Master of Arts

thesisThe information resultant from three years of excavation at the Evans Mound (42In40) are used to derive a prehistoric subsistence model for southwestern Utah. The model is based on paleobotanical, palynclogical,. and settlement data, and augmented by limited recourse to ethnographic analogy. The implications of the model suggest possible relationships between the Parowan Fremont farming groups, the documented influx of the Numic speaking hunter-gatherers, and the eventual failure of aboriginal farming in southwestern Utah. These relationships may be explained by either' of two hypotheses: (1) gradual failure of the Fremont subsistence system due to environmental change; or, (2) competition ,with Numic groups for critical subsistence resources