, that their

radiocarbon dates provide only a maximal date of 1700 cal. B.P. for the aggregated

village, and that the village was unoccupied for intervals between 1700 and

c. 800 cal. B.P., when it was finally abandoned. In addition, while Hayden sees

complexity developing during a time of rich salmon runs and plentiful resources, W.

Prentiss et al. (2003, 2005) and A. Prentiss et al. (2007) instead see complexity

emerging during intervals of environmental stress.

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In contrast to the explicitly environmentally influenced research conducted on the

Frasier Plateau, Chatters (2004) believes that lethal conflict is correlated with the

introduction of the bow and arrow on the Columbia Plateau c. 2400–2000 B.P. and

that it led to population nucleation in villages, fortifications, and storage—all

contributing factors in the development of social complexity (see also Arnold 2004;

Goodale et al. 2004; Hayden and Adams 2004 for other perspectives). New

viewpoints may be required before this debate is resolved. The Keatley Creek area

is reported to have neighboring large village sites that date to the same general

period (Hayden 2005; Hayden et al. 1996; A. Prentiss et al. 2007; W. Prentiss et al.

2003, 2005). Perhaps research on these other sites, especially research that focuses

on paleoclimatic reconstructions for the period in question, 2600–800 B.P., will

provide additional data to help resolve the issue.

Adoption of agriculture

Farmers in the Southwest

We now know that the earliest maize in the region arrived by around 4000 B.P. and

that maize about this old has been found at a number of sites in the Southwest

(Huckell 2006, Table 7-1). Moreover, early maize is surprisingly widespread in the

region, being found from northern Chihuahua, Mexico, to northeastern Arizona and

north-central New Mexico. But the discovery of these examples of early maize has

resulted in more questions about its role in the lifeways of Late Archaic/Early

Agricultural peoples. The search for early cultigens has long preoccupied

archaeologists working in the Southwest, as has trying to understand how those

cultigens arrived in the region (Cordell 1997, pp. 127–151). Still other researchers

have focused on how the addition of cultigens and farming to the region eventually

changed the hunting and gathering subsistence pattern to one dominated by growing

maize, squash, and, later, beans (Diehl 1997, 2001; Diehl and Waters 2006;

Doleman 2005; Hard and Roney 2005; Mabry 2002; Matson 1991, 2007; Wills

1988, 1992, 2006; Wills and Huckell 1994). A critical aspect of this latter question

has been why the use of cultigens did not quickly lead to sedentism and the adoption

of farming as the major subsistence activity. Research over the past decade has

dramatically altered our understanding of the arrival of farming in the Southwest

and heightened our awareness that none of the answers to these questions will

address the region as a whole. If there is one word that describes the archaeological

record from the Late Holocene in the Southwest, it is ‘‘variable.’’

Peoples in the eastern part of the Southwest, the Jornada Mogollon in the south

and the northern Rio Grande in the north, were particularly slow to relinquish

hunting and gathering and become more sedentary. In the Jornada Mogollon region,

seasonal mobility was a particularly persistent pattern. Whalen (1994) shows that

the greatest difference between Late Archaic/Early Agricultural peoples and their

ceramic-using successors of the Mesilla phase was the extent to which winter camps

were occupied, with shorter occupations and very limited storage giving way to

longer and more intensive occupations. In general, Whalen sees a trend of

increasing sedentism through time, although none of the prehistoric peoples in the

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region were ever completely sedentary year-round. Mauldin (1996) also sees a

pattern of short-term residential occupation for both the Late Archaic and Early

Ceramic periods in the central Tularosa Valley, a pattern that persisted as late as

1350 B.P., despite maize having been in the region as early as c. 2900 B.P. (Tagg

1996). Clearly, a casual use of cultigens was the rule for well over 1000 years.

Likewise in the northern Rio Grande, sedentism was slow to take hold despite

evidence that shows maize in the region from c. 3000 B.P. (Vierra and Ford 2006, p.

507). Although people were farming in a variety of contexts by 3200 B.P. (Vierra

and Ford 2006, p. 505), the use of maize must have been somewhat casual. Vierra

(2008) notes that maize-dependent economies were not present in the Rio Grande

Valley until as late as 1400–1100 B.P. Instead, a hybridized economy focused on

hunting and gathering with some farming, along with a fairly high residential

mobility, persisted in the area well into the second millennium B.P.

While some parts of the Southwest were very slow to change their hunting-and-

gathering subsistence focus, others, especially in the Tucson Basin of southeastern

Arizona and in parts of northern Chihuahua and Sonora, quickly began to adapt to a

horticultural focus once maize was available (see Mabry [2005] for a survey of

recent research; Carpenter et al. [2005] for early agricultural sites in Sonora). Over

the past 15 years or so, our understanding of the advent of farming in the Southwest

has been significantly altered. In the Tucson Basin, numerous surveys and

excavations projects have uncovered villages of maize farmers c. 3000 B.P., and

perhaps earlier (Huckell 1995, pp. 117–122; Mabry 2005, p. 53). A number of these

villages were very large, with hundreds of pithouses, probably indicative of

communal occupational stability despite the fact that the pithouses themselves

needed to be replaced periodically (Gregory 1999, 2001; Mabry 1997a, b, 2002,

2005, p. 64). A few of the sites display extensive storage features (Huckell et al.

