The rapid spread of Numic peoples into the Great Basin about 500-700 years ago is a major anomaly in the prehistory of that region because, according to current interpretations, it occurred in the absence of major adaptive change. A review of existing evidence suggests that this view is incorrect; we propose an alternative notion of important contrasts between Prenumic and Numic adaptation in terms of the relative reliance on large game and small seeds. These contrasts explain why the Numic speakers were consistently able to expand at the expense of Prenumic groups.

This paper describes and demonstrates an improved statistical method for determining chronological sequences among archaeological sites. The method, derived from a system of measurement called contextual analysis, depends on the pattern of artifact types present and absent at each site rather than on the relative frequency of occurrence of types. The process of contextual analysis is presented in sufficient detail to provide a guide for other studies.For purposes of demonstration, the chronology of 16 central California burial sites, originally analyzed by Heizer, Fenenga, Lillard and others, and subsequently re-examined by Belous, was again reworked. The results showed an extremely high measure of agreement with Heizer's chronology, a rank order correlation coefficient of .96 being obtained. This high agreement is taken as evidence not only that a purely statistical method of establishing dependable sequences is possible, but also that contextual analysis is a sufficiently sensitive technique to solve the archaeological problem.

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Criticisms of our model of the recent spread of Numic speakers into the Great Basin center on the ambiguity of linguistic evidence and apparent similarities between Numic and Prenumic settlement and subsistence patterns. We argue that the linguistic data are only one part of a larger body of ethnographic data that support the hypothesized spread of Numic speakers and that the adaptive similarities noted between Numic and Prenumic are only of the broadest sort and do not vitiate the assumptions of our model. In particular, we suggest that it is the intensity with which a resource is used, not the mere use of that resource, which is important in understanding competitive replacement among adaptive strategies.