Madsen and Rhode: Across the West

138 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY times in a discussion of games today, with both at Lake Tahoe, California, at a meeting called current expressions of tradUional games and par the Numic Roundtable. Across the West grew ticipation in the repertoire of Euroamerican out of that roundtable, and the editors and games played on regional and national levels. authors are to be commended for the fine vol Gendar's book is well researched and hand ume they have produced. somely produced. The front cover presents a The work explores what has come to be marvelous painting by L. Frank entitled "This known as the "Numic Problem," which in es is Yo Luck," depicting Bear with various game sence concerns when and how the ancestors of equipment scattered about her feet. This book various speakers of Numic languages came to is a welcome reminder to anthropologists that occupy most of the Intermountain West. Numic California Indian people were not always in is a language family that includes Ute, Paiute, volved in making "optimal choices" but, in Shoshone, and other Uto-Aztecan groups. Peo deed, enjoyed themselves immensely on many ples speaking these languages were encountered occasions. Scholars wUl find this volume de by early Euroamericans throughout the southern lightful, but it will be the interested laymen and Colorado River drainage. Great Basin, northern teachers who will find it most valuable; it is an Colorado Plateau, and Snake River Plain. The ideal complement to anthropological/historical idea that Numic groups were relatively new to materials for classes addressing California Indian the region can be traced to some of the first culture—I suspect that many children, and even chroniclers of the Euroamerican expansion in the adults, will try to play and consequently enjoy middle nineteenth century. Naturally the ques some of these games that they read about here. tions arose, "Where did they come from?" and "When did they get here?" Answers were only generally addressed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A picture of Numic peoples spreading across their historic range in a vast fan-shaped wave from an ancestral home land somewhere in southwestern North America became dominant after linguist Sydney Lamb proposed it in 1958. Since then, the idea of the "Numic Expansion" has gained nearly the status of an old saw. Across the West: Human Population Move However, as Madsen and Rhode observe in ment and the Expansion of the Numa. David their introduction, the apparent consensus around B. Madsen and David Rhode, eds. Salt Lake this issue among archaeologists and linguists is City: University of Utah Press, 1994, xi + now broken. Why? They note four important 255 pp., 37 figs., 15 tables, 18 maps, $51.95 reasons. The first is that local culture histories (paper). have not been well developed in the Intermoun tain West. This means that models of Numic Reviewed by: prehistory cannot be rigorously tested using local JAMES D. WILDE cultural sequences. Secondly, the mechanics or 7923 Moon Walk, San Antonio, TX 78250. processes that account for past migrations in the How do people come to occupy their current region have only recenfly begun to be formu and past "homelands"? This is the fundamental lated. Thirdly, the problems associated with ex question asked during a few days in May 1992, plaining Numic prehistory are part and parcel of REVIEWS 139 larger problems common to all of anthropology, usually been bent to fit the archaeological data, namely, what are the relations between material rather than the other way around. He proposes culture and ethnicity? And what are the relations that, at least for the Colorado Plateau, Numic between biological affinity and language? Final movement into the region around 1,000 years ly, the questions regarding Numic prehistory ago seems a highly plausible event. Madsen ar have not been "framed appropriately and tested gues that rather than continuing to debate the against a wide array of existing information" (p. "if and "when" of the migration/diffusion of 4), which is what one could say regarding any new languages into the region, we should instead current debate about understanding the past. focus our attention on the "why" and "how" of What to do? Start with an assessment of cur such processes. rent knowledge and ideas about Numic prehisto One very practical reason why we do need to ry, and then provide the framework for future continue to ask the "when" questions is dis work on the problem. This is exacfly what this cussed in Chapter 2. Recent Federal legislation, book does, in 23 papers by prominent regional specifically the Native American Graves Protec archaeologists. The papers are grouped in three tion and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), brings to sections: background, theoretical and method the forefront questions of "who was where ological issues, and regional