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Show COMMENTS J. RICHARD AMBLER Northern Arizona University Because it has been more than a dozen years since 1 have been actively involved with Fremont archeology, 1 am in both a somewhat enviable and at the same time awkward position. Awkward because my first-hand knowledge of recent Fremont archeology is less than that of most of the other authors here. However, because I am not actively involved at the moment, I may have a somewhat more detached viewpoint. Some of the axes I used to grind a decade ago have been kept sharp by others, and more have become so battered and rusty through neglect and abuse that they are no longer worth grinding. Of course, I won't be able to resist a few references to some of these worn-out axes, but I may be able to contribute something from the viewpoint of an extremely interested outsider. My first impression upon reading these papers is one of deja vu. I have trouble defining the time and place, however. Was it in Mexico City in 1970? The spring of 1966 as 1 was in the final throes of finishing my dissertation? The first time I read Wormington's summary? Or does it harken back to the days of Steward? I admit I wasn't reading much archeology in the 1930s, so let's take the last Friends of the Fremont meeting in Mexico City as a point of departure. How far have we come, what have we learned, what glorious new interpretations have been developed in the past eight and a half years? One would hope that the papers presented here would reflect the latest advances in both substantive data and interpretations, so it is in order to very briefly look at them individually before getting into more general comments. Perhaps the major point of the papers by Marwitt, Hogan and Sebastian, and Berry is that there is still no consensus regarding interpretations of the data, nor is there likely to be for some time. We call ourselves Friends of the Fremont, but can't even decide who our friends are, where they got their ideas, or whether they were friendly among themselves, and we don't even seem to care any more what happened to them. This is lamentable, and I think we should be able to reach a consensus on at least a few basics. From Madsen, we learn that lots of cattail pollen was found on house floors at Backhoe Village. This leads him to the interpretation that the people of Backhoe village, and by extension, all those west of the Wasatch, depended largely on marsh resources for food, and hence should be taxonomically separated from the rest of our friends on the other side of the mountains, a view that has been expressed by others for half a century, but for different reasons. Lohse tells us that patterned regional variations in architecture exist, and that the clustering of architectural attributes in certain geographical areas lends credence to both Marwitt's five-fold division of the entire Fremont area and Madsen's basic divisions between east and west. Adovasio is more concerned with demonstrating Fremont unity than diversity, and points out that Fremont (including Sevier) basketry forms a distinctive and cohesive pattern over the entire area. Holmer and Weder point out that projectile point distributions indicate a three- or four-fold division of the area is plausible and may reflect some basic differences. How far, then, have we really come in the last eight years? Or even the past 38 years? There never has been much disagreement over the interpretation that the post- Archaic cultures over most of Utah have something in common, and yet were distinctive from those to the south, east, north, or west. Nor has there ever been any question that regional variation existed in the area. The differences of opinion seem to arise from difficulties in drawing boundary lines and what names to apply to the areas so neatly bounded on our maps. Names are important, for we like to think that the taxonomy is a reflection of the real world, and we also know that what we call a cultural entity influences the way we think about its origins and relationships. However, I hate to see us wasting our time quibbling over terminology and boundaries, when we should be gathering and processing data, so I would like to make a suggestion that will hopefully provide a means of communication without unduly restricting or biasing our thoughts. Although I think Adovasio may overly stress the importance of basketry as a cultural indicator, and we know that there is a lot of artifactural, architectural, and economic variation within the area under discussion, his point is pertinent, as there is a lot of cohesive-ness as well. This is emphasized by the fact that all authors of this volume think that the archeology we are dealing with has something in common. Why not choose a single term to use when referring to the entire area, as long as we realize that the term does not necessarily 69 have connotations of a single origin or unified lifeway for all these prehistoric people? Why not continue to call all these manifestations, east or west, north or south, "Fremont?" Our other choice of a unifying term is, of course, "Northern Periphery," but I think we all now see too many differences with the Southwest, too many local innovations, and too much influence from elsewhere to be happy with that term. Use of the term "Fremont" to apply to the sedentary populations over most of Utah about a thousand years ago should