Award Date

12-2011

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Anthropology

Department

Anthropology

First Committee Member

Barbara Roth, Chair

Second Committee Member

Alan Simmons

Third Committee Member

Karen Harry

Graduate Faculty Representative

Brenda Buck

Number of Pages

120

Abstract

The environment of the Late Prehistoric period (1200 A.D. to Historic Contact) Mojave Sink was wetter than modern conditions. The settlement and subsistence patterns of the occupants of the region during this period were driven by the availability of water, subsistence resources, raw material sources, and tradition. These people utilized the regional landscape based upon the seasonal availability of these resources. Supplemental agricultural production has been proposed for the Mojave River Delta due to the more favorable environmental conditions of this period. If agriculture was being practiced it would have affected the regional land-use patterns. For this thesis I propose that the archaeological sites in the Mojave Sink are part of a larger landscape that should be evaluated on a regional scale to interpret Late Prehistoric period settlement and subsistence patterns. A portion of the Mojave Sink, which includes the Mojave River Wash and Soda Playa, were sampled to develop a model of Late Prehistoric period landscape use in the Mojave Sink region.

Keywords

Agriculture; Prehistoric; California – Cronese basin; California – Mojave River Region; Landscape; Landscape archaeology; Mojave River wash; Prehistoric peoples; Social sciences; United States – Mojave desert

Disciplines

Archaeological Anthropology | Climate | Desert Ecology | Human Geography | United States History

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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