2002), and some communities built water control features such as irrigation canals

and wells (Ezzo and Deaver 1998; Gregory 1999, 2001; Gregory and Diehl 2002;

Mabry 1997a, b, 2002, 2005). Canals and wells would have required significant

labor resources to construct and maintain and may imply a level of organization

unexpected for the period. These populations probably occupied the villages over

most or all of the year.

Similarly, Cerro Juanaquena, in northern Chihuahua, was occupied by a notably

sedentary population (Hard and Roney 1998; Roney and Hard 2002). This trinchera,

or terraced hillside, dates from 3300 to 2100 B.P. and shows extensive residential

and farming use. The construction necessary to create the terraces on Cerro

Juanaquena would have required an estimated 30 person-years (Roney and Hard

2002, p. 174). Nestled within these terraces are 200 rock rings approximately 2 m in

diameter that appear to have been footings for brush houses. Artifacts found at the

site include mortars and pestles, stone pipes, spindle whorls, cruciforms, manos, and

metates. Maize, squash, and domesticated amaranth were among the botanical

remains found at the site. The excavators estimate that 100–200 people may have

lived at the site for 9 months out of the year for a period spanning 200 years. While

it is the most well known, Cerro Juanaquena is only one of several Late Archaic

trincheras identified in the Rıo Casas Grandes region (Hard and Roney 2004, 2005;

Hard et al. 2006).

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Given the dramatically different patterns for when and how the use of maize led

to greater residential stability across the region, an obvious question is: Why is the

patterning so variable? Scholars in the region have taken a number of diverse

approaches to explain these regional differences. Some have pointed out the

differences in environmental richness and diversity between the western and eastern

parts of the Southwest (Doleman 2005; Hard and Roney 2005). They indicate that

the local environments in the Tucson Basin and along the Rıo Casas Grandes are

very productive and would have offered a wide diversity of food resources. This

would have encouraged the development of a collector lifeway, with relatively long

occupations at residential sites and high levels of logistical mobility. When maize

and squash became available, the people in these areas would have easily

incorporated new staples into their diets and adjusted their foraging patterns. The

northern Chihuahuan desert east of the Rıo Casas Grandes and up into southern New

Mexico, however, is significantly less productive and offers lower resource

diversity. Moreover, it does not have reliable plant and animal species offering high

nutritional quality. This is much more likely to have resulted in a forager lifeway

with correspondingly high levels of residential mobility among the preagricultural

hunters and gatherers. Populations would not already be residentially sedentary and

thus would not be preadjusted to the requirements of a farming subsistence base.

Wills (1988, 1992; Wills and Huckell 1994) approaches the issue from a different

direction. He suggests that early farmers must have been able to use farming to

supplement their foraging and would have planted crops in locations where they

planned longer occupations, such as fall and winter camps. The addition of a

predictable resource (cultigens) would have enabled groups to stay in a potentially

favorable location for longer periods, allowing them to find and collect high-quality

wild food resources. For example, people may have planted cultigens near base

camps in upland areas amidst abundant pinon pines, which provide highly nutritious

seeds but produce good harvests only occasionally. ‘‘The increased spatial and

temporal predictability afforded by stored cultigens in the Southwest may have

helped make wild resource procurement more effective…’’ (Wills and Huckell

1994, p. 51). This strategy places priority on foraged resources but uses agriculture

to enable more efficient use of those wild foods.

Wills (2006) stresses that in regions outside the Southwest, people are assumed

(or known ethnographically) to have switched between farming and foraging,

depending on local social and environmental factors (the Fremont, discussed below,

is one example). He suggests that the same was true for early agricultural

populations, particularly because early maize cultivation was not greatly productive

and so would not have supplanted the need for foraging. Wills believes that

underlying social and economic organization in the Southwest probably also

allowed this kind of resource extraction flexibility. Wills (2006, p. 123) sees

technological and subsistence continuity between the preagricultural foragers and

the early agricultural peoples in the Southwest, which to him suggests that we

should not look to migrating farmers as the best explanation for the patchy mosaic

of early agricultural sites in the region.