pose no great conceptual problem, since with the notable exception of David Madsen, most of us already use the term to apply to entities in both the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau, but realize as we do so that we may be including rather diverse groups under that label. We should remember that labels are simply an aid in communication, as long as everyone agrees to the meaning of the label. Southwestern arch-eologists have no trouble talking about the Anasazi when they wish to generalize, but realize as they do so that they are including a tremendous diversification of origins, lifeways, religions, languages, and artifactual assemblages, and I see no reason why we can't do the same for our friends the Fremont. However, I am not so sure any more, as Marwitt and 1 have previously suggested, that Fremont in the broadest sense is taxonomically equivalent to the Anasazi. Perhaps a closer analogy would be to say that Fremont is a culture area, conceptually similar to at least part of the Southwest, perhaps even including several "basic" cultures. (I refuse to become involved in a dendritic discussion of roots and stems, as this implies phylogenetic relationships we know nothing about yet.) We should keep in mind that social groupings in prehistoric Utah may well have encompassed smaller geographical areas and included fewer individuals than may have been the case to the southeast. We can, if we wish, continue to speak in terms of Fremont culture, or Fremont culture patterns, but to talk about the Fremont Culture with a "C" has fortunately passed into oblivion. But we can talk about the Fremont culture area, much as,we might talk about the Great Plains or the Northwest Coast culture areas. Using the term "Fremont" to apply to the entire area then enables us to discuss various geographical and/or cultural segments of that area as we wish. Marwitt's divisions and terminology seem to be commonly accepted, and are basically similar to those that have been used for 40 years, so appear to have some cultural validity in the minds of archeologists. They can be retained without any confusion, as long as we again recognize that we don't really know yet whether we are talking about distinct cultural entities, closely related cultures, or groups with varying amounts of influence from other culture areas. We can, when we wish, easily lump the western variants together as Great Basin Fremont, the eastern as Colorado Plateau Fremont, and we will all know what our referent is. Or we can discuss the northern Fremont and the southern Fremont. Or, if we wish to follow the lines suggested by Claudia Berry (as reported here by Marwitt), look at the central Fremont as an entity, contrasting, perhaps, with the defunct Conger Fremont or Colorado River Fremont. In other words, we can cut the pie any way we want to -the important things at the moment are to increase communication, to stop wasting our time quibbling over nomenclature and boundaries, and to remember that taxonomies are tools of our profession, not goals. As our data base grows it will eventually be possible to define our areas, subareas, and sub-subareas more definitively. In sum, what 1 am proposing is a conceptually flexible terminology that will allow us to discuss the Fremont in any way we choose, without pigeonholing our assemblages into a classification that is so rigid we will have difficulty breaking out of it. To revert back to my original question, what have we learned in the last eight years? We have learned a lot about settlement patterns, architectural styles, artifact distributions, and subsistence patterns, and we have learned that we still need to gather a great deal of basic data. However, we have hardly begun to tap the above topics, much less such subjects as ceremonialism, social networks, and trade relationships, data or even hypotheses on which could ultimately have much more bearing on the origins, interrelationships, and fate of the Fremont than the distribution of calcite temper. Admittedly, we have to start with the more tangible aspects of our profession, but to rephrase Berry's closing remarks, people working in the Fremont area are in the enviable position of being able to avoid all the numerous mistakes and take advantage of the more promising approaches of the so-called "new" archeology. Indeed, I see no reason why Fremont archeologists, being unencumbered with hypothetico-deductive-nomological platitudes, and blessed with an impoverished but un-trammeled data base, could not forge into the forefront of modern archeological theory. One subject suitable for a fresh approach would be something dear to every Friend of the Fremont's heart - the drawing of cultural boundaries. A principal reason we have had such problems with defining "variants" of the Fremont and drawing boundaries around them is that no contemporary archeologist has yet devised a means of adequately describing the changes in time, space, and culture content that we see in the archeological record. I agree with Hogan and Sebastian wholeheartedly that we should start with our smaller entities, sites or components, and work up into more encompassing schemes for classificatory purposes. At the present state of the art in the Fremont area, however, a classification seems to be the end result, whereas it should enable us to go on to more sophisticated comparisons and interpretations. As far as classifications