C. Melvin Aikens

Fremont Culture: Restatement of Some Problems

Current emphasis on the definition of areal variation within the Fremont culture requires a re-examination of existing hypotheses of Fremont origins. The evidently very early appearance of regional variation suggests that Fremont crystallized out of a partial unification of several already differentiated Archaic (Desert culture) variants. This crystallization occurred at least partially as a result of adoption by Archaic groups of a horticultural complex of ultimately Mexican origin. Many of the characteristics which bind the Fremont regional patterns into a broader Fremont culture are elements of this horticultural complex, although the earlier Archaic variants presumably also shared basic similarities which contributed to the general unity of the later Fremont culture. Earlier hypotheses of Fremont origins are evaluated from this viewpoint. This is a revised version of a paper delivered in the Fremont Culture Symposium, 35th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, April 30-May 2, 1970, Mexico City, D. F., Mexico. Department of Anthropology University of Oregon November, 1970 A RANGE OF VIEWS concerning the origin and later ultimate disappearance of the Fremont culture has been discussed in the literature. The close affinities of Fremont to southwestern Anasazi culture have long been the focus of attention (Morss 1931; Steward 1933, 1936, 1940; Wormington 1955). Archaic or Desert culture antecedents have also been emphasized (Rudy 1953; Taylor 1957; Wormington 1955; Jennings and Norbeck 1956; Jennings 1956, 1957). The present treatment takes as its 2 points of departure the increased emphasis recently placed on areal differentiation within the Fremont culture (reflected in the symposium on the Fremont culture presented at the 1970 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology), and a body of data recently acquired from the long-occupied, stratified site of Hogup Cave, located in the Great Salt Lake region of northern Utah (Aikens 1970). The results from Hogup Cave demonstrate that, although the crystallization of a fully Fremont assemblage takes place rather abruptly, with the appearance of pottery and maize and other elements of ultimately Mexican derivation at about A.D. 400, there is significant typological continuity between the Fremont and the preceding local Archaic culture. The data show that diagnostic Fremont moccasins, one-rod-and-bundle coiled basketry, incised stones, and anthropomorphic figures of worked bone and plant fiber, as well as several less diagnostic artifacts of common occurrence in Fremont assemblages, originate in Archaic strata. Some of the elements date as early as 2500 B.C., if not earlier. The pattern seen at Hogup Cave may provide a model for the appearance of Fremont culture in other regions as well. Regional differentiation appears early in the development of the Fremont culture (Marwitt 1970a, 1970b; Fry 1970; Shields 1970; cf. Ambler 1969). In fact, present evidence does not reveal the existence of any early, uniform stratum of Fremont culture which might have provided a base for later local elaboration and variation. It is possible, then, that regional differentiation has existed from the very beginning of the Fremont period. The Archaic prehistory of what became the Fremont area is not well-known, but enough evidence exists to suggest that well prior to the Fremont period there already existed regionally differentiated Archaic patterns which might have formed the bases for the later appearance of regional patterning within Fremont culture (see Ambler 1966 and Marwitt 1970b for mapping and discussion of Fremont subareas). The culture represented in several caves of the Great Salt Lake region (Steward 1937; Jennings 1957; Aikens 1970) might represent the basal Archaic pattern which developed into the Great Salt Lake Fremont variant. The Archaic assemblages at Thorne Cave (Day 1964) and Deluge Shelter (Leach 1967) in the Uinta Basin might underlie the Uinta Basin variant of the Fremont; and the Uncompahgre complex (Wormington and Lister 1956) could have formed the basis of the San Rafael Fremont. Each of these Archaic complexes is to a degree

The Pleistocene—Holocene Transition in Japan and Adjacent Northeast Asia

What we now call Japan was profoundly affected by the Pleistocene—Holocene transition, as rising sea levels transformed what had been a long appendage of the Asian continent into an archipelago, entirely separated from the mainland (Minato et al. 1965). The fossil record from Japan leaves no doubt that it was connected with the continent during much of the Pleistocene, though the active tectonism of the Pacific rim may have breached the connection at times. Archidiskon, Stegodon, Parastegodon, Muntiacus, and Cervus, elements of the Siva-Malayan and Sino-Malayan faunas, are all found in Early Pleistocene deposits of southernjapan. Pinus koraiensis, Picea maximowiczii, Menyanthes trifoliata, and Phellodendron amurensis, all endemic to Korea and northeast China, are known from Early Pleistocene fossil beds in central japan. Continental connections during Middle Pleistocene time are indicated by widespread finds of Paleoloxodon in Japan, and Late Pleistocene connections are shown by Megacervus and Mammuthus primigenius finds in Hokkaido.

