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Comment on Quimby's “Cultural and Natural Areas before Kroeber”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Homer Aschmann
Homer Aschmann*
Affiliation:
University of CaliforniaRiverside, Calif.
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Extract

One is forced to admire Quimby's enterprise (1954, American Antiquity, Vol. 19, No. 4, pp. 317-31) in attempting not only a characterization but a mapping of the paleogeography of North America at 7 stages between 8500 B.C. and 500 B.C. Among other things it shows a healthful awareness that the physical environment cannot be considered a constant even in the relatively short time span generally accepted for the New World archaeological record. Fruitful investigations can be pursued through coordinating the geological, climatological, paleoecological, and archaeological evidence over extensive regions, and this tentative essay may provide a needed impetus.

On the other hand, certain of the hypotheses presented in this paper seem to me to demand immediate examination before they become established dogma to burden subsequent investigations. I shall not question the eclectic use of 2 main chronological frameworks, those provided by Antevs and by radiocarbon dating, though the former, at least, is hardly established fact (Burma 1950).

Type
Facts and Comments
Information
American Antiquity , Volume 20 , Issue 4Part1 , April 1955 , pp. 377 - 378
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Archaeology 1955

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References

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