While Doleman (2005), Hard and Roney (2005), and Wills (1988, 1992, 2006;

Wills and Huckell 1994) use implicitly evolutionary arguments in their debate about

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the transition to agriculture, Diehl (1997, 2001; Diehl and Waters 2006) has framed

his examination of the topic explicitly using behavioral ecology. Because it allows

researchers to quantitatively evaluate competing subsistence strategies, behavioral

ecology would seem to be an excellent tool to examine the transition between

foraging and farming (Bettinger 2006; Kennett and Winterhalder 2006; Smith 2006;

Winterhalder and Kennett 2006), but application of this tool to the topic is in its

early stages. Working primarily in southeastern Arizona, Diehl and Waters (2006)

note that foraging provided a significant contribution to Late Archaic/Early

Agricultural period diets, as documented by the numbers of plant and animal taxa

found in San Pedro and Cienega phase sites. It was not until c. 1850 B.P., almost

2000 years after maize was first available in the region, that people dramatically

restricted foraging and residential mobility. Diehl concludes that Early Agricultural

period peoples were neither foragers nor farmers, but rather used a flexible mixture

of both subsistence practices to create a stable lifeway for over 1000 years. Reliance

on ethnographic accounts of historic farmers and foragers, who were not practicing

a similar mix, may thus lead us astray. He also notes (Diehl 2001, p. 203) that

whereas optimal foraging models maximize energetic return rates, usually

quantified in kilocalories per hour, Late Archaic/Early Agricultural period

forager-horticulturists were probably also concerned with other nutritional qualities,

just as we are today. Energetically suboptimal foods may have been added to the

diet, sometimes at the expense of higher-ranked foods, to provide essential nutrients.

This may account for continued foraging of some wild foods such as cacti fruits

during the Late Archaic/Early Agricultural period as well as later.

The Fremont: Foragers and farmers on the edge of the Great Basin

Related to but distinct from research on the origin of agriculture in the Southwest is

the enigma known as the Fremont. The Fremont have sometimes been seen as the

extreme northern extent of the Pueblo tradition of arid-lands farming (Cordell 1997,

pp. 212–215), but unlike their neighbors to the south, the Fremont created a

geographically and temporally interleaved pattern of farming and foraging between

about 1600 and 800 B.P. (Adovasio 1986), with most sites dating to the last

500 years of that range (Barlow 2002, p. 65). The Fremont material record raises

many research questions, including their origins and their later fate. From a

perspective of trying to understand why or how gathering-and-hunting peoples turn

to producing food, however, the most interesting aspect of the Fremont is the

balance they negotiated between foraging and farming.

The Fremont period postdates early agriculture in adjacent parts of the Southwest

by 1000 or more years, so these people were not quick to take advantage of

domesticates. DNA analysis on skeletal remains from Fremont sites shows

homogeneity in population genetics, indicating gene flow throughout the region,

while stable isotope analysis on the same sample shows subsistence variability

ranging from full-time farmers to full-time foragers (Zeanah and Simms 1999).

Understanding this adaptive diversity has guided many recent studies on the

Fremont (Madsen and Simms 1998; Simms 1999; Spangler 2000a).

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It is not clear to researchers (Barlow 2002; Zeanah and Simms 1999) why the

assumptions of group selection that underlie many applications of behavioral

ecology in the Great Basin do not apply here, and why, in fact, individual selection

would lead to such variability in subsistence choices. Barlow (2002, 2006) uses

behavioral ecology to address this problem. She ranked various plant foods,

including maize farmed with simple technologies, by caloric return rates and found

that, in general, maize energetic returns are lower than those for ‘‘nearly all Great

Basin hunting opportunities, most insect foods, and many fruits and nuts’’ (Barlow

2002, p. 83) and that maize agriculture compares to moderate- and low-ranked plant

foods collected by women worldwide. Therefore, maize agriculture should be

pursued only when wild-food options are less attractive. Barlow (2006) suggests

that foragers would make the decision to farm based on their marginal energetic

returns on each strategy and that many Fremont people may have weighed these two

options frequently, perhaps even yearly. Foraging would be the choice when high-

value wild foods such as game and nuts are abundant, but farming would be the best

strategy if (1) medium-ranked wild foods were the alternative, (2) farming

conditions were favorable, and (3) seasonal foraging patterns made it likely that the

forager would return to the area for harvest. Many Fremont farmers were probably

minimally invested in their fields, using plant-and-harvest or slash-and-burn

strategies, and probably even left them to follow foraging opportunities. Barlow

(2006, pp. 101–102) suggests that further understanding will come from gathering

more ethnographic data on modern maize farmers, conducting additional and more

detailed environmental and paleoenvironmental studies that can be applied to

Fremont sites, and a reexamination of the archaeological data pertaining to Fremont

diet and agricultural strategies.

Social identity and migration

Did migrating farmers bring agriculture into the Southwest?

