Geologic Setting and Prehistoric Settlement Patterning in the Central Sierra Nevada, California

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" Geologic Setting and Prehistoric Settlement Patterning in the Central Sierra Nevada, California "
Jackson, Thomas L

Document Type	:	AL
Record Number	:	940094
Doc. No	:	LA7h05f1xv
Language of Document	:	English
Main Entry	:	Jackson, Thomas L
Title & Author	:	Geologic Setting and Prehistoric Settlement Patterning in the Central Sierra Nevada, California [Article]\ Jackson, Thomas L
Title of Periodical	:	Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology
Volume/ Issue Number	:	10/2
Date	:	1988
Abstract	:	This paper reports a study of geologic/hydrologic environmental association in the central Sierra Nevada and corresponding implications for prehistoric settlement patterning. Archaeological data suggest that native American populations in parts of the central Sierra Nevada situated most settlements along perennial steams and at midslope localities along the exposed contact between two superimposed geologic units: Pliocene volcanics resting atop Mesozoic granitic rocks of the Sierra Nevada batholith. Groundwater emerges as springs and stream flow along, or just downslope from, the contact. Above this geological nonconformity groundwater is not reliable year round. Thus, knowledge of the approximate location of the geological nonconformity effectively alerts the archaeologist to an environmental zone in which water sources (and sites) are likely to occur.