go, I would urge the adoption of the phase system as used successfully in many parts of the world as a preliminary ordering device for our Fremont data. It should 70 be fairly easy with the aid of a computer and good intuition to cluster the known components into phases, and this could well provide more orderliness than is presently apparent. However, the phase concept, although useful, does not really do what we want it to. Archeologists are fond of saying that their field is the study of culture change, that the principal advantage they have over other anthropologists is the ability to study cultures over long periods of time, a maximally diachronic study. But the phase system, or any other system of classification, does not deal with culture change, but with stasis. If we were to diagram culture change through time, it might look something like this: Amount of Chang* r -Time- S~ r and the phases we define are usually the periods of relative stability, not change, thusly: Amount of Change y Jr X It might be more interesting, and perhaps more productive to the study of culture change, to define the phases as the periods centering around times of rapid change, like this: Amount ot Change Phase -f J" J~ J" but that doesn't really solve the problem. Nor would this: Amount of , Change Phase Y iase J "i IA -Time. When we look at cultural variation through two-dimensional geographic space, we might define phases (or variants, as the case may be) like this: but in reality we know that the boundaries can only very rarely be drawn so sharply, and the real situation, although still oversimplified, may more closely resemble this: although it might come closer. We don't really account for what well may be the most important manifestations for the study of culture change, those on the peripheries or between the "core" areas. When we then try to put the cultural variations in time together with the variations in space, we have no archeological concepts or classifications that can really deal with the whole thing effectively. We can see it, understand it, and even laboriously put part of it into words, but our conceptual, classificatory, and graphic frameworks just can't handle it. There have been some attempts at the graphics, with Dee Ann Story's "poly-isopleths" being a notable example, but it seems that in this day of being able to handle large masses of data with the aid of computers someone could do better. Various programs can cluster and show degrees of relationship between clusters, others can simulate three-dimensional variations in such things as contours or isobars, and as a necessary first step I can see the construction of visual representations of the variations in time and space through the use of print-outs, overlays, and three dimensional models. Ultimately, however, we should be looking for the concepts and classificatory schemes to deal with archeological data as it really is, a three dimensional continuum of cultural variation, 71 not a series of discrete units. We should then be prepared to start studying the mechanisms of culture change and develop the concepts to deal with it, instead of phrasing our "explanations" in terms of diffusion or migration, which as Berry points out, are not explanations at all. Nor should we fall into the trap of thinking that classifications represent explanations, even if those classifications are based on environmental factors rather than artifactual assemblages. One other point is perhaps worthy of mention. There is a strong tendency among Friends of the Fremont to promulgate and accept rather simplistic and limited hypothesis regarding Fremont origins, interrelationships, and ultimate disappearance, and the different views are often taken as competing, whereas they are more likely complimentary. It is probable that many different events, causes if you will, were occurring simultaneously, and no single hypothesis will serve to explain the past changes. As an example, let us take the demise of our late lamented friends. To me, all the suggestions put forth concerning the fate of the Fremont seem to be too simplistic and limited in the possibilities considered. We have the Fremont becoming Athabascans and moving out onto the Great Plains, we see Shoshoneans taking over the pinyon crops, or other hostiles displacing the Fremont, drought causing a reversion to hunting and gathering, or drought causing a migration to the Hopi area, that Mecca of the Southwest, not to mention the last battle of the Mokis. But where do we find discussions of other alternatives? Drought, for instance, may not have been as important as a shortened growing season. Perhaps there was no drought, but increased flash flooding that wiped out the irrigation ditches on the Colorado Plateau and the marshes in the Great Basin. With the limited lands suitable for agriculture, what part did the depletion of soil nutrients play? How rapidly and to what extent did populations increase? Did the Fremont simply use up their resources as has been so amply demonstrated in other parts of the world? We know that trade was important to the Fremont, as evidenced by woodpecker feathers and shells from California, turquoise and pots from the Southwest. With the abandonment of the greatest Southwestern trading center, that at Chaco, and the gradual withdrawal of the Anasazi from their frontier areas, could it be that trade dried up and the Fremont stagnated? At