Some researchers believe that farmers migrating into the Southwest introduced

cultigens into the region. Although this idea is not new (Berry and Berry 1986;

Carpenter et al. 2002, 2005; Matson 1991, 2007), it has returned to the spotlight

through recent research by Hill (2001, 2002, 2006), a linguist working with

vocabularies associated with maize cultivation. Hill (2006, p.640) believes that Uto-

Aztecan-speaking peoples are the most likely agents of the early spread of maize in

the region, and they probably became the Western Basketmaker II group identified

by Matson (1991) as intrusive cultivators. LeBlanc (2008) neatly evaluates the data

that support this idea and suggests that the best way to test it is through ancient and

modern DNA analyses. By testing artifacts such as aprons and quids for preserved

ancient human DNA (LeBlanc et al. 2007) and comparing those results to the DNA

patterns of modern Native Americans from known linguistic groups, we may be able

to track the arrival and occupations of Uto-Aztecan groups into the Southwest. This

research program, however, has several issues that must be overcome before it will

be able to provide the supporting data LeBlanc and others would like to see. They

must first create a large and diverse comparative data set of DNA from modern

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Native Americans, a task that may be difficult in the current political climate. In

addition, modern DNA is generally not a good comparison for understanding

distributions of past populations due to centuries of relocation and intermarriage in

modern populations. A large database of ancient DNA from the regions of interest

would be the only reliable comparison. LeBlanc and his team must produce a

significant data set of ancient DNA, not just from the Western Basketmaker II group

but also from earlier and contemporary populations, if they hope to support the idea

of a migrating incursion into the Four Corners region. They also should consider

looking at the male ‘‘Y’’ chromosome to examine the possibility of a migration

solely or largely by males and subsequent incorporation of already resident female

foragers in the new homeland. And they must be able to show that whatever level of

‘‘Uto-Aztecan’’ DNA they find in the past can only have been the result of a

migrating group, perhaps by developing a detailed model, such as that created by

Cabana et al. (2008), to evaluate the mitochondrial DNA evidence for potentially

intrusive groups in the Great Basin. LeBlanc et al.’s (2007) research is in its early

stages and they have not yet accomplished these goals.

Mabry et al. (2008) take another approach, analyzing technological style in

projectile points, radiocarbon dates, and other archaeological data to evaluate this

hypothesis for the Arizona-Sonora borderlands. Their investigation focuses on the

design aspects of the hafting elements of points, which they believe are less visible

and thus more indicative of enculturative traditions. They conclude that Hill’s

(2001) linguistic model is not fully supported by their research (Mabry et al. 2008,

p. 172). Instead, they suggest that there are some data that support the idea of a

preagricultural proto-Uto-Aztecan expansion into the Southwest, creating a

linguistic and cultural continuum along which later cultigens spread. However,

they advocate the idea that the borderlands were reoccupied after the Middle

Holocene from both the north and the south and that maize and other early cultigens

spread into and through the Southwest through a combination of both migration and

diffusion.

Richerson et al. (2001) offer an interesting perspective on early agriculture,

proposing that the practice of agriculture was impossible during the Pleistocene due

to climatic conditions but because of rapidly increasing populations, it was essential

during the Holocene. They present climatic data from the Pleistocene to show that

the agricultural processes of adapting plants to new niches and increasing their

productivity would have been impossible due to climatic variability and low carbon

dioxide levels. The authors argue that once the Holocene began, agriculture

developed in up to ten different locations around the world as people began to

experiment with resource intensification.

Explaining the historic distribution of Uto-Aztecan speakers

Even as some archaeologists have focused on a migration of Uto-Aztecan speakers

from Mexico into the Southwest as a possible mechanism for the arrival of maize and

squash, anthropologists in the Great Basin have their own Uto-Aztecan problem,

namely, explaining how, when, and why peoples speaking Numic languages (a subset

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of Uto-Aztecan languages) arrived in the region. Figure 4 shows the historic

distribution of Numic peoples in and around the Great Basin.

Using glottochronology and building on the work of earlier anthropologists,

Lamb (1958) proposed that the historic peoples of the region spoke languages that

had been separated from each other for about 2000 years. Lamb further postulated

that Numic-speaking peoples were confined to southeastern California, which is the

southwestern corner of the Great Basin, until about 1000 years ago, when they

moved northward and eastward to ultimately populate the entire region (Sutton and

Rhode 1994). This proposal spurred Great Basin archaeologists to attempt to

identify one or more migrations of Numic-speaking groups into the region (Grayson

1993, pp. 258–272, 1994; Sutton and Rhode 1994). There have been numerous

attempts to do so (Grayson 1993, pp. 258–272; Kelly 1997, pp. 31–35; Madsen and

Rhode 1994; Sutton and Rhode 1994) but thus far there is no unanimous agreement

as to when the Numa may have been moving into and through the region or how to

identify their presence. As with the proposed Uto-Aztecan people migrating into the

Fig. 4 Historic distribution of Numic languages in the Great Basin (after Madsen and Rhode 1994,frontispiece)

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Southwest, the point of difficulty is that language is not preserved archaeologically

and that we know of no artifact or feature classes that are unquestionable correlates

of language groups. Despite this, researchers have found what they believe may be

archaeological markers of Numic-speaking groups, as described below.

