Timber Procurement and Village Location In the Middle Missouri Subarea

Foodstuffs have frequently been regarded as one of the foremost variables when considering population distribution and village location across the landscape. However, other variables may be at least as important as the availability of food. Timber has been noted as a material that is important for fuel and construction purposes, and in some cases can be a resource that is crucial for population maintenance in an area. The importance of timber is examined for the Plains Village populations of the Middle Missouri Subarea, timber succession is examined, and village location in relation to timber resources hypothesized. In recent years archaeologists have begun to examine the economic consequences of human population settlement patterns. Most studies have been concerned with the availability and procurement of foodstuffs and the expenditure of energy in relation to site location (e.g. Vita-Finzi and Higgs 1970). Commonly, the availability of foodstuffs has been regarded as an important variable and affects maintenance, growth, and decrease in population size. Sedentism, technological change, biological reproduction, and popula tion attrition have been viewed as responses to or consequences of the availability of foodstuffs (cf. Boserup 1965; Binford 1968, 1976; Cohen 1977). Food is often thought to be the most important of critical resources that need to be considered when dealing with settlement location. However, there is at least one author who specifically cites a variable other than availability of food that is important for settlement location. Lee states that in the Kalahari Desert, where the soil is porous, rainfall is percolated rapidly, and surficial runoff is at a minimum so that the distribution of water sources is by far the most important ecological determinant of Bush man subsistence. The availability of plant foods is of secondary importance and the numbers and distributions of game animals are only of minor importance. Since the Bushman camps, of necessity, are anchored to water sources they can exploit only those vegetable foods that lie within a reasonable walking distance of water. Food resources that lie beyond a reasonable walking distance are rarely exploited (1969: 56). For this particular case the availability of food is of less importance when discussing Bushman settlement patterns than the avail ability and location of water. Additional examples where water is a critical resource may be adduced from articles by Lipe (1970:91-93), Dean (1970:146), and Yengoyan (1968:186). The point to be emphasized is that variables considered important for human habitation and settlement may vary in time, space, and cultural position. For the purposes of this paper I will examine another resource which I deem to be at least as important as the availability and attainment of foodstuffs. Before continuing let me emphasize that I am cognizant that probably not all variables that are important in human population maintenance or change or settlement location act in a mutually exclusive or linear fashion. The issue is obviously much more complex, with variables co-occurring, co-varying, or dependency linked in a cyclical fashion. Nevertheless, the focus of this paper will be upon a single variable, the availability of timber, and its effects upon the native populations along the Missouri River in North and South Dakota.