any rate, my point is that even when we find out what happened to the Fremont, no single explanation will probably suffice. Many factors were probably at work, and all should be considered as possibilities unless proved otherwise. Again I would say that the Friends of the Fremont have the opportunity to take the good from archeological work elsewhere and forget the rest. We shouldn't fall into another common trap of dreaming up a single explanatory hypothesis and testing it alone. Call it General System Theory, call it Multiple Working Hypotheses, call the method what you will, but we should be as open ended as possible. Admittedly we need incredibly more data, with only about two dozen sites presently excavated and reported in such a fashion that the data is usable, but once more data is in, and as it comes in, we should try not to get locked into preconceived and simplistic explanations, or get bogged down in terminological difficulities, or think that classification is our ultimate goal. Classification seems to be what a major portion of this volume has been about. I hope 1 can live to see the day that we have the data, the concepts, and the terminology to deal with the culture of the Fremont area as an irregular continuum in time and space, rather than a series of disconnected pigeonholes. PATRICK HOGAN and LYNNE SEBASTIAN Washington State University In his comments on this volume of Antiquities Section Selected Papers, Ambler expresses dissatisfaction with the continued quibbling over the terminology of Fremont culture classification after 38 years at the expense of gathering and processing of data. While we can sympathize with this frustration, it seems that the authors of this volume are arguing that it is not a lack of data but a flaw in the theoretical perspective that has hindered the progress of Fremont research. For us, this volume's contribution is that it documents a general trend among Fremont scholars toward challenging the concepts and assumptions that have guided previous research. We are finding the old methods and models inappropriate for the questions now being asked. Classification is, indeed, what the major portion of this volume has been about, but that does not imply that classification is the ultimate goal. Rather, the importance of classification is that it has so pervasively structured out thinking and data collection. If the last 38 years of Fremont research have proved anything, it is that facts do not speak for themselves. Unless there is a conscious shift in both theoretical perspective and research strategy, the Friends of the Fremont will continue to crank out cultural classification that amounts to little more than plotting artifacts in time and space. Three of the papers in this volume have dealt essentially with artifact typology. While we do not deny the importance of such basic research, its significance rests less with the data themselves than with their application. As Aikens reminds us, artifact styles need not be just type fossils; they reflect, as well, spheres of interaction on several levels. Thus, an analysis of artifact distribution, in conjunction with studies of subsistence and 72 settlement systems, can be the foundation for addressing many of the unresolved questions of cultural relationships. If the discussions in this volume are any indication, however, questions of relationship and of Fremont origins and demise appear premature. We have argued in our paper for intensive ecological analysis at the community level - "ecological" in the broad sense of a human population's adaptation to its physical and social environments. We feel that until the range of adaptation is understood and chronologies are worked out at a local level, these larger questions cannot be adequately addressed. We have suggested that the first step toward restructuring our research strategy is to recognize the biases inherent in the traditional approach to Fremont classification. Ambler's proposal that the term "Fremont" be used in the sense of a culture area rather than a culture in the taxonomic sense would greatly aid in reducing this bias, and we urge its acceptance. The next step, it seems, would be to collectively agree on new research priorities. With these priorities established, we can shift from "quibbling about terminology" to an exposition of Fremont culture process. J. M. ADOVASIO University of Pittsburgh INTRODUCTION After reading and rereading these papers and particularly after a series of informal discussions with David Madsen and J. P. Marwitt, it has become painfully apparent that many more questions about that "cultural" entity have arisen than were resolved. While this in and by itself is probably beneficial, I am quite uncertain as to whether or not any of the unanswered old or new problems can ever be satisfactorily resolved. While the same can easily be said about any prehistoric complex or culture, it seems to be particularly true in this instance. As Madsen and many others have pointed out, there are probably no areas of similar size outside the American Southwest where more intensive research has been conducted on sites of a circumscribed time span than within the so-called Fremont domain. Site reports, technical papers, and syntheses abound as do radiocarbon dates and mounds of raw data. Equally prevalent are conflicting interpretations of the "meaning' of all this information. ON THE DRAWING OF