1980/11/01 by Richard Perry · 1 citation
Health Professions · Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · #Indigenous Studies and Ecology #Archaeology and Natural History #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Subarctic climate #Subsistence agriculture #Archaeology #Geography #Ecology #Physical geography #Biology
paper · doi:10.1080/2052546.1980.11908999
openalex publication_date 1980/11/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
A comparison of evidence from linguistics, archaeology, ethnography and history suggests that the separation of Northern and Southern Athabascans in the first millennium A.D. may have been provoked by warming conditions and resultant shifts in the distribution of major game species. The “mixed bag” subsistence pattern of most Athabascan groups, as well as their association with mountainous areas which provide access to a variety of ecological zones, lends weight to the hypothesis that mountain ranges were the medium for Apachean migration into the Southwest. A hypothetical reconstruction of this transition from the Subarctic to the Southwest is presented and discussed.