Robert C. Euler

Human Behavior, Demography, and Paleoenvironment On the Colorado Plateaus

Archaeological and paleoenvironmental data are integrated in an investigation of culture change among the Anasazi of the American Southwest by a conceptual model of the interaction among environment, population, and behavior, the major determinants of human adaptive systems. Geological, palynological, and dendrochronological reconstructions of low and high frequency environmental variability coupled with population trends are used to specify periods of regional population-resource stress that should have elicited behavioral responses. Examination of these periods elucidates the range of responses employed and clarifies the adaptive contributions of mobility, shift of settlement location, subsistence mix, exchange, ceremonialism, agricultural intensification, and territoriality. These results help differentiate responses that are triggered by environmental variability from those stimulated primarily by demographic or sociocultural factors. These analyses also demonstrate the adaptive importance of amplitude, frequency, temporal, spatial, and durational aspects of environmental variability compared to the commonly invoked but simplistic contrast between “favorable” and “unfavorable” conditions.

The Colorado Plateaus: Cultural Dynamics and Paleoenvironment

Convergent archeological, geological, palynological, dendrochronological, and radiometric data provide a paleoenvironmental record for the American Southwest at a level of detail and time resolution not previously achieved. Many prehistoric cultural and demographic changes on the Colorado Plateaus coincided with environmental fluctuations defined by precisely dated geoclimatic and bioclimatic indicators. These coincidences support the interpretation that socioeconomic changes and population displacements were commonly triggered by environmental stress.

ETHNOHISTORY IN THE UNITED STATES1

This paper reviews briefly the development of ethnohistory in the United States and discusses current involvement by American ethnohistorians in analysis and validity of oral tradition and documents in terms of cultural process. It relates theoretical postulates of cultural stress to historical reconstructions and it indicates the present world-wide interests of the American Society for Ethnohistory and its professional journal, Ethnohistory. This paper is a discussion of the course that ethnohistory has taken in the United States, its present state, and perhaps, without appearing to be clairvoyant, to point out what I, for one, hope would be some of its future emphases. Before talking about these facets of ethnohistory, my own concepts of what ethnohistory is should be made clear. For a number of years, several of us engaged in ethnohistorical research have been experimenting with a definition that describes our work. This definition, while perhaps not yet as succinct and as clearly stated as it might be, nonetheless is satisfactory to us, and indeed, is gaining acceptance today as a basic premise upon which American ethnohistorians can base their studies, formulate their method

The Pinto Basin Complex at Grand Canyon, Arizona

ABSTRACTThis paper presents previously unpublished data regarding the occurrence of the Archaic Pinto Basin Complex at Grand Canyon and discusses the implications of these to the hypothesis that it was related to the Grand Canyon Split-Twig Figurine Complex which, in part, has a similar antiquity and geographic distribution. It also compares the Grand Canyon figurines with those of similar age from Cowboy Cave in southeastern Utah.

Effects of Forest Fires on Archaeological Resources at Grand Canyon National Park

For a number of years archaeologists have discussed the effects of forest fires on archaeological resources. Studies under experimental conditions and of sites after they were burned form the bulk of this effort but, for the most part, they have not been published. This article examines the fire history of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and the effects of the Dutton Point wildfire on prehistoric architecture and artifacts—particularly ceramics. Armed with those data, a modest experiment useful in any proposed prescribed fire area containing cultural resources, was designed. This involved “before and after” studies of a ruin that was to be subjected to prescribed burning and included buried temperature controls and the varying effects upon the resource. Finally, a hypothesis regarding the effect of wildfires on archaeological sites is presented.

The Origin of the Pai Tribes

ABSTRACTAn account of the folklore of the Pai of northwestern Arizona collected by Henry P. Ewing, an agent to those Indians, prior to 1903 including a detailed origin myth and legendary behavioral patterns prescribed by the Pai culture-hero. These have been annotated in terms of current and historical data collected by the editors.