Basing his reasoning in behavioral ecology, Bettinger (e.g., 1994, 1999, p. 62;

Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982) believes that he can see traces of the Numic

expansion about 1000 B.P. in a shift from ‘‘traveler’’ to ‘‘processor’’ adaptations and

in changing patterns of social relations and food-sharing rules, such that the Numa

considered a greater variety of gathered and hunted foods private rather than public

goods. His analysis posits that the earlier peoples in the region used a relatively

narrow range of resources, selecting those that required little processing to be

edible, but had to travel longer distances to acquire those higher-ranking resources.

The Numic-speaking migrants, in comparison, used a much broader array of

resources, incorporating abundant foods that required significant processing

investment. This latter adaptation would support a much higher population density

on the same landscape and would favor peoples who practiced it in the face of

selective competition. Bettinger looks not to any single artifact class but at social

and economic organization to distinguish between the pre-Numic and Numic

populations. Bettinger’s hypothesis has been incorporated into the work of

Hildebrandt and McGuire (2002; McGuire and Hildebrandt 2005) and has been

greatly influential in framing the debate and in the formation of competing

hypotheses (Sutton and Rhode 1994).

In comparison to Bettinger’s model, Aikens (1994; Aikens and Witherspoon

1986) suggests that the central Great Basin was populated by Numic-speaking

peoples for at least the past 3500 years, with non-Numic-speaking peoples to either

side. After a severe episode of aridity roughly 1000 years ago, the Numic-speaking

populations expanded into empty landscapes to the east and west, which had been

abandoned due to drought. Aikens (1994, p. 43) suggests that this pattern of

occupation and reoccupation by Numic-speaking peoples may have occurred

multiple times. His model builds on paleoenvironmental research and an apparent

continuity in the archaeological record from c. 4500 B.P. to the ethnographic

present (Sutton and Rhode 1994, p. 13), and also on linguistic analyses of the

relationships between the various Great Basin Numic languages.

The last widely cited model for the Numic expansion was developed by Sutton

(1994; Sutton and Rhode 1994) and, like Bettinger’s model, uses an optimal

foraging framework to explain the migration. In concert with Lamb (1958), Sutton

believes that the ancestors of the ethnographic Great Basin Numic-speaking peoples

lived in the southwestern corner of the region, perhaps along the eastern flanks of

the Sierra Nevada. He suggests that a drying trend c. A.D. 1000 motivated people to

leave that area and that they used aggression to move into and control areas with

critical resources. Due to their large numbers, however, they overexploited these

resources, ensuring continued expansion into and over the entire Great Basin.

All of the aforementioned models have been criticized, and the difficulty of using

archaeology to prove linguistic hypotheses has been vigorously debated in the Great

Basin literature. Kelly (1997) suggests that rather than treating ethnicity as the unit

of analysis, it might be more rewarding to look at the nature of ethnic boundary

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maintenance. He writes, ‘‘Ethnicity is part of an adaptation, not just a unit of

adaptation’’ (Kelly 1997, p. 34). How people relate to others they perceive as

different channels behavior as much as environment, technology, and population

density. Language and ethnicity are just two of the tools used to strengthen or

weaken boundaries between groups. Studies of chaıne operatoire (Lemonnier

1986), which can be helpful in identifying craft-training traditions and thus

endogamous groups, may prove useful in discerning group boundaries in the Great

Basin (see Geib [2002] for an example using lithics), even when they are relatively

porous.

Grayson (1993, pp. 258–272, 1994) is very skeptical of glottochronology. He

believes that archaeologists must first ascertain whether there is something to

discover. He is open to a wide window of time when the Numic-speaking peoples

may have entered and filled the Great Basin, but at present we do not know when,

where, or how they entered the region (Grayson 1993, pp. 270–271). Linguistic

problems, he says, are not easily solved through archaeological research, a view that

others agree with (Hughes 1994; Jones 1994; Knack 1994; Simms 1994).

Other researchers (Aikens 1994; Bettinger 1994; Madsen 1994) disagree with

Grayson. Perhaps the most compelling cases are made by those who study

perishable classes of artifacts (Adovasio 1986; Adovasio and Pedler 1994; Fowler

1994). Informed by the concept of habitus (Bourdieu 1977) and by craft-training

models, these archaeologists believe that new populations can be seen through

technological style in baskets (Adovasio 1986; Adovasio and Pedler 1994) and

perhaps in other perishable artifacts (Fowler 1994). Mitochondrial DNA also offers

new research possibilities to evaluate both the timing and the mechanism for late

Numic population dominance in the region (e.g., Cabana et al. 2008; Kelly 2007, pp.

