Aboriginal Human Ecology in Owens Valley: Prehistoric Change in the Great Basin

Abstract

There are two competing views regarding the nature of human adaptation in the Great Basin. One, proposed by Jennings, is that the adaptation was based on the intensive use of all available resources, and remained essentially static from 8000 B.C. to the present, being unaffected by climatic changes. The other view, proposed by Heizer and others, suggests that the regional adaptation varied through time and space, being affected by local resource availability and climatic changes. The validity of these two views was tested by regional surface sampling in Owens Valley, eastern California. Survey data were analyzed by a variety of quantitative and qualitative techniques, revealing a complex sequence of changes in subsistence-settlement patterns. These data tend to support the view that prehistoric adaptation in the Great Basin was variable, rather than static, through time.