Jennings: Prehistory of Utah and the Eastern Great Basin
UC Merced Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology
Title Jennings: Prehistory of Utah and the Eastern Great Basin
Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8c37k2sc
Journal Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology, 1(2)
ISSN 0191-3557
Author Aikens, C. Melvin
Publication Date 1979-07-01
Peer reviewed
eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California 376 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY
Prehistory of Utah and the Eastern Great exceed 10,000 years in age, and some are Basin. Jesse D. Jennings. University of thought to have been made as late as A.D. Utah Anthropological Papers No. 98, 1200. 263 pp., 239 figs., 2 append., $8.00, paper. By 9000 B.P. the Desert Archaic was richly Reviewed by C. MELVIN AIKENS attested at Danger Cave, and a number of Dept. of Anthropology other sites have yielded comparable records. Univ, of Oregon Jennings characterizes this broad-spectrum, Eugene, OR 97403 hunting-gathering lifeway concretely and in Jennings presents a rich synthesis of the considerable detail through an account of the prehistory of Utah and the eastern great Basin excavations at Danger and Hogup caves in in nine chapters, covering the Broad Cultural northern Utah, and at Thorne Cave, Deluge Context, the Natural Setting, the Lithic Stage, Shelter, Sudden Shelter, Cowboy Cave, and the Desert Archaic, the Anasazi, the Fremont, other sites in eastern and south-central Utah. the Historic Peoples, Utah's Prehistoric Heri A very long period is represented, some nine tage, and a summary of 10,000 Years of Utah millennia between the time of earliest Archaic Prehistory. Most of the evidence presented occupation at Danger Cave and the replace was generated through the efforts of Jennings ment of the Archaic pattern throughout Utah himself, beginning with his excavations at the by a horticultural lifeway shortly after the time now-classic site of Danger Cave in 1949, and of Christ. continuing throughout the following decades The Anasazi culture of the Pueblo South as several generations of students worked west became established in southern Utah under his direction and with his support all several centuries after the beginning of the over the region treated in this book. Christian era. A sketch of this village-farming The book is written in a nontechnical style culture in its regional and temporal variants for the benefit of the general reader, but it is is presented through description of such nevertheless detailed and inclusive in cover important sites or localities as Cave DuPont age, making it of interest to Jennings' profes (Basketmaker II), Alkali Ridge (Basketmaker sional colleagues as well. It is lavishly illus lll-Pueblo II), Segazlin Mesa, Bonanza Dune, trated with photographs and drawings from and Three Mile Ruin (Pueblo 11), and the primary reports of the original fieldwork, here Coombs Village (late Pueblo II). Many other reproduced with a clarity and finish which sites are mentioned as well in filling out the often exceeds that found in the original account of the Anasazi way of life as repre sources. sented in the area under consideration. The Lithic Stage, or Paleo-Indian period, The Fremont culture, to the north of the as it might be otherwise referred to, is not Anasazi and roughly contemporaneous with well-attested in Utah; there have been no it, represents a distinctively Utahan culture authenticated finds of extinct fauna associated pattern which grew out of the Desert Archaic with artifacts, although Clovis Fluted points with the local adoption of maize-beans-squash are known as surface finds. Assemblages con horticulture and other elements ultimately of taining ovate handaxe-like specimens or crude Mexican origin. Considerable evidence sug choppers and scrapers of rather "paleolithic" gests that the Fremonters' lifeway was less aspect are known, but where found in datable heavily based on horticulture than was that context, as at the Pine Spring site in south of the Anasazi, and there appears to be signi western Wyoming, such specimens do not ficant regional variation in the relative REVIEWS 377 importance of hunting-gathering and horti The book is well-edited and handsomely culture, as well as in other elements. Data from produced after the usual manner of the selected sites in various parts of Utah are sum University of Utah Press. marized, providing concrete illustration of the extent of variation within the Fremont culture. V In historic times, Utah was inhabited by the Gosiute, Ute, and Southern Paiute, who Ukomno'm: The Yuki Indians of Northern are believed on both archaeological and lin California. Virginia P. Miller. Socorro, guistic grounds to have replaced the Anasazi New Mexico: Ballena Press Anthropo and Fremont peoples some time around A.D. logical Papers No. 14, 1979, 108 pp., 1300. The historic peoples were hunter- 1 map, 8 figs., bibliography, $6.95. gatherers, who followed a lifeway not markedly different from that of the early Reviewed by HELEN McCARTHY occupants of Danger Cave, some 9000 years Dept. of Anthropology Vn'w. of California ago. Thus, as Jennings notes, the story of Utah Davis, CA 95616 prehistory ends as it began, with the foragers of the desert. The Yuki were a unique and little-known This synthesis, though completed in 1973, people who inhabited the isolated, fertile, and was not released until 1978. New evidence of beautiful Round Valley in the North Coast course accumulated in the interim, but some of Range. They are unique because of a physical the most important of the new data and inter stature clearly distinct from other California pretations were added at a late stage of the Indians, unique because of a language appar production process, and the account is ently unrelated to neighboring language respectably current despite the lag between groups or any other North American lan original completion and publication. guages, and unique because of a propensity for Jennings' book is notable in several warfare. As a consequence, their reputation respects: it is the first major synthesis of Utah was established among other Californian prehistory, fittingly done by the man who has Indians for ferociousness. Their uniqueness contributed more to the field than any other; is all the more fascinating for the lack of infor it is dominated throughout by an ecological mation about them. They are so poorly docu perspective which emphasizes adaptation to mented because, although Powers in 1877 and environment as reflected primarily in the food Kroeber in 1925 dealt briefly with them, no economy; it is concrete, stressing archaeo systematic or thorough study was undertaken logical evidence rather than theoretical super until Foster's and Susman's separate efforts structure; and it is interpretive, while remain in the late thirties. These studies resulted in ing tentative and undogmatic in its conclu Foster's (1944) ethnography and reconstruc sions. These attributes make it a valuable tion of pre-contact culture, A Sunumvy of book for layman and professional alike. The Yuki Culture, and Susman's (1976) recent former will find it an interesting, factual, and publication on their acculturation. The Round well-presented account of Utah's prehistoric Valley Indians of California. While better past; the latter will find in it a set of interpre late than never, the thirties was a bit late even tations with which to quibble, leads for further for salvage ethnography to form more than a investigation, and a broad perspective within fragmentary record of history, and Virginia which to appreciate the culture history of an Miller has stepped into this breach with ethno- important part of western North America. historical method.