74–75). Although this technology comes with its own challenges, the data it

provides, when combined with archaeology and linguistics, may prove conclusive.

Building on years of archaeological and linguistic research on Great Basin Uto-

Aztecan speakers, Sutton (2000) evaluates the possibility that the Hopi, the only

southwestern Puebloan group to speak a Uto-Aztecan language, may have moved

into the region from the north. This explanation conflicts with one discussed above,

that southwestern Uto-Aztecan speakers moved into the region from the south and

arrived at the same time as maize and squash and, moreover, that they introduced an

agricultural adaptation into the region (Hill 2001; LeBlanc 2008). According to

Sutton, a consideration of the southwestern Hopi also should include an assessment

of the possible role of the Southern Numic (Paiute-Ute), whose historic territories

are geographically close to the Hopi. While outside the scope of this article, the

question of Hopi ethnogenesis has been a productive focus for a number of

southwestern archaeologists (e.g., Bernardini 2005; Lyons 2003).

As elsewhere in the West, California prehistory is rife with questions of

migration, cultural change, and how archaeologists can tell the difference between

the two. At least some of the proposed groups that may have migrated into the

region include Uto-Aztecan speakers. Examining possible migrations is an active

research issue in the southern Bight (Arnold et al. 2004, p. 23; Byrd and Raab 2007),

central California coast (Jones et al. 2007), and throughout the state (Jones and Klar

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2007b). Among the tools being used to address this issue are mitochondrial DNA

(Eshleman and Smith 2007) and linguistics (Golla 2007).

Looking explicitly at social identity

Some archaeologists use one aspect of practice theory (Bourdieu 1977) and

characteristics of technological production (Lemonnier 1986) to examine the

western Archaic. Although practice theory is most often used to examine the

reproduction and transformation of social structures, including those that reinforce

social inequality, the concept also incorporates habitus, a component of particular

interest to archaeologists examining social identity because of its subconscious

quality. In addition, chaıne operatoire can operate at a subconscious level (Dietler

and Herbich 1998). When people consciously copy artifact styles borrowed from

others, they often make the new artifacts using their old manufacturing processes

and materials. These retained practices result in artifacts that look very much like

those made by neighbors but that are subtly different in small details.

Geib (2000) uses sandals from Early to Middle Holocene sites in southeastern

Utah/northeastern Arizona to understand why the Early Holocene open-twined

sandals of the northern Colorado Plateau were replaced with warp-faced plain

weave sandals, a form that was prevalent earlier to the south. Based on his analysis

of the northern sandals, he sees technological differences from the southern sandals

and a continuity of manufacturing techniques, such as the treatment of the toe weft

and foot attachment method, in both twined and plain weave sandals. Geib suggests

that the more northerly people may have purposely adapted a new sandal form that

would make them look more like their neighbors to the south during a period of

climatic stress. This shift, which may have been visible in footprints on the arid

landscape, would have made it easier to participate in an expanded network of

forager bands (Geib 2000, p. 520), perhaps relaxing a ‘‘social boundary defense’’ by

looking like members of the other social group.

McBrinn (2005, 2008) examines social identity and economic networking in New

Mexico during the early Late Holocene. She looks at projectile points, cordage, and

sandals from four rock shelters in two areas and finds that while technological style

is shared in cordage and sandals among the sites in each area but not between areas,

projectile points and visible attributes of sandals are similar across all four sites.

Building on ethnographic studies of hunters and gatherers in arid regions, she

concludes that different endogamous groups with dissimilar craft-training traditions

occupied the two areas in her study, but that the peoples in both areas were members

of a larger economic network that would have allowed members access to

neighboring territories and resources in times of need. She asserts that foragers have

social lives beyond the band and that those extra-band social organizations are both

stable and appropriate for archaeological examination, particularly when using a

regional or diachronic perspective.

Adovasio (1986, 2005; Adovasio and Peddler 1994; Adovasio et al. 2007) and his

students (e.g., Hyland et al. 2005) have long used many of the ideas encapsulated by

habitus and chaıne operatoire to identify past social groups in the Great Basin,

Southwest, and elsewhere. These archaeologists specialize in analyses of perishable

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artifacts, especially basketry, in the belief that the technological complexity of

textiles in general and basketry specifically is ideal for revealing social differences

not visible in other artifacts. They are joined by many other archaeologists (e.g.,

Connolly and Barker 2008; Fowler and Hattori 2008; Jolie and Jolie 2008; Webster

2007) who examine baskets, sandals, and textiles and view them as uniquely

valuable windows into the social lives of past peoples.