perspectives. The when" in prehistory. Implications of the Numic editors present the problem and an overview in Problem with regard to such legislation are laid the Introduction, then summarize all the papers out in this interesting chapter by Pat Barker and in a final chapter titled Where Are We?. The Cynthia Pinto. Both are Bureau of Land Man volume is comprised of a comprehensive assess agement archaeologists and, therefore, entrusted ment of the current thinking on Numic prehisto with management of the thousands of archaeo ry. It attempts, mosfly in passing, to extend that logical sites in the Great Basin. They discuss assessment into a framework for understanding the Numic Debate in terms of another debate in past migrations in other parts of the world. modern American culture: "Who owns the No volume like this could succeed without past?" In an age when more and more control first establishing a context for the current de of intellectual and real "property" is taken from bate. This is done well in the first few papers. scientists and given to nonscientists, it is critical Mark Q. Sutton and David Rhode oufline the for archaeologists and land managers to exercise history of the "Numic Debate." Donald Gray great care in associating ethnic groups with ar son focuses the historic discussion on glottochro- chaeological cultures. In large part, the con nology, the method of extracting time from de tinued ability to study the material of the past grees of linguistic diversion, that formed the ba relies on us, as archaeologists, being able to tell sis of the idea that Numic groups spread rapidly a good story, backed up with solid evidence and across the Intermountain West about 1,000 years grounded in tight theory. Barker and Pinto ad ago. Although glottochronology has been large vise that we all must be aware that native tradi ly discredited by linguists, archaeologists have tionalist culture history—which is always a good yet to rigorously test alternate models of just story, and which often contradicts the archaeo when Numic peoples spread throughout the area. logical record—might, in fact, have more merit Because of this, Grayson says we must stop act in the nation's courts than all of our evidence ing as if we know when the ancestors of the and interpretations. I agree, and maintain that modern Numa came to occupy their historic rather than accept this bleak assessment as homelands. David Madsen seems to contradict prophesy, we need to begin to work with Native Grayson, arguing that the linguistic model has Americans and the public at large to tell the 140 JOURNAL OF CALIFORNIA AND GREAT BASIN ANTHROPOLOGY stories of the land we all share. It is critical that Great Basin. These must have been the first to we archaeologists acmally have some competing, split from a common tongue. The least diver highly plausible, and generally coherent stories gent, hence the most recenfly isolated, occupy to tell, rather than squabbling among ourselves three broad "fans" extending away from the about esoterica and jargon. Across the West is soudiern Basin toward the north, northeast, and an important step in this direction, because it east. These "fans" generally show the dispersal lays out most of the squabbles, as well as the of Paiute, Shoshone, and Ute speakers across die data behind them. Intermountain West. The fact diat the "ances The next sections deal with theories, meth tral" languages are confined to a small area, and ods, and regional perspectives to come to grips the descendent languages are widespread, yet with the "Numic Expansion." C. Melvin Ai relatively homogeneous, suggests a rapid and kens reviews a good deal of relevant linguistic recent radiation away from die "heartland." and archaeological data. He argues that Numic This is precisely the idea described by Lamb in ancestors established themselves in the central 1958. Bettinger says it represents the linguistic Great Basin by around 3,500 B.P. These mobile data better than any odier story. hunter-gatherers were well-adapted to the pre In addressing the "why" question, Bettinger vailing aridity of the region, and were little af elaborates on his and Baumhoff s earlier propos fected during moister times that were conducive al that Numic folks were simply more efficient to the establishment of relatively sedentary and in processing and storing natural resources than populous groups of marsh dwellers and corn were earlier peoples in the region. The Numic farmers in areas to the north, east, and south. "processors" essentially outcompeted other Around 1,000 B.P., as the regional climate be hunter-gatherers, eventually including the forag came more arid, Numic hunter-gatherers spread ing modes of Anasazi and Fremont farmers to out east and west from the central Basin, filling the east. What about the archaeological data? areas formerly occupied by marsh dwellers and This is where things get thorny.

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