California Archaeology.

Catalog description

Pre-contact California encompassed some of the most extensive environmental and cultural diversity ever to exist on the planet, containing widely divergent biota, many distinct languages and cultures, and among the densest hunter-gatherer populations ever recorded. At least 11,000-12,000 years of human occupation have been marked by multiple migrations and major shifts in technological and social organization. Explores long-term trends in cultural development across the state, and examines models used to explain why semi-permanent settlements, intensive subsistence strategies, and complex social institutions arose in some times/places and not others.