Sedentism and Settlement in Native California: Research Progress and Prospects

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe ethnographic literature of California has long attributed some measure of reduced mobility to nearly all of its Native societies, but methods for determining this measure for any given group have greatly varied. Treatment of sedentism in the archaeological literature has been approached from multiple theoretical perspectives, including those derived from cultural evolution, cultural ecology, human behavioral ecology, and neo-Marxism. Here we provide a brief review of the history of treatment regarding the issue of sedentism in California archaeology, beginning with an overview of general theory on hunter-gatherer sedentism in anthropological literature, followed by a review of selected California ethnographic accounts, and regional models. We conclude with recent and encouraging findings from newer analytical studies and offer recommendations to researchers for making progress in future studies on this topic.