The ritual and symbolic

Beyond questions of subsistence, mobility, and technological innovation, some

archaeologists are attempting to identify other aspects of prehistoric lifeways during

the Archaic period. Religious belief in past societies has long been of interest to

archaeologists. Rock art has most often been studied in this kind of research for

hunting and gathering cultures. The recent interest in using the neuropsychological

technique for interpreting rock art (e.g., Whitley 2000, 2005) is an indication of how

eagerly the profession welcomes new approaches to understanding this enigmatic

but informative class of data. While southwestern rock art has been the focus of

most of the archaeological research on Archaic religious views and practices

(Schaafsma 1980), the region also boasts twig figurines of zoomorphs in the western

half of the Four Corners region. These figurines are found only in Late Holocene

site components and are best known from Grand Canyon ritual sites. Coulam and

Schroedl (2004) propose that these artifacts filled different roles depending on

where they are found. They suggest that these are not toys or fetishes but instead are

totems, items that were communally used for fertility magic or for social

identification. They conclude that the function of these figurines was to increase

hunting magic at the ritual Grand Canyon sites and that they were used as social

totems elsewhere, at the Green River sites and in Colorado River sites outside the

Grand Canyon. The period discussed overlaps strongly with that proposed by

Hildebrandt and McGuire (2002, 2003; McGuire and Hildebrandt 2005) as a period

when ‘‘prestige hunting’’ was ascendant in the Great Basin; it would be interesting

to see Coulam and Schroedl unite their increase totem argument with the costly

signaling premise.

An argument against the costly signaling behavior posited by Hildebrandt and

McGuire (2002, 2003; McGuire and Hildebrandt 2005) and discussed above refutes

the suggestion that the rock art of the Coso Range, showing bighorn sheep and

hunters, was created as hunting magic. Instead, that art has been interpreted as

shamanistic in origin, showing not hunters and prey, as suggested by Hildebrandt

and McGuire, but instead depicting the experiences of shamans as they enter states

of trance, including aggression, ‘‘death’’ or entrance into the supernatural, sexual

arousal, and bodily transformation (Whitley 2000, 2005, pp. 117–119). It is

interesting to note that this shamanistic reading of Great Basin forager rock art has

itself come under criticism for assumptions that all forager shamans are like those in

South Africa, where the neuropsychological approach was first developed (McCall

2007). More specifically, some Great Basin rock art researchers (Cannon and Ricks

2007, pp. 107–108; Cannon and Woody 2007, pp. 39–42) point out that Great Basin

shamans and other creators of rock art are likely to have included women, and that

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androcentric interpretations of rock art are a particularly serious problem (Cannon

and Woody 2007).

Conclusion

Archaeologists are studying the Archaic period with renewed vigor by focusing

their efforts on many areas that reach beyond the traditional questions of subsistence

and mobility. Topics include the adoption of agriculture, material culture correlates

of migrations, the advent of and increases in social complexity, and even ritual and

symbolic aspects of life. Researchers are bringing new methods and theoretical

approaches to bear on these questions, some borrowed from ethnographers and

many evolutionary in orientation. The influence of postprocessual theoretical

thought has broadened investigations to include considerations of gender and,

especially along the Pacific Coast, the creation and maintenance of social inequality.

In the arenas of subsistence and mobility—topical mainstays for research on

hunters and gatherers—the research questions are changing. For example, rather

than stopping with a list of plant and animal remains found at a site, archaeologists

are attempting to better understand why ancient people chose particular plant and

animal resources and how those choices influenced their mobility strategies, shaped

gender roles, and affected categories of public and private goods. In essence, we are

asking more sophisticated and nuanced questions of our data.

Cultural Resource Management surveys and excavations have exponentially

increased the volume and quality of archaeological data on the Archaic period;

however, much of these new data are buried in gray literature and only accessible to

the most determined individuals. The data that have been published in books and

peer-reviewed journals have yielded real surprises such as the large Early

Agricultural villages in the Tucson Basin and the existence of Middle Holocene

house pits in the Wyoming Basin. This large volume of data also allows new kinds

of archaeological inquiry and is particularly valuable to scholars addressing

diachronic questions of mobility, landscape use, and settlement systems.

Regional differences in exploiting the many intriguing theoretical approaches

and new techniques are surprising but show that we have much to learn from our

colleagues. For example, while behavioral ecology and other evolutionary

perspectives are almost ubiquitous in the Great Basin, and some California and

Southwest archaeologists also are using an evolutionary orientation, there are many

more questions that would benefit from this approach. For example, human

behavioral ecology might be ideal for addressing why people in the northeastern

parts of the Southwest were so slow to commit to farming, adopting widespread

agriculture centuries behind their neighbors to the west. Hard and Roney (2005) and

Doleman (2005) have begun to apply this theoretical perspective to explain delayed

sedentism and acceptance of farming in the Jornada Mogollon region in the

southeastern part of the Southwest, but their arguments thus far are conceptual

rather than detailed. Part of the problem may be that return rates for plant and

animal resources in those areas are limited, although a few do exist. Diehl (1997,

2001; Diehl and Waters 2006) has created a list of resource return rates for the

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Tucson Basin, which has enabled his application of human behavioral ecology to

examine the advent of farming at that location. The return rates used in the Great

Basin result from a long history of anthropologists and archaeologists pursuing

cultural ecology in the region. Barlow’s (2002, 2006) research on the questions of

when and why the Fremont farmed in the eastern Great Basin provides valuable data

and a model for similar research in the Southwest.

