The Record of Native People on Gulf of California Islands

The Record of Native People on Gulf of California Islands PDF Author: Thomas Bowen
Publisher: Arizona State Museum
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 118

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Book Description
In the last century historians and anthropologists interested in northwestern Mexico knew that Indians had inhabited four large islands in the Gulf of California. Since 1900 ethnohistorical and archaeological research has expanded knowledge of Indians on both sides of the Gulf. Much of that information pertains to the people living on the peninsula and mainland, and touches only incidentally on the islands. In this volume, Thomas Bowen presents historical and archaeological evidence for human use of 32 major Gulf islands. Native people may have played a significant role in shaping island ecosystems. Chronological data from the southern Gulf establishes a time depth for native people of ten millennia. New information from Seri oral history indicates Seri voyages far beyond Isla Tiburón, and Bowen shows the traditional assumption -- that most islands were beyond the range of native people – is wrong. Indians knew and exploited nearly every significant island in the Gulf. Bowen’s work touches on the question of initial human entry into the Americas. The Gulf may occupy a pivotal position in human dispersal in the Americas, and it is possible that evidence of this process has been preserved on some Gulf islands.

The Record of Native People on Gulf of California Islands

The Record of Native People on Gulf of California Islands PDF Author: Thomas Bowen
Publisher: Arizona State Museum
ISBN:
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 118

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the last century historians and anthropologists interested in northwestern Mexico knew that Indians had inhabited four large islands in the Gulf of California. Since 1900 ethnohistorical and archaeological research has expanded knowledge of Indians on both sides of the Gulf. Much of that information pertains to the people living on the peninsula and mainland, and touches only incidentally on the islands. In this volume, Thomas Bowen presents historical and archaeological evidence for human use of 32 major Gulf islands. Native people may have played a significant role in shaping island ecosystems. Chronological data from the southern Gulf establishes a time depth for native people of ten millennia. New information from Seri oral history indicates Seri voyages far beyond Isla Tiburón, and Bowen shows the traditional assumption -- that most islands were beyond the range of native people – is wrong. Indians knew and exploited nearly every significant island in the Gulf. Bowen’s work touches on the question of initial human entry into the Americas. The Gulf may occupy a pivotal position in human dispersal in the Americas, and it is possible that evidence of this process has been preserved on some Gulf islands.

The Gulf of California

The Gulf of California PDF Author: Richard C. Brusca
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 9780816527397
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
Few places in the world can claim such a diversity of species as the Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), with its 6,000 recorded animal species estimated to be half the number actually living in its waters. So rich are the Gulf's water that over a half-million tons of seafood are taken from them annuallyÑand this figure does not count the wasted by-catch, which would triple or quadruple that tonnage. This timely book provides a benchmark for understanding the Gulf's extraordinary diversity, how it is threatened, and in what ways it isÑor should beÑprotected. In spite of its dazzling richness, most of the Gulf's coastline now harbors but a pale shadow of the diversity that existed just a half-century ago. Recommendations based on sound, careful science must guide Mexico in moving forward to protect the Gulf of California. This edited volume contains contributions by twenty-four Gulf of California experts, from both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. From the origins of the Gulf to its physical and chemical characteristics, from urgently needed conservation alternatives for fisheries and the entire Gulf ecosystem to information about its invertebrates, fishes, cetaceans, and sea turtles, this thought-provoking book provides new insights and clear paths to achieve sustainable use solidly based on robust science. The interdisciplinary, international cooperation involved in creating this much-needed collection provides a model for achieving success in answering critically important questions about a precious but rapidly disappearing ecological treasure.

Unknown Island

Unknown Island PDF Author: Thomas Bowen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 592

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Book Description
Seri Indian oral history describes an extinct band of Seris who lived on San Esteban Island in the Gulf of California, yet nowhere are they mentioned in European records. This ethnohistorical study explains how these isolated folk escaped European notice.

