A landscape approach to Late Prehistoric settlement and subsistence patterns in the Mojave Sink

The environment of the Late Prehistoric period (1200 A.D. to Historic Contact) Mojave Sink was wetter than modern conditions. The settlement and subsistence patterns of the occupants of the region during this period were driven by the availability of water, subsistence resources, raw material sources, and tradition. These people utilized the regional landscape based upon the seasonal availability of these resources. Supplemental agricultural production has been proposed for the Mojave River Delta due to the more favorable environmental conditions of this period. If agriculture was being practiced it would have affected the regional land-use patterns. For this thesis I propose that the archaeological sites in the Mojave Sink are part of a larger landscape that should be evaluated on a regional scale to interpret Late Prehistoric period settlement and subsistence patterns. A portion of the Mojave Sink, which includes the Mojave River Wash and Soda Playa, were sampled to develop a model of Late Prehistoric period landscape use in the Mojave Sink region.