Introduction

This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part looks at the adjacent regions of California, Nevada, and Utah where extensive research on prehistoric hunter-gatherers has been on-going for a number of years. It presents the results of one contract project and illustrates what an explicitly ecological approach can accomplish. The part focuses on the unique southwestern example of hunter-gatherers with access to marine resources. It provides significant new data for northeastern Arizona. It describes the truly miserable state of affairs for Archaic and Paleoindian studies in the portion of the Southwest and discusses an area with much better information on the Archaic. Subsistence strategies and sedentism have been topics of particular focus, with explicit seasonal rounds modeled on the basis of food resource characteristics. In 1984, Bruce ?. Huckell published a report entirely devoted to Archaic adaptations in the northern Santa Rita Mountains of southeastern Arizona.