Ecology, Sociopolitical Organization, and Cultural Change on the Southern Plains: A Critical Treatise in the Sociocultural Anthropology of Native North America.

Abstract

Ecology, Sociopolitical Organization, and Cultural Change on the Southern Plains analyzes the literature on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Plains Apache and provides a study of the Plains Indians from prehistoric times to the present. Michael G. Davis tests and refutes John Price's simple hypothesis that related the success of aboriginal culture to preadaptation for modern times. He shows how these groups have been depicted in anthropological literature and in the process critiques the ethnographic enterprise in North America. Contents: The Cultural Preadaptation Hypothesis; Ecological Adaptation and Sociopolitical Organization on the Plains; Testing the Preadaptation Hypothesis; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.