Chulmun Neolithic Intensification, Complexity, and Emerging Agriculture in Korea

Emergence of complex society in prehistoric Korea has long been understood as a socioeconomic corollary of its Bronze Age agriculture (1300–300 b.c. ). Archaeological data accumulated in recent years, however, point to the contrary. By around 3500 b.c. Korea’s Neolithic society had gone beyond foraging and collecting and become a society of the middle ground. It became increasingly sedentary and began food production, initially at a low level, as it sought to secure critical resources through logistic strategies. It also increasingly utilized storage as a mechanism of risk and wealth management. Gradually intensifying subsistence strategies that combined hunting, fishing, gathering, mobile horticulture, and storage mechanism, enabled Korea’s Chulmun Neolithic society to maintain its sociopolitical and economic stability over a period of several millennia. The intensification increased during the Late Neolithic with emerging mixed crop farming and mass-capture of marine resources. Post-Neolithic florescence of rice-based agriculture and the revolutionary societal elaboration during and beyond the Bronze Age were direct outcomes of socioeconomic foundations laid by the indigenous Korean hunter-fisher-gatherer-cultivators during the Chulmun Neolithic.

Korean Contributions to Agriculture, Technology, and State Formation in Japan: Archaeology and History of an Epochal Thousand Years, 400 B.C.–A.D. 600

This is a study of Korean contributions to cultural changes in ancient Japan as it developed agriculture and increasing social complexity and finally formed the Yamato state over the course of a thousand years, between 400 b.c. and a.d. 600. Central to this study are three broad themes, supported primarily by archaeology but importantly informed by historical texts. First, key cultural features and technologies that were essential to increasing social complexity in Yayoi period Japan and to formation of a centralized state in the sixth century a.d. entered the archipelago directly from the Korea Peninsula. Second, a dominant factor behind the infusion of Korean cultural features was the movement, in several waves, of peninsula residents into the Japanese archipelago. While trade moved peninsula goods to the archipelago all throughout the formative period, Korean technologies, skills, ideologies, and cultural systems moved with people, including permanent immigrants, temporary residents, and official envoys. The Korean immigrants in particular were impelled initially by explosive population growth in Korea fueled by the spread of agriculture there and later by increasingly tumultuous political and military events that unfolded in the peninsula as rival polities contended for power during several hundred years of war. Third, a number of Korean immigrants emerged as powerful technocrats and political functionaries during the Kofun period, providing important organizational experience and service to the Yamato court during the process of state formation in Japan.

Comments By Aikens

Douglas, F. H. 1934 Apache Indian coiled basketry. Denver Art Museum Leaflet 64. Driver, H. E. 1961 Indians of North America. University of Chicago Press, Chicago. Emery, I. 1966 The primary structure of fabrics. The Textile Museum, Washington, D.C. Gunnerson, J. H. 1969 The Fremont culture: a study in cultural dynamics on the northern Anasazi frontier. Papers of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology 59(2). Madsen, D. B. 1978 Recent data bearing on the question of a hiatus in the Eastern Great Basin. American Antiquity 43: 508-509.

Hunter-Gatherers of the North Pacific Rim (review)

ological data would have contributed, for example, to a better understanding of the varied aspects and levels of interregional interactions that are, after all, at the core of this book. It could have benefited not only from the incorporation of more archaeologically derived data but also from a more systematic application of anthropologic models. While the introduction on the book cover present it as a ‘‘study of state formation in East Asia,’’ the actual sociopolitical processes of state formation are not addressed by the book. More reference to anthropologically oriented archaeological research, such as, for example, the work of Gina Barnes (Barnes 1986), could have helped Holcombe further distinguish his model from the traditional Sinocentric paradigm and deepen his analysis of the important processes addressed by the book. Applying such anthropological theory could also elucidate the discussion on interregional interactions by incorporating ideas about human motivations and machinations. One component of the book, its maps— or, rather, the lack of thereof—deserves harsh criticism. The three small and highly schematic maps are unfit for any serious work, let alone a book such as The Genesis of East Asia, for which geography is so essential. Better maps with clear geographic components such as mountain ranges, lakes, deserts, and so on, and thematic maps describing, for example, the spread of Buddhism or the linguistic variability of the region, would have contributed immensely to the coherence of the book. A similar problem, though perhaps not as grave, is the decision not to incorporate names of people and places in their original East Asian script. Such practice, which usually reflects the publisher’s unwillingness to deal with these ‘‘strange’’ scripts, is no longer justified, due the minimal extra work it imposes using current technology. Another weak point of the book is its index, which is elementary at best (only eight pages long with few categories and even fewer subcategories). A book such as this, which aims at the graduate level and at a professional audience, cannot a¤ord to be cavalier about such seemingly technical issues. Regardless of the above criticism, I found reading The Genesis of East Asia highly rewarding and I warmly recommend it to anyone whose areas of research or interests are even remotely associated with the history of the region during the first millennium a.d. Thinking again about issues that are relevant to many scholars in the humanities and social sciences, such as the meaning of local and regional identities, processes of social and cultural change, and the relations between center and periphery, is in itself a good reason to read Holcombe’s book.