Research attempting to explain the historic distribution of language groups has

flourished in the Great Basin, in the Southwest, and in much of California, although

the results remain ambiguous. While some archaeologists (Grayson 1993, 1994)

question the utility of this research, arguing that congruence between glottochro-

nology and archaeology is probably unachievable, others have found the effort

stimulating (e.g., Aikens 1994; Aikens and Witherspoon 1986; Bettinger 1994;

Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982; LeBlanc 2008; Mabry et al. 2008; Sutton 1994,

2000).

The concepts of habitus (Bourdieu 1977) and chaıne operatoire (Lemonnier

1986) are helpful in addressing questions of social identity. Research using these

techniques has been useful when applied to nonperishable artifacts, as well as to

basketry, cordage, and other perishables. Adovasio (1986; Adovasio and Peddler

1994) used these techniques on basketry to examine the question of Numic

migration in the Great Basin; this approach also could be productively applied to

other artifact classes as well. When it comes to basketry and textiles, however, Great

Basin archaeologists start with a great advantage. Researchers in that region have

been very proactive about dating fiber artifacts (e.g., Connolly and Barker 2008;

Fowler and Hattori 2008, pp. 66–67), providing a secure chronology to build on.

The term ‘‘archaic’’ is problematic given that it refers to both a lifeway and a

chronological period, and as such it may seem as undifferentiated and generalized as

the subsistence pattern for which it is named. Use of the term implies that earlier

and later peoples were not generalized foragers, which is not true for earlier peoples

in the Great Basin and in parts of the Southwest. Adding insult to injury, the highly

localized terminology archaeologists have created to describe the regional and

subregional variations in lifeways and material culture throughout the West creates

a muddle of mutual incomprehensibility. A more widespread use of the terms Early,

Middle, or Late Holocene may help cut through some of this tangle of regional and

subregional terminology.

The regional preference for certain research perspectives within the western U.S.

is old and deep. For example, archaeologists in the Great Basin are working where

Steward (1938) and Jennings (1957, 1973) established ethnographically and

archaeologically that there were strong interrelationships between environment

and culture. Beyond that, many current researchers in the region are students of

Jennings or of his colleagues. In this academic environment, human behavioral

ecology, built on an underlying assumption that cultural practices are clearly

influenced by environment, is a comfortable fit. Likewise, southwestern archaeol-

ogists are working in a region where systematics, such as the Gladwin (Gladwin and

Gladwin 1934) and Pecos (Kidder 1927) classifications, were developed early and

remain important. Archaeologists in the region have focused on chronologies and

definitions of material culture types and have been slower to look to the local

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environment for explanation. For example, the first decades of research on early

agriculture focused on finding sites where early maize was present and then

identifying the characteristics of that maize, such as counting the number of rows on

a cob, rather than examining how this domesticate may have fit into extant

subsistence patterns. In addition, archaeologists who specialize in hunters and

gatherers are a small minority in the Southwest. The way that we will transcend and

surpass our regional research perspectives is to read widely and to devote time and

effort discovering the theoretical approaches and methodologies that our colleagues

outside the region are using in their work.

There are many research questions that are generally not being asked about the

Archaic period, especially questions that are noneconomic in nature. Archaeologists

working in post-Archaic periods in the Southwest, for example, are examining

gender, social interaction, exchange, place and memory, and ethnogenesis, among

other topics. While many of these archaeologists work with ceramics, oral history,

and architecture—data classes that are largely unavailable to those examining the

Archaic period—others are examining site selection, rock art, basketry and textiles,

and stone tool materials—data classes that are available to Archaic period

researchers as well. With ingenuity, we can ask more questions about the Archaic

period and extend our research to address more fully the lives of past people. We

will all benefit by staying aware of productive research perspectives and techniques

being used elsewhere, whether it be in other regions or in other chronological

periods. This is an exciting time to be working on Archaic period sites. With new

sites, new kinds of data, and new approaches, we will continue to better understand

the hunters and gatherers of the past. In many ways, we are just beginning that

enterprise.

Acknowledgments Eric Parrish created the maps and charts that illustrate this article. Jeffery Ferguson,

Edward Jolie, Phil Geib, Marc Levine, Craig Lee, and Jamie Forde brought additional literature to my

attention and offered thoughtful suggestions on earlier drafts of the manuscript. In addition, Don Fowler,

Kent Lightfoot, and three anonymous reviewers provided insightful advice. I am grateful to all for their

assistance. I also thank Gary Feinman and T. Douglas Price for the opportunity to write this article.

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