Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-k7p5g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-15T13:22:35.790Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

An Empirical Test for Steward's Model of Great Basin Settlement Patterns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David Hurst Thomas
David Hurst Thomas*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, The American Museum of Natural History
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Julian Steward's theory of Great Basin cultural ecology and settlement patterns has been subjected to empirical validation. Since the only data available to test this hypothesis are archaeological, it was first necessary to determine the artifactual correlates for the posited ethnographic system. These deductive propositions were determined by the BASIN I computer simulation model. On the basis of data obtained in a regional random sampling project in the Reese Valley of central Nevada, over 75% of the nearly 130 deductive predictions were statistically verified. The rejected propositions probably reflect failure of the computer model rather than shortcomings in Steward's theory. The archaeological manifestation of the Shoshonean pattern is defined as the Reese River Subsistence-Settlement System which operated in the central Great Basin from about 2500 B.C. to historic times.

Type
Articles
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , April 1973 , pp. 155 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1973

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Aikens, C. Melvin 1966 Fremont-Promontory-Plains relations. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 82.Google Scholar
Aikens, C. Melvin 1970 Toward the recognition of cultural diversity in Basin-Plateau prehistory. Northwest Anthropological Research Notes 4:67–74.Google Scholar
Beardsley, Richard K. (Chairman) 1956 Functional and evolutionary implications of community patterning. Society for American Archaeology, Memoir 11:129–157.Google Scholar
Binford, Lewis R. 1964 A consideration of archaeological research design. American Antiquity 29:425–441.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarke, David L. 1968 Analytical archaeology. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Cohen, Yehudi A. 1968 Man in adaptation. Vol. 2: The cultural present. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Cowan, Richard A. 1967 Lake margin ecological exploitation in the Great Basin as demonstrated by an analysis of coprolites from Lovelock Cave, Nevada. University of California Archaeological Survey Reports 70:21–35.Google Scholar
Cowgill, George 1970 Some sampling and reliability problems in archaeology. In Archeologie et calculateurs, Editions du Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, pp. 161–175, Paris.Google Scholar
Damas, David (Editor) 1969 Band societies. National Museum of Canada Contributions to Anthropology, Bulletin 228.Google Scholar
Flannery, Kent V. 1966 The postglacial “readaptation” as viewed from Mesoamerica. American Antiquity 31:800–805.Google Scholar
Fried, Morton H. 1967 The evolution of political society. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Gould, Richard A., Dorothy A., Koster, and Ann H. L., Sontz 1971 The lithic assemblage of the Western Desert Aborigines of Australia. American Antiquity 36:149–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heizer, Robert F., and Lewis K., Napton 1970 Archaeology and the prehistoric Great Basin lacustrine subsistence regime as seen from Lovelock Cave, Nevada. Contributions of the University of California Archaeological Research Facility 10.Google Scholar
Hill, James N. 1970 Broken K Pueblo: prehistoric social organization in the American southwest. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 18.Google Scholar
Hutchings, Selar S., and George, Stewart 1953 Increasing forage yields and sheep production on intermountain winter ranges. U.S. Department of Agriculture Circular 925.Google Scholar
Jennings, J. D. 1957 Danger Cave. University of Utah Anthropological Papers 27.Google Scholar
Kemeny, John G. 1959 A philosopher looks at science. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York.Google Scholar
Kish, Leslie 1965 Survey sampling. John Wiley and Sons, New York.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard B. 1965 Subsistence of the !Kung Bushmen. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard B. 1969 !Kung Bushmen subsistence: an input-output analysis. In Environment and Cultural Behavior, edited by A. P., Vayda, pp. 47–79. American Museum of Natural History, New York.Google Scholar
Lee, Richard, and Irven, DeVore (Editors) 1968 Man the hunter. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
MacNeish, Richard S. 1964 Ancient mesoamerican civilization. Science 143:531–537.Google Scholar
Napton, Lewis K. 1969 Archaeological and paleobiological investigations in Lovelock Cave, Nevada: further analysis of human coprolites. The Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, Special Publication, No. 2.Google Scholar
Owen, Roger C. 1965 The patrilocal band: a linguistically and culturally hybrid social unit. American Anthropologist 67:675–690.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Semenov, S. A. 1964 Prehistoric technology (English translation by M. W., Thompson). Cory, Adams and MacKay, London.Google Scholar
Service, Elman 1962 Primitive social organization. Random House, New York.Google Scholar
Service, Elman 1966 The hunters. Prentice-Hall, New Jersey.Google Scholar
Siegel, Sydney 1956 Nonparametric statistics for the behavioral sciences. McGraw-Hill, New York.Google Scholar
Sokal, Robert R., and F., James Rohlf 1969 Biometry. Freeman, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Sokal, Robert R., and F., James Rohlf 1938 Basin-Plateau aboriginal sociopolitical groups. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1941 Culture element distributions: XIII. Nevada Shoshone. University of California Anthropological Records 4:209–359.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1955 Theory of cultural change. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.Google Scholar
Stewart, Omer C. 1966 Tribal distributions and boundaries in the Great Basin. In The current status of anthropological reserach in the Great Basin, edited by Warren d'Azevedo and others. Social Sciences and Humanities Publications of the Desert Research Institute 1:167–238.Google Scholar
Struever, Stuart 1968 Woodland subsistence-settlement systems in the lower Illinois Valley. In New perspectives in archaeology, edited by Sally, R. and Lewis R., Binford, pp. 285–312. Aldine, Chicago.Google Scholar
Struever, Stuart 1971 Comments on archaeological data requirements and research strategy. American Antiquity 36:9–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1969 Regional sampling in archaeology: a pilot Great Basin research design. University of California Archaeological Survey Annual Report, 1968-1969 11:87–100.Google Scholar
Burling, Robbins 1971a Prehistoric subsistence-settlement patterns of the Reese River Valley, central Nevada. Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Davis. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Burling, Robbins 1971b Data appendix for the Reese River Ecological Project. Archives for California Archaeology , No. 30, Society for California Archaeology. Treganza Anthropology Museum, San Francisco.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1972 A computer simulation model of Great Basin Shoshonean subsistence and settlement patterns. In Models in archaeology, edited by David L., Clarke, pp. 671–704. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
White, J. Peter, and Thomas, David Hurst 1972 What mean these stones?: ethno-taxonomic models and archaeological interpretations in the New Guinea Highlands. In Models in archaeology, edited by David L., Clarke, pp. 275–308. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Wilmsen, Edwin N. 1970 Lithic analysis and cultural inference: a Paleo-Indian case. Anthropological Papers of the University of Arizona 16.Google Scholar