Terra Incognita?

1942 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 397-398
Author(s):  
Malcolm F. Farmer
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Colorado River ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Desert Areas

A recent paper by Neil M. Judd in the Swanton Anniversary Volume, Essays in Historical Anthropology of North America revives an idea that should be corrected. This has to do with what has been done and what is being done concerning the archaeology of the Colorado River Valley and adjacent desert areas of western Arizona and southeastern California. Judd writes on page 434: “Although this region has long been inhabited by Yuman and Mohave groups, it is still terra incognita to archaeologists.” He mentions the woric of the Gladwins, of Hargrave, and of Cotton but fails to make any reference to other important papers that contain material on the region. Some of these are listed in the brief bibliography accompanying this note.

scholarly journals Tectonostratigraphic record of late Miocene–early Pliocene transtensional faulting in the Eastern California shear zone, southwestern USA

Geosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca J. Dorsey ◽  
Brennan O’Connell ◽  
Kevin K. Gardner ◽  
Mindy B. Homan ◽  
Scott E.K. Bennett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Shear Zone ◽  
Gulf Of California ◽  
Colorado River ◽  
Normal Fault ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Plate Motion ◽  
Fault System ◽  
Eastern California Shear Zone ◽  
Southwestern Usa

The Eastern California shear zone (ECSZ; southwestern USA) accommodates ~20%–25% of Pacific–North America relative plate motion east of the San Andreas fault, yet little is known about its early tectonic evolution. This paper presents a detailed stratigraphic and structural analysis of the uppermost Miocene to lower Pliocene Bouse Formation in the southern Blythe Basin, lower Colorado River valley, where gently dipping and faulted strata provide a record of deformation in the paleo-ECSZ. In the western Trigo Mountains, splaying strands of the Lost Trigo fault zone include a west-dipping normal fault that cuts the Bouse Formation and a steeply NE-dipping oblique dextral-normal fault where an anomalously thick (~140 m) section of Bouse Formation siliciclastic deposits filled a local fault-controlled depocenter. Systematic basinward thickening and stratal wedge geometries in the western Trigo and southeastern Palo Verde Mountains, on opposite sides of the Colorado River valley, record basinward tilting during deposition of the Bouse Formation. We conclude that the southern Blythe Basin formed as a broad transtensional sag basin in a diffuse releasing stepover between the dextral Laguna fault system in the south and the Cibola and Big Maria fault zones in the north. A palinspastic reconstruction at 5 Ma shows that the southern Blythe Basin was part of a diffuse regional network of linked right-step­ping dextral, normal, and oblique-slip faults related to Pacific–North America plate boundary dextral shear. Diffuse transtensional strain linked northward to the Stateline fault system, eastern Garlock fault, and Walker Lane, and southward to the Gulf of California shear zone, which initiated ca. 7–9 Ma, implying a similar age of inception for the paleo-ECSZ.

Early Maize in Northeastern North America: A Comment on Emerson and Colleagues

2021 ◽  
Vol 86 (2) ◽  
pp. 425-427
Author(s):  
John P. Hart ◽  
William A. Lovis ◽  
M. Anne Katzenberg
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Great Lakes ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Human Bone ◽  
Northeastern North America ◽  
Isotopic Evidence ◽  
St Lawrence River

Emerson and colleagues (2020) provide new isotopic evidence on directly dated human bone from the Greater Cahokia region. They conclude that maize was not adopted in the region prior to AD 900. Placing this result within the larger context of maize histories in northeastern North America, they suggest that evidence from the lower Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River valley for earlier maize is “enigmatic” and “perplexing.” Here, we review that evidence, accumulated over the course of several decades, and question why Emerson and colleagues felt the need to offer opinions on that evidence without providing any new contradictory empirical evidence for the region.

scholarly journals Declining Foraging Efficiency in the Middle Tennessee River Valley Prior to Initial Domestication

2019 ◽  
Vol 84 (2) ◽  
pp. 191-214 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elic M. Weitzel
Keyword(s):  
North America ◽  
Optimal Foraging Theory ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Foraging Efficiency ◽  
Eastern North America ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Tennessee River ◽  
Tennessee River Valley ◽  
Middle Tennessee ◽  
Relationship Of

Recently, researchers investigating the origins of domestication have debated the significance of resource intensification in the shift from foraging to food production. In eastern North America, one of several independent centers of domestication, this question remains open. To determine whether initial domestication may have been preceded by intensification in eastern North America at approximately 5000 cal BP, I evaluated the archaeofaunal assemblages from six sites in the middle Tennessee River valley. Analyses of these data suggest that overall foraging efficiency gradually declined prior to initial domestication, but patch-specific declines in foraging efficiency occurred in wetland habitats and not terrestrial ones. Climatic warming and drying during the Middle Holocene, growing human populations, and oak-hickory forest expansion were the likely drivers of these changes in foraging efficiency. These results support the hypothesis that initial domestication in eastern North America was an outcome of intensification driven by environmental change and human population increases. Finally, while the debate concerning the relationship of intensification to domestication has been framed in terms of a conflict between niche construction theory and optimal foraging theory, these perspectives are compatible and should be integrated to understand domestication more fully.

scholarly journals Review and analysis of the age and origin of the Pliocene Bouse Formation, lower Colorado River Valley, southwestern USA

Geosphere ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 444-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon E. Spencer ◽  
P. Jonathan Patchett ◽  
Philip A. Pearthree ◽  
P. Kyle House ◽  
Andrei M. Sarna-Wojcicki ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Colorado River ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Southwestern Usa ◽  
Lower Colorado River

A History of Date Palms in the Lower Colorado River Valley

2019 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 863-879
Author(s):  
Dennis V. Johnson ◽  
Jane C. MacKnight
Keyword(s):  
Colorado River ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Date Palms ◽  
History Of ◽  
Lower Colorado River

Wintertime Surface Wind Patterns in the Colorado River Valley

1999 ◽  
Vol 38 (8) ◽  
pp. 1118-1130 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. David Whiteman ◽  
Xindi Bian ◽  
Joe L. Sutherland
Keyword(s):  
Colorado River ◽  
Surface Wind ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Wind Patterns

scholarly journals First Records of the Northern Long-eared Bat, Myotis septentrionalis, in the Yukon Territory

2006 ◽  
Vol 120 (1) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas S. Jung ◽  
Brian G. Slough ◽  
David W. Nagorsen ◽  
Tanya A. Dewey ◽  
Todd Powell
Keyword(s):  
Population Structure ◽  
North America ◽  
Adult Male ◽  
Yukon Territory ◽  
River Valley ◽  
Myotis Septentrionalis ◽  
Northwestern North America

Three adult male Northern Long-eared Bats, Myotis septentrionalis, were captured in mist nets in July 2004 in the LaBiche River Valley, southeastern Yukon. These are the first records of M. septentrionalis in the Yukon. Further survey work is needed to delineate the extent of the range and population structure of this and other species of bats in northwestern North America.

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