LINES Many of the papers in the recent Fremont symposium as well as publications too numerous to cite devote considerable space to defining or circumscribing a Fremont entity or entities within a series of neat, hatched and/or solid lines that all can see and presumably recognize. Some use settlement patterns and/or architecture to draw these lines; others use "diagnostic" lithics or ceramics, and some "misguided" souls use baskets. Still others stress subsistence strategies as a means of delimiting the Fremont and their neighbors. Whatever the criteria, the goal is apparently the same in all cases: the recognition or definition of a Fremont or Sevier/ Fremont population and domain. While each drawer of lines apparently questions every other inscriber of boundaries, very few (with the notable exception of Floyd Sharrock) have questioned the utility of the line drawing enterprise itself. Thus while it would appear that most of my colleagues and I are inveterate advocates of "nice neat lines," there may well be better and more productive ways to expend our individual and collective energies. ON THE DEFINITION OF PREHISTORIC CULTURES As noted above, the drawing of lines seems to go hand in hand with the greater goal of recognizing and defining the Fremont as a prehistoric cultural unit or series of units. Our inability to reach agreement on what constitutes this unit is scarcely unique to students of later eastern Great Basin prehistory. All archeologists, whatever their specialty or concern, must to some extent and at some time come to grips with the definition or recognition of prehistoric cultures. As we all know, scarcely more agreement reigns outside the "Cactus Curtain" on the essential ingredients of a "culture" than exists within it. Adena/Hopewell, Monongahela, Olmec, Natufian, Gerzean, Lungshan, Jomon, Timber Grave and ten thousand other "cultures" are as intransigently difficult to define as "Fremont." Moreover, in many cases much less is known about the settlement patterns, technology, chronology, and paleoecology of these groups than is presently known about the Fremont. With very few exceptions and despite polemics and pronouncements, most prehistoric "cultures" discussed so confidently in the literature are in reality more vague and nebulous constructs than are any of those heretofore posited for Fremont. This is not to suggest that prehistoric cultures do not exist, that they cannot be defined, or even that they should not be defined. Rather, I question the entire 73 role of cultural definition in formulating and executing modern archeological research strategies. ON FUTURE GOALS In the few instances where the "ethnic" identity of a prehistoric complex is reasonably certain and further, where such a complex may be positively linked with an ethnographic or modern population, the links between the archeological culture and its descendant are many and usually far more complex than any considered for the Fremont. Furthermore, the rarity of such "cases" despite years of intensive research directly suggests that at least with our present methodological and theoretical capabilities, as well as our preconceptions and outmoded notions, these situations will remain very uncommon. To be sure, 1 am not attempting to dissuade or denigrate those who attempt to recognize and define prehistoric cultures (indeed, I am one of those unreconstructed creatures). Rather, I am suggesting that the problem of cultural definition is essentially unimportant. The data presented in many of these papers clearly indicate that the Fremont area whatever its size and whoever dwelt there is, as noted by Madsen, an almost unequaled laboratory for useful and productive research. The present data base, vast as it is, grows yearly and affords the opportunity for systematic, controlled, in-depth scrutiny unavailable in many other parts of this hemisphere or indeed the world. The obvious productivity of multivariant computer studies of artifacts, architecture or settlement patterns, the patently evident utility of paleoecological studies such as those pursued by Madsen and others, and the insights gleaned from more "traditional" research into prehistoric technology can and do yield more data on prehistoric cultural process and processes than anything ever conceived in the pipe dreams of "armchair" theoreticians. Most importantly, all of these studies - no matter what their focus - can be done without ever worrying about what or who the Fremont are or were. While I probably will scrutinize many more Fremont or Sevier/ Fremont baskets before 1 wither away, and further, while I will always be convinced that such artifacts are probably more diagnostic than any other single item ever produced by this culture or cultures, I really do not believe that such pronouncements give any real purpose. As one of my archeological colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh dryly noted, "Why do you people care what Fremont is or who they were?" At this point, suffice to note, I do not care any longer . . . . C. MELVIN AIKENS University of Oregon Marwitt points out that the Friends of the Fremont have not been able to agree on their interpretations. That is certainly true, but 1 believe, as he does, that this is healthy, and even though the specialists remain contentious, areas of firm ground are growing, as detailed and comprehensive studies of architecture, basketry, and ceramics have