Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-ttngx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-17T06:21:11.027Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Emperor's New Clothes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

David B. Madsen
David B. Madsen*
Affiliation:
State Archaeologist, Antiquities Section, Division of State History, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The use of systematically derived site location data in defining subsistence systems has increased markedly. However, the logical fallacy in the approach has never been discussed. Sites in a particular environmental setting may have been occupied for a variety of reasons at a variety of times (this is particularly true of "ecotone" sites). As a result, the assumption that a particular adaptive strategy may have been in force is, in the absence of any subsistence data, extremely questionable. Locational data may be useful in formulating hypotheses which can be tested through procurement of subsistence data, but in themselves they cannot be used to demonstrate the accuracy of a hypothetical subsistence system.

Type
Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , July 1981 , pp. 637 - 640
Copyright
Copyright © Society for American Archaeology 1981

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

References Cited

Bettinger, Robert L. 1975 The surface archaeology of Owens Valley, eastern California: prehistoric man-land relationships in the Great Basin. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Riverside.Google Scholar
Bettinger, Robert L. 1976 The development of pinyon exploitation in central eastern California. Journal of California Anthropology 3:81–95.Google Scholar
Bettinger, Robert L. 1977 Aboriginal human ecology in Owens Valley, eastern California: prehistoric change in the Great Basin. American Antiquity 41:3–17.Google Scholar
Bettinger, Robert L. 1978 Alternative adaptive strategies in the prehistoric Great Basin. Journal of Anthropological Research 34:27–46.Google Scholar
Bettinger, Robert L. 1979 Multivariate statistical analysis of a regional subsistence-settlement model for Owens Valley. American Antiquity 44:455–470.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jennings, Jesse D. 1957 Danger Cave. Memoirs of the Society for American Archaeology 14.Google Scholar
LaMarche, V. C Jr., 1973 Holocene climatic variations inferred from tree-line fluctuations in the White Mountains, California. Quaternary Research 3:632–660.Google Scholar
Madsen, David B. 1979 Preliminary analysis of prehistoric occupation patterns, subsistence adaptations, and chronology in the Fish Springs area, Utah. Report to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management. Ms. on file, Antiquities Section, Salt Lake City. Google Scholar
McGuire, Kelly M., and Garfinkel, Alan P. 1976 Comment on “The development of pinyon exploitation in central eastern California.” Journal of California Anthropology 3(2):83–84.Google Scholar
Mehringer, Peter J. 1977 Great Basin Late Quaternary environments and chronology. In Models and Great Basin prehistory: a symposium, edited by Fowler, Don D.. University of Nevada Desert flesearch Institute Publications in the Social Sciences 12:113–167.Google Scholar
O'Connell, James F. 1975 The prehistory of Surprise Valley. Ballena Press Anthropological Papers 4.Google Scholar
Rhoades, Robert E. 1978 Archaeological use and abuse of ecological concepts and studies: the ecotone example. American Antiquity 43:608–614.Google Scholar
Steward, Julian H. 1938 Basin-Plateau aboriginal sociopolitical groups. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 120.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1971 Prehistoric subsistence-settlement patterns of the Reese River Volley, central Nevada. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Davis. University Microfilms, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1972a A computer simulation model of Great Basin Shoshonean subsistence and settlement patterns. In Models in archaeology, edited by Clarke, David L., pp. 671–704. Methuen, London.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1972b Western Shoshone ecology. In Great Basin cultural ecology: a symposium edited by Don D. Fowler. University of Nevada Desert flesearch Institute Publications in the Social Sciences 8:135–153.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1973 An empirical test for Steward's model of Great Basin settlement patterns. American Antiquity 38:155–177.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst 1974 An archaeological perspective on Shoshonean bands. American Anthropologist 76:1–23.Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst, and Bettinger, Robert L. 1976 Prehistoric pinon ecotone settlement of the upper Reese River Valley, central Nevada. Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History 53:263–366.Google Scholar
Weide, Margaret 1974 North Warner subsistence network: a prehistoric band territory. Nevada Archaeological Survey flesearch Paper 5:62–79.Google Scholar
Williams, Leonard, Thomas, David Hurst, and Bettinger, Robert 1973 Notions to numbers: Great Basin settlements as polythetic sets. In flesearch and theory in current archeology, edited by Redman, Charles L., pp. 215–237. Wiley, New York.Google Scholar