ABSTRACT
The archaeological record of the Southwest documents the presence of hunter-gatherers in the region for over nine millennia, extending from at least as early as Clovis times well into the Christian era. The close and inevitable dependence of southwestern archaeology on insights drawn from ethnology has been evident for decades. Given the time-depth and richness of the southwestern archaeological record, the study of the region's prehistoric foragers holds tremendous promise for contributing to general understanding of hunter-gatherer adaptations and evolution. The chapter outlines some of the major shifts that are taking place in just one sphere of contemporary hunter-gatherer studies-diet and subsistence. It suggests that the presentation will alert southwestern archaeologists to some of the critical and more interesting changes that are transforming hunter-gatherer studies. Thus, in the Southwest, prehistorians routinely look for archaeological indicators of residential and logistical mobility, and attempt to determine the conditions that favored one pattern over the other.
