Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

pithouse villages occur in areas where salmon are not available, such as in Surprise Valley in northeastern
California. It appears that a unique combination of lacustrine resources during the Late Archaic resulted
in the more complex logistical organization practiced there.
The upper Snake River Basin also has a unique lacustrine environment that may have allowed a
logistical complexity sufficient to result in pithouses. Numerous house pits have been observed in the
upper basin, but none have ever been excavated and reported in the scientific literature. Areas around the
lacustrine systems at INL may provide an excellent opportunity for determining the logistical complexity
of Archaic occupants of all periods.
Data Requirements: Residential base sites, especially if they contain evidence of structures, which
would most likely be located adjacent to permanent water sources.
Research Topic: Late Prehistoric Occupations. Most prehistorians currently believe that at some
time during the last 1,000 years the local Archaic populations were replaced by the Numic-speaking
groups that inhabited the area at historic contact (e.g., Shoshone and Bannock Tribes). This interpretation
is based primarily on linguistic evidence, although many prehistorians also claim that it is substantiated
by the archaeological record (Adovasio et al. 1982; Bettinger and Baumhoff 1982; Madsen 1975). Recent
reinterpretations (Aikens and Witherspoon 1986) reinforce the replacement theory for much of the Desert
West, arguing that Numic-speaking people were better adapted to arid conditions than their predecessors,
and that the long droughts of the l3 th and 14 th centuries A.D. opened the door for their dominance
throughout the area. Part of their adaptability involved the use of resources that were somewhat resistant
to variations in available moisture, such as grass seeds, nuts, and rabbits. Reliance on these wide-ranging
resources means a very different level of logistical complexity and technology than their predecessors.
The implications of this theory are that the pre-Numic inhabitants had a more complex logistical
organization in which the residential group was tied to the riparian environment, although special task
groups would often venture into other environments. The Numic inhabitants were less dependent on the
riparian environment, and the residential group commonly moved wherever resources were available
throughout the various environments.
If the replacement theory is correct and the replacement occurred because of greater adaptability to
arid resources, then there should be a marked difference in the relative frequencies of site types at INL
and the surrounding area. It would be predicted that a greater frequency of Numic sites should be
residential bases with fewer task-specific camps and procurement locations than for their predecessors,
who should be represented by few residential bases and numerous camps and locations.
Data Requirements: All sites that contain Numic artifacts (Desert Side-Notched points and/or
pottery) and all sites that contain Late Archaic artifacts (e.g., Elko series points). Sites with buried
deposits that might yield subsistence information are especially important for answering this question.
Research Topic: Protohistoric Occupations. Prehistorians refer to the period when the aboriginal
lifeway was initially influenced by nonaboriginal technology as the “protohistoric” period. Current
evidence suggests that the protohistoric period began in the upper Snake River Basin in the early
seventeenth century with the introduction of the horse. Approximately 200 years elapsed before the
historic period began with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1805. During those two centuries, a
dramatic shift in lifeway occurred because of increased mobility, both in distance covered and loadcarrying
capacity. The acquisition of the horse precipitated a shift to a more complex logistical
organization resulting in much larger residential bases that were quite mobile. This should be evident in
the archaeological record, and many of the subtleties should be interpretable through survey and
excavation at INL.
Data Requirements: Any site containing evidence of equestrian use (e.g., tipi rings) especially if
subsurface deposits are present.
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