People of the High Country

For 8000 years Native American lived in and around the Jackson Hole country of northwestern Wyoming. Combining archeological, ethno- historic, and ethnographic data, we examine the lifeways of these peoples and their relationships with the land itself. We see some 6000 years ago the establishment of an adaption which focused upon plants, particularly root crops, and fishing in the summer, and hunting in the winter. It remained stable until about A.D. 1600 when the migration of Shoshonean speakers into the area replaced the local inhabitants. Within 100 years a new culture centered upon bison hunting and the domestic horse evolved, but this adapta- tion, too, fell before the advancing white civilization. Each of these cultures is analyzed centering on the theme of their perspective of the Jackson Hole environment.