Where Did Montane Hunting and Gathering Activities Take Place?
Much of the discussion in this chapter has been dedicated to developing ecological concepts that would allow us to predict which mountain landscapes, or more properly environmental zones, are expected to be associated with most frequent prehistoric human use. Building on arguments linking edible resource productivity to repressed forest maturity, I have argued that human use, and hence the archaeological record, should demonstrate a consistent bias toward upper forest, subalpine and alpine tundra environmental zones. These are the places in which the most critical floral and faunal species especially mountain goats, elk, deer, marmots, bear, ptarmigan and huckleberries tend to occur in greatest density. If these resources are the primary attractors to prehistoric human use of the mountain, then the archaeological record should display a corresponding distribution pattern. While fire and other sources of forest perturbation may open roughly comparable habitat at lower elevation, these a