been undertaken, dealing with data from all across the area. Lithic studies are also coming along. The Fremont culture does not seem to be in danger of a premature and stultifying consensus among its devotees. Hogan and Sebastian have argued that attempts to subdivide the Fremont area are wrongly based. That rather than being derived from trait list comparisons, any divisions to be recognized should be based on comparisons of subsistence and settlement patterns. It certainly would be well to develop an overall classification of Fremont subregions on such a basis, and work is now begun that will make such an overview possible within a few years. But it is wrong to say that typological, trait list comparisons are of no value for recognizing cultural variation within an archeological entity such as the Fremont. Whereas the approach Hogan and Sebastian advocate focuses on the process of cultural adaptation to environment, and will yield an ecologically oriented categorization of Fremont internal variation, the typological/ trait list approach properly focuses on culture history, and yields a categorization based on the dispersion and persistence in space and time of culturally patterned ways of making artifacts. A history of traditional concepts, and of the groups which held them, is properly the result of typological/trait list studies. I say "properly" twice in this context because it is true - as Hogan and Sebastian point out - that trait list comparisons have sometimes been made to do more than they are really capable of doing, but this abuse should not be eliminated simply by eliminating that form of analysis. Both forms of analysis are important and should be pursued. They lead to different and complementary results. Just as the boundaries of linguistic/ethnic groups do not always coincide with the boundaries of economic/environmental zones, so the archeological boundaries derived from these two kinds of analyses will not necessarily be quite the same. The heart of Berry's paper is his contention that "diffusionist-migrationist" (which is to say, culture-historical) archeology explains nothing, since all the concepts of diffusion and migration do is to "pass the buck" back through an infinite regression of historical events, without really explaining those events. One gets the feeling, not only from Berry's comments but from the writings of others as well, that many contemporary 74 archeologists simply disdain the. question of diffusion and migration, even to the point of virtually denying its occurrence. And if its occurrence is not denied, its importance surely is. Yet migration and diffusion are so abundantly attested as major historical processes by linguistic maps, cultural distributions, and historical chronicles throughout the world, as to make the growing conspiracy of silence about them simply laughable. It is objected that a diffusionist/migrationist interpretation explains nothing. But that is patently false. A diffusionist/ migrationist interpretation that is well-conceived and well-supported by archeological fact can explain much about how a given culture-historical entity developed. Such an explanation of course cannot explain all, but that is surely no reason for ignoring diffusion and migration in archeological interpretation. Of course, processual interpretation adds an important and satisfying dimension to archeological explanations, and it must be vigorously prosecuted. Not, however, in lieu of diffusionist/migrationist approaches, but in conjunction with them. Berry's critique, significantly, does not offer any processualist map showing a way out of the diffusionist/migrationist slough of despond which he perceives. One of the factors which forced him into such an eloquent silence is, I believe, that he has made the problem of archeological explanation seem much more difficult than it really is, by his vehement rejection of, and apparent determination to ignore, diffusionist/migrationist interpretations. This leaves him with no basis on which to build. Madsen has done a good thing in pulling together all the available information on Fremont culture subsistence. The very limited yield of data he got for his efforts reveals a glaring deficiency in our knowledge of Fremont subsistence and settlement, but his exciting results from Backhoe Village illustrate one very promising approach to remedying the problem. Madsen's recognition of the great importance that marsh resources such as cattail may have played in the subsistence of the Great Basin Fremont folk is a major new insight that is sure to generate additional interest in research into the relation of the Fremont people to the native biota of their natural surroundings. I look forward with pleasure to seeing a florescence of new data, models, and contentions in this area. Lohse's systematic and exhaustive attribute analysis of architectural variation in Fremont habitation structures should lay to rest any lingering doubts as to the objective reality of the five Fremont areal variants defined by Marwitt (1970). The architectural data thus confirm a pattern indicated with equal clarity by the ceramic data (Madsen 1970), and by other information as well Those divisions actually do exist, and with Lohse's numerical analysis and impressively high statistical significance levels, we can no longer imagine that they were simply artifacts of a subjective interpretation. Interestingly, his