A Sea Full of Turtles

A Sea Full of Turtles PDF Author: Bill Streever
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1639366709
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
An inspired and impassioned story of adventure that explores the richness of marine life and charts a path of resilience and hope. Everyone alive today is witnessing a mass extinction event caused by the more than eight billion humans who share this planet. At times, it seems there is little hope. Climate change, resource exploitation, agrochemicals, overfishing, plastics, dead zones in our oceans, drought and desertification, conversion of habitat to housing, farming, and industrial infrastructure—the list of impacts and insults goes on and on. We are, it seems, on an unalterable path that will continue to decimate biodiversity. A feeling of hopeless, while not unwarranted, is part of the problem. Without hope, without some belief in the possibility of positive outcomes, the fight for nature is over. Why even try if the battle is already lost? While staring the problems squarely in the face, A Sea Full of Turtles offers hope for those who care about our living world. Delivered as a travel narrative set in Mexico’s Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez), at one level the book focuses on dramatically underfunded but highly successful efforts to protect sea turtles. But the book goes beyond Mexico and beyond sea turtles to look at how some humans have changed their relationship with nature—and how that change can one day end the extinction crisis. Enchanting, galvanizing, and brimming with joy and wonder, A Sea Full of Turtles will inspire immediate action to face the great challenges that lie ahead. Pessimism is the lazy way out. Optimism, it turns out, is both a reasonable and an essential attitude for us all as we fight for the beautiful diversity of life on our Earth.

Shells on a Desert Shore

Shells on a Desert Shore PDF Author: Cathy Moser Marlett
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 081654512X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
In Mexico’s western Sonoran Desert along the Gulf of California is a place made extraordinary by the desert solitude, the dynamic sea, and the people who live there—the Seris. Central to the lives of these people are the sea and its shores. Shells on a Desert Shore describes the Seri knowledge of mollusks and includes names, folklore, history, uses, and much more. Cathy Moser Marlett’s research of several decades, conducted in the Seri language, builds on work begun in 1951 by her parents, Edward and Becky Moser. The language, spoken by fewer than a thousand people today, is considered endangered. Marlett presents what she has learned from Seri consultants over recent decades and also draws from her own childhood experiences while living in a Seri village. The information from the people who had lived as hunter-gatherers provides a window into a lifestyle no longer recalled from personal experience by most Seris today—and perhaps a window into the lives of other peoples who made the Gulf’s shores their home. The book offers a wealth of information about Seri history, as well as species accounts of more than 150 mollusks from the Seri area on the central Gulf coast. Chapters describe how the people ate mollusks or used them medicinally, how the mollusks were named, and how their shells were used. The author provides several hundred detailed drawings and photographs, many of them archival. Shells on a Desert Shore is a fresh, original presentation of a significant part of the Seri way of life. Unique because it is written from the perspective of a participant in the Seri culture, the book will stand as a definitive, irreplaceable work in ethnography, a time capsule of the Seri people and their connection to the sea.

Plant Life of a Desert Archipelago

Plant Life of a Desert Archipelago PDF Author: Richard Stephen Felger
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816599416
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 623

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Book Description
The desert islands of the Gulf of California are among the world's best-preserved archipelagos. The diverse and unique flora, from the cardón forests of Cholludo to the agave-dominated slopes of San Esteban remain much as they were centuries ago, when the Comcaac (Seri people) were the only human presence in the region. Almost 400 plant species exist here, with each island manifesting a unique composition of vegetation and flora. For thousands of years, climatic and biological forces have sculpted a set of unparalleled desert worlds. Plant Life of a Desert Archipelago is the first in-depth coverage of the plants on islands in the Gulf of California found in between the coasts of Baja California and Sonora. The work is the culmination of decades of study by botanist Richard Felger and recent investigations by Benjamin Wilder, in collaboration with Sr. Humberto Romero-Morales, one of the most knowledgeable Seris concerning the region's flora. Their collective effort weaves together careful and accurate botanical science with the rich cultural and stunning physical setting of this island realm. The researchers surveyed, collected, and studied thousands of plants—seen here in meticulous illustrations and stunning color photographs—providing the most precise species accounts of the islands ever made. To access remote parts of the islands the authors worked directly with the Comcaac, an indigenous community who have lived off marine and terrestrial life in this coastal desert region for centuries. Invaluable information regarding indigenous names and distributions are an intrinsic part of this work. The flora descriptions are extraordinarily detailed and painstakingly crafted for field biologists. Conservationists, students, and others who are interested in learning about the natural wealth of the Gulf of California, desert regions, or islands in general are sure to be captivated by this rich and fascinating volume.

