Linguistic Adaptation and the Great Basin

Bibliographic Data

ID2569926
AuthorsDavid Leedom Shaul (Indiana University – Purdue University Fort Wayne, corresponding author)
Year1986
Volume51
Issue2
Pages415-416
Publication date1986-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Antiquity (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0002-7316 • E-ISSN: 2325-5064
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/279958
OpenAlexW2335058128
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited6

It has been proposed that the spread of the Numic languages (and peoples) across the Great Basin from their California homeland correlates with a shift archaeologically in the area from a hunting focus to a seed-gathering focus, and that this shift may represent a Numic replacement of the non-Numic hunters. The actual linguistic adaptations of attested foraging groups contradict this idea: linguistic homogeneity will persist over large areas where a foraging economy is practiced. This is due partly to the incest taboo (the local social organization is a form of biological family) and partly to the adaptive advantage a mutually intelligible language gives foragers when food resources fail and the local group is dispersed among kin. Linguistic diversification among foragers is maladaptive, and dialect chains among foragers may persist through millennia over vast areas. Technological shifts could easily diffuse through such networks

Adaptation (eye) · Adaptive strategies · Archaeology · Biology · Diversification (marketing strategy) · Ethnology · Foraging · Geography · Homeland · Linguistics · Political science · Sociology · Taboo · Anthropology · Ecology · History · Language and cultural evolution · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Linguistics and language evolution · Psychology

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