Plains Indian Studies - Smithsonian Institution Libraries

NUMBER 30 21
he has viewed statistical and computer studies
with suspicion especially when he feels samples
are too small or that conclusions have slighted
other kinds of pertinent evidence.
At the University of Arizona, Wedel had a class
under the famed physiographer, William Morris
Davis, who stressed relationships between man
and his environment. Subsequently, while Wedel
was at Nebraska, that university was an active
center for ecological studies with such faculty as
Irving H. Blake, David D. Whitney, Harold W.
Manter, and, especially, John D. Weaver, all of
whom were building on earlier work by such
scholars as Charles Bessey, Roscoe Pound, F.C.
Clements, and Paul Sears. The same year that
Wedel arrived at Nebraska, William Van Royen,
with similar interests, joined the geography faculty.
Courses and personal conversations with
Van Royen on archeology and physiography
were particularly stimulating to Wedel and contributed
substantively to his understanding and
appreciation of the interaction between man and
his Plains environment. In fact, Wedel stayed on
at Nebraska for a year after he received his M.A.
to take additional courses in geography, as well
as anthropology, before going to the University
of California. There he was discouraged by Kroeber
in the pursuit of his developing interests. He
did, however, find a sympathetic faculty member
from the Department of Geography, Carl Sauer,
who further stimulated his interest in ecology. As
Wedel (1977a:6) recalls:
It was Sauer whose lectures and teaching were of prime
significance in formulating my own later approaches to
Plains human ecology. His course in North American geography,
drawing freely from geology, climatology, paleontology,
archeology, ethnography, history, folklore, and other
disciplines now forgotten to me, epitomized his philosophy
that "all knowledge is one," and there are many ways to
search for it.
It is indeed fortunate for Plains archeology that
Wedel determinedly persisted in viewing the
physical environment as an important factor in
the shaping of cultures. Previously some authors
had carried such ideas to the extreme of environmental
determinism, but Wedel pioneered in putting
environmental interpretation on a sound
scientific footing. His "Environment and Native
Subsistence Economies in the Central Great
Plains" (1941b) and "Some Aspects of Human
Ecology in the Central Plains" (Wedel, 1953a,
1961b) are classics. He has also focused on more
limited studies pertaining to Indian use of the
environment, as in his recent research (1978c) on
the prairie turnip, a plant whose root was an
important food resource for many Plains tribes.
This has involved visits almost annually to the
natural prairie near Salina, Kansas, maintained
by Joyce and Nick Pent, where he has observed,
photographed, dug, and eaten the turnip.
Wedel has perpetuated other of Sauer's teachings
in being a strong advocate of the multidisciplinary
approach. He believes in combining
archeological evidence with that from disciplines
outside anthropology (e.g., geography, ecology,
climatology), as well as with evidence from other
anthropological subdisciplines (e.g., ethnology
and ethnohistory). In so doing, he has been able
to provide a rich understanding of the dynamics
of past cultures. The recent publication edited by
him, "Toward Plains Caddoan Origins: A Symposium"
(1979) is an illustration of this interest.
In addition to using professional sources, Wedel
has queried ranchers and farmers for information
based on their firsthand experiences and observations
in the Plains, in relation, for example, to
problems concerning Indian agriculture or durability
of earthlodge timbers. He has always listened
to amateurs and has acknowledged benefitting
from information gained from them.
Wedel has long been particularly interested in
consulting documentary sources as an aid in archeological
interpretation. Under Strong's tutelage,
and with the cooperation of A.T. Hill,
Wedel in 1930 applied to Nebraska archeology,
specifically Pawnee, what he apparently was the
first to call the "direct historical method" (1938a),
a form of ethnohistory. Wedel wrote nostalgically
of this experience (1977a:3):
To me, at Nebraska in 1930, he [Strong] assigned as an
M.A. project, the task of analyzing the historic Pawnee
materials already assembled in Nebraska—a truly pleasant
experience in graduate study, with Strong playing the master
and I the apprentice. It was a mutually satisfying program,