data also show an even higher level of significance when grouped according to a simple east-west division of Great Basin and Colorado Plateau Fremont. That division, too, really exists. Whether we are to view the five variants as due primarily to the local break-up over time of two earlier, larger, and more uniform culture-historical diffusion spheres, or whether we are to attribute primacy to an early adaptation to local environmental variation that was present from the beginning of Fremont occupation, and attribute the levels of observed cultural contrast to relative levels of environmental contrast between the respective geographic areas, is a primarily chronological problem that we cannot yet adequately assess for lack of sufficient dating information. If we grant that Lohse's paper adds the last bit of analysis needed to conclusively settle the question of whether and to what degree there was, in fact, regional variation within the Fremont culture, we will not run out of interesting contentions. Rather, we will be freed to move the discussion up a notch, to questions of the process by which those divisions came into being. The concerns expressed by Hogan and Sebastian are clear evidence of an already existing tendency among Fremont researchers to move in that direction, as is the work of Madsen at Backhoe Village. Adovasio focuses his presentation on the question of whether or not the Fremont, composed as it is of a number of regional variants, actually has sufficient integrity to warrant its definition as a single archeological culture. The idea that no definable Fremont entity actually exists at all has not been directly proposed in this symposium, but it was argued in a recent monograph by Madsen and Lindsay (1977), and is being pursued further in a paper by Madsen in American Antiquity (Madsen 1979). All participants are aware of the issue, and some have alluded to it in their papers. It is perhaps the most prominent of the ghosts present in this volume. On the basis of a detailed attribute analysis of virtually every piece of reported Fremont basketry, and with characteristic emphasis, Adovasio shows that all Fremont variants are dominated by half-rod-and-bundle coiled ware, which has local antecedents in the Eastern Great Basin, and does not exist in significant amounts outside the Fremont range. In advancing his argument that the uniformity observed in this single craft is sufficient evidence, by itself, of the existence of a coherent Fremont culture entity, Adovasio refers, among other considerations, to the basketry of the southwestern Apache. Among the Apache, despite great differences in material culture from band to band, a clearly Apachean basketry complex is common to all groups. He alludes to other evidence as well in arguing that in general, basketry textiles are the most sensitive indicators available for this sort of analysis. Though it would have been reassuring to hear a more detailed exposition of the Apachean case, and even more to have heard of other similar cases, Ado-vasio's argument demands attention. Moreover, it does not stand in quite so lonely a position as he seems to feel, since Lohse, in this symposium, has marshalled 75 a good deal of architectural evidence to show that Fremont habitations, considered as a whole, are clearly distinguishable from those of cultures surrounding the Fremont area to the north, south, east, and west. Holmer defines a series of eight projectile point types as characteristic of various parts of the Fremont culture area, suggesting that Rose Spring Corner-notched (a type widespread throughout the Great Basin) may have been the earliest Fremont type, while the others may be later regional developments. These others include Uinta Side-notched, Bear River Side-notched, Nawthis Side-notched, Desert Side-notched, Eastgate Expanding-stem. Parowan Basal-notched, and Bull Creek concave-base points. The side-notched types are refined out of the previously existing Desert Side-notched category, and the Parowan and Bull Creek types are refined out of groups that would previously have been classified as Eastgate Expanding-stem and Cottonwood Triangular, respectively. Some might bemoan this as excessive typological splitting. But to the contrary, it seems clear from Hol-mer's distribution maps alone that a gain in information results from the exercise. It would have been extremely interesting to see what patterns might emerge if the table of site-by-site distribution of these points had been placed in a simple seriation ordering, and alternatively, in an ordering in terms of Marwitt's five Fremont subareas. 1 hope that Holmer pursues this analysis further, to put it on a firmer basis by reexamination of as many Fremont lithic collections as possible. This would also allow him to inject a quantitative element into the discussion, which might permit the kind of numerical evaluation of his distributions that Lohse has produced for architectural data. In summary, 1 feel that this volume shows Fremont research to be in fundamentally healthy condition. The papers presented here have for the most part not been empty opinion and wrangling, but have presented new data and/or new analyses that transcend the level of mere rehashing. It seems to me that the culture-historical base is firming up quickly, and that the time is ripe for the shifts in research emphasis advocated and initiated here. **%. **&» 76 |
