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Calculating the Cultural Significance of American Indian Plants: Paiute and Shoshone Ethnobotany at Yucca Mountain, Nevada
Author(s) -
Stoffle Richard W.,
Halmo David B.,
Evans MichaelJ.,
Olmsted John E.
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
american anthropologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.51
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1548-1433
pISSN - 0002-7294
DOI - 10.1525/aa.1990.92.2.02a00100
Subject(s) - ethnobotany , sociocultural evolution , prehistory , geography , anthropology , ethnography , history , archaeology , environmental ethics , social science , sociology , ecology , biology , medicinal plants , philosophy
Ethnobotanical studies are of interest to ethnographers, ethnobotanists, and cultural historians who study the prehistoric, historic, and contemporary contribution of plants to the sociocultural adaptations of American Indian people. A critical research issue is evaluating the differential contribution of plants to American Indian adaptive strategies. This article takes the first quantitative plant evaluation model and combines it with field data from the Yucca Mountain, Nevada, ethnobotany study to explore the utility of this model for evaluating the cultural significance of botanical resources to contemporary American Indian peoples.