A Prehistory of Western North America: The Impact of Uto-Aztecan Languages

12: Prehistoric Sociolinguistics

293 CHAPTER 11 chasing the uto-aztecans A Model of Uto-Aztecan Prehistory Florence Hawley Ellis, in reviewing ethnographic data relevant to UA origins, considered that the degree of change in culture “would roughly parallel the degree of change in language, as a tribe that moved away from its original home and neighbors five thousand years ago would show more change than one separated from its original surroundings 500 years before present” (1968:88). She then restated the problem: “Once upon a time, the Utaztecans probably were one people. But when? And if there was a people of common linguistic family and carrying common culture, can we distinguish it now and if so, how?” (1968:89). Throughout this book, I have attempted to show how by using shallow time depth in UA, and now I might be able to answer some aspects of these questions. the numic unspread Hill (1978) argued that in arid lands, language is an adaptive strategy. It facilitates communication between local patrilineal extended families, and in cases of local/regional food resource failure, it facilitates the dispersal of affected local groups to related and affinally related neighboring groups. This means that in arid lands adaptations, languages tend not to differentiate. This skews the lexicostatistics, so that a language used by groups in arid lands could have a longer settlement than is suggested by cognate density or the age-area model. Bettinger and Baumhoff (1982), following Lamb (1958a), used age-area modeling and glottochronology to infer that the Numic languages were fairly recent in the Great Basin, and that the spread of these languages occurred at the time seed-beating technology spread into the Basin. Shaul (1986b), using CHAPTER 11 294 Hill’s generalization about linguistic adaptation in arid lands, suggested that seed-beating—which was an important innovation in food resource procurement —spread through networks of local extended Numic families already in place. This is a more ecological and effective explanation for the spread of seed-beating technology than is the proposed Numic spread, which is often cited as evidence against Numic affiliation with Great Basin antiquities before the spread of seed-beating technology for NAGPRA purposes. Shaul (2005) pointed out in addition that the Southern Numic branch is more linguistically diverse than are Central and Northern Numic. According to age-area modeling, Southern Numic has been spoken longer, having diversified locally because of more abundant food resources in the Southern Numic range. Archaeological study of the Great Basin and adjacent areas suggests both cultural continuity (house style, pottery, and footwear, for example) and shift (Numic twined basketry). Babel and colleagues (2013) have shown that the Timbisha and Shoshone speech communities were in place before Northern Numic diverged. Freeze and Iannucci (1979) have suggested that Central Numic and Southern Numic share an intermediate ancestor. Southern Numic is more internally diverse than the other two Numic branches. Internal diversity within Numic proves that a single Numic spread could not have happened. In addition, there was Numic and Pre-Hopi contact with Maiduan languages in the northwestern part of the Basin. Some of the Maiduan:Numic data show that Maiduan contact was with Southern Numic. Early Washo contact with UA was with Southern Numic, not Northern Numic, which surrounded Washo historically. This means that Northern Numic at some point displaced the Central or Southern Numic varieties that were in contact with Washo, which makes a simple, unilinear Numic prehistory impossible in that part of the basin. Possible contact between Molala and Proto-Sahaptian and UA invites future research. The Olivella Grooved Rectangular Beads complex and fabric structure link the Great Basin with southern California from the middle Holocene. Both imply a UA dialect chain stretching from southern California into the basin. These considerations force the abandonment of a single Numic spread as a valid reconstruction of Great Basin prehistory. The implication of this for Uto-Aztecan linguistic prehistory is a potentially much longer occupation of the Great Basin by Numic and other UA-speaking peoples than 1,500 years before present. CHASING THE UTO-AZTECANS 295 The Fremont culture of agriculturists was probably multiethnic. This is supported by Southern Numic ethnohistory, as well as by phonological artifacts shared by some Southern Numic varieties and Hopi. This suggests that Southern Numic was in place in southern Utah by AD 900 (the beginning of the flowering of the Fremont culture) and perhaps earlier. Archaeological bridging data suggest that...