This chapter looks at three more regions of North America: the Columbia Plateau and adjacent areas of the Pacific Northwest Coast; the Great Basin; and California. It also focuses on three main themes: the development of new identities as many groups adapted aspects of the lifestyle and customs of those on the Plains and more coherent tribal entities emerged; raiding for captives; and raiding for horses. A fourth topic, which casts these into relief, is why some groups rejected the horse, or chose to adopt it very late in their history. The Great Basin was the first of the three areas to receive the horse. It is an arid region of desert, salt lakes, and mountains where rainfall is unpredictable and low, but increases eastward (Plate 15). Except for the Colorado along its southern edge and the headwaters in the rockies of streams draining towards the Missouri, none of its rivers reach the sea. Fremont farmers had once made a living across Utah, but by the 1600s cultivation was restricted to a few groups in the south and west. Elsewhere, the Basin’s inhabitants depended entirely on hunting and gathering, though strategies like burning enhanced the productivity of wild plants and game. Very broadly, two subsistence patterns were followed: one emphasized fish and waterfowl around wetlands, the other a more mobile, broadly based foraging economy in deserts and mountains in which pine nuts (piñons), grass seeds, rabbits, and larger game were important. Except for the Washoe near Lake Tahoe in eastern California, all the region’s historic inhabitants spoke Numic languages. Major groups included Utes in the southeast, Shoshones in the north and centre, and Paiutes in the west and southwest. To the north of the Great Basin lies the Plateau, centred on the Columbia River and its tributaries, which collectively send their waters into the Pacific Ocean (Plate 16). Coniferous forest covers its northern and eastern parts (including several ranges running parallel to but west of the Rockies), but the drier, hilly country of Oregon and eastern Washington is more steppe-like, with sagebrush common and trees more localized.
The Radiocarbon Record of the Western Stemmed Tradition on the Southern Columbia Plateau of Western North America