Chemehuevi Sites in the Western Mojave Desert in the Late Nineteenth Century: Continuation of Desert Adaptations by Chemehuevi Migrants in the Ranching Era

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Expanding Our Understanding of the Mojave Desert: Emerging Research and New Perspectives on Old Data" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

This presentation will discuss several sites in the southern Antelope Valley (western Mojave Desert) that were occupied in the late nineteenth century by Chemehuevi family groups. At one of these sites, a traditional circular structure—dwelling—dating from that era was photographed in the 1920s and salvaged in 1966. Recent research on the site and its environs has expanded our understanding of this occupation. These Chemehuevi family groups, following a traditional economic adaptation rather than attaching themselves to local ranching communities, were part of a many-decades-long movement of Chemehuevi/Southern Paiute from the Nevada-California border region southwestward across the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. The traditional ability of the Chemehuevi and Southern Paiute groups to successfully cope with extremely xeric conditions on the southern margin of the Great Basin made this remarkable historic-era migration possible. This remarkable adaptation to extreme desert conditions, among the most xeric in western North America, and the persistence of this adaptation near the end of the nineteenth century among migrant groups in the western Mojave Desert and the Antelope Valley is discussed.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Expanding Our Understanding of the Mojave Desert: Emerging Research and New Perspectives on Old Data

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39814.0