Numic archaeology has long been dominated by questions about the spread of Numic-speaking peoples across the Great Basin. Linguistic models from the 1950s positing a recent spread of Numic speakers continue to influence the way archaeologists interpret subsistence intensification, settlement pattern changes, and variation in material culture. The Numic spread model has focused attention on when and why Numic people spread throughout their historic territory, with little concern for the archaeology of Numic people's lived experiences. Robert H. Brunswig's Spirit Lands of the Eagle and Bear includes 14 chapters that shift the geographical focus eastward to the Rocky Mountains and to the Shoshone and Ute people who lived there. Questions about the time depth of Numic occupation in the region are still important, but the book is about much more than that.
Brunswig's introduction positions the volume's contributions in the context of previous Numic archaeology. He identifies several issues that the authors address, including the origins and spread of Numic hunter-gatherers into the central Rockies, the role of high-altitude sites in the spread of Numic groups, what distinguishes Numic from other hunter-gatherer groups archaeologically, and how Numic spiritual beliefs are reflected in the landscape.
Bryon Schroeder begins with a theoretical discussion of the concept of ethnicity in archaeology, then presents the Numic spread as a case study. He concludes that much of the supposed evidence for the Numic spread should be seen as “more properly representing a very successful technological spread” (p. 26). Two other chapters discuss the high-altitude, alpine zone sites that have often been seen as evidence for Numic presence. Matthew A. Stirn adopts a broad geographical scope, describing alpine villages across the Great Basin and the central Rockies. Richard Adams discusses alpine sites in the Wind River range of Wyoming. Together, these chapters show that seasonally occupied residential sites with similar architecture and artifact assemblages occur across a large portion of the western United States, from southeastern California to Wyoming. How often these high-altitude sites should be attributed to Numic presence is unclear, but the Wyoming sites are at least as old as those in the western Great Basin. This presents a direct challenge to models that interpret high-altitude sites as evidence of an eastward spread of Numic peoples.
Byron Loosle looks for evidence of Northern Ute origins in northeastern Utah's Uinta Basin. He finds abundant archaeological evidence for Ute presence after the founding of the Uintah Ute Reservation, but a sparse Ute archaeological record before the mid-nineteenth century. He argues that this indicates that in pre-reservation times the Uinta Basin was a peripheral area, visited occasionally by small groups that passed through or hunted in the Basin.
Three chapters describe the University of Northern Colorado's long-term research in and near Rocky Mountain National Park. Brunswig dates Ute pottery from the Sue site to the fourteenth century AD, and he notes continuity in lithic and faunal assemblages that suggests the site was used for centuries by members of the same cultural tradition. Christine Chady and colleagues describe the Ute sacred landscape, drawing on ethnography, archaeology, and consultation with Ute tribal members. Unfortunate editing problems resulted in mismatches between figures and captions in this chapter, but it still provides useful descriptions of sacred features and how they are integrated to form a sacred landscape. Another chapter by Brunswig focuses on reconstructing Indigenous trail systems and how these pathways relate to sacred and mundane landscapes.
In Chapter 6, John (Jack) W. Ives describes evidence from the Promontory Caves, near the northern end of the Great Salt Lake, that indicates that small groups of Apachean people used the caves during the thirteenth century AD. The inhabitants of the Promontory Caves were big-game hunters and presumably related to the southward migration of Dene people that eventually resulted in the presence of Apache and Navajo in the Southwest.
Several chapters address the nature of interactions among different hunter-gatherer groups, and the challenges in distinguishing sites created by Ute, Shoshone, Apache, Arapahoe, or Sioux hunter-gatherers who at times competed for—or shared—territories. Curtis Martin focuses on Ute wickiups, demonstrating that most of the surviving examples date to the 1800s or early 1900s. Rand A. Greubel and John D. Cater describe differences and similarities in Ute and Navajo technology, subsistence, and settlement patterns. Lindsay M. Montgomery discusses the archaeological record of Ute presence in northern New Mexico, which consists mostly of campsites and rock art sites. Together, these sites form a cultural landscape that reflects both patterns of Ute seasonal migrations and Ute cultural practices and beliefs. Sally McBeth's chapter discusses how the Ute remained connected to, and often returned to, their ancestral homelands after their removal to reservations in the nineteenth century.
Spirit Lands of the Eagle and Bear demonstrates the potential of refocusing Numic archaeology, demonstrating that there is much more to learn than when Numic people arrived in different areas. The book reveals the complex relationship Numic people had with the landscapes they inhabited, their interactions with the diverse groups of hunter-gatherers who shared those landscapes, and the nature of changes that came with European settlement and the establishment of reservations.