Marking the Land

Marking the Land PDF Author: William A Lovis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317361164
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
Marking the Land investigates how hunter-gatherers use physical landscape markers and environmental management to impose meaning on the spaces they occupy. The land is full of meaning for hunter-gatherers. Much of that meaning is inherent in natural phenomena, but some of it comes from modifications to the landscape that hunter-gatherers themselves make. Such alterations may be intentional or unintentional, temporary or permanent, and they can carry multiple layers of meaning, ranging from practical signs that provide guidance and information through to less direct indications of identity or abstract, highly symbolic signs of sacred or ceremonial significance. This volume investigates the conditions which determine the investment of time and effort in physical landscape marking by hunter-gatherers, and the factors which determine the extent to which these modifications are symbolically charged. Considering hunter-gatherer groups of varying sociocultural complexity and scale, Marking the Land provides a systematic consideration of this neglected aspect of hunter-gatherer adaptation and the varied environments within which they live.

Inside Dazzling Mountains

Inside Dazzling Mountains PDF Author: David L. Kozak
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0803240864
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 702

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Book Description
Inside Dazzling Mountains provides fresh new translations of Native oral literatures of the Southwest, a region of vital and varied cultures and languages. The collection features songs, stories, chants, and orations from the four major language groups of the Southwest: Yuman, Nadíne (Apachean), Uto-Aztecan, and Kiowa-Tanoan. It combines translations of recordings made in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with a rich array of newly recorded and produced materials, attesting to the continued vitality and creativity of contemporary Native languages in the Southwest. For southwestern linguistic and cultural traditions to be more widely recognized and appreciated, retranslations of older works have been sorely needed. Original translations were often flawed and culturally biased and made use of literary conventions that were familiar to Anglo-Americans but foreign to the Native tribes themselves. Inside Dazzling Mountains corrects these flaws and celebrates the diversity of Native languages spoken in the Southwest today. Skillfully edited and translated by David L. Kozak, who offers a wealth of editorial tools for interpreting songs, song sets, myths, stories, and chants of the Southwest, past and present, this volume contributes to the continued vitality and cultural complexity of the region.

Ethnobiology for the Future

Ethnobiology for the Future PDF Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816532745
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
"The book centers on a call to define/redefine the field of ethnobiology and the need for doing so. It points a major way forward for ethnobiology: toward engagement with people and communities that are saving ecosystems and lifestyles through reviving traditional agricultural items and techniques, and integrating them into the contemporary world"--Provided by publisher.

California History for Kids

California History for Kids PDF Author: Katy S. Duffield
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1569769664
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
The rich story of the men and women who settled and built the Golden State is told in this engaging chronicle, from the first native inhabitants that arrived 9,000 years ago and the Spanish in the 1700s to the followers of the Gold Rush in 1848 and the Hollywood and Silicon Valley newcomers. They faced many struggles—including earthquakes, economic hardships, and the forced internment of Japanese citizens—yet they persevered. To get a better idea of the scope of California history and the lives of the state’s residents, children will create a Chumash rock painting, play the Miwok game of Hoop and Pole, bake and eat hardtack like a gold miner, design a cattle brand, assemble an earthquake preparedness kit, and more. This valuable resource also includes a time line of significant events, a list of historic sites to visit or explore online, and Web resources for further study.