Fight or flight: An assessment of Fremont territoriality in Nine Mile Canyon, Utah

Authors:

Weston C. McCool, Peter M. Yaworsky

Abstract:

The territorialization of resources is a continual topic of interest for researchers investigating human social organization and resource competition. While scholars have proposed numerous archaeological markers of territoriality, these indicators are often established using qualitative observation and speculation rather than standardized methods and quantitative tests. In this article, we investigate the link between archaeological data and prehistoric territoriality using Formative period Fremont sites from Nine Mile Canyon (NMC), Utah, and geospatial statistical tests. Numerous researchers have suggested the presence of NMC sites with explicit defensive functions. The existence of large tower structures and remote storage units have led many to hypothesize that these features were part of a Fremont strategy to maintain territorial boundaries and defend resources from human predation. Here, we focus on the tower sites and their relationship to Fremont territoriality. Our results support the hypothesis that the tower sites of NMC functioned as defensive refuges. The presence of refuge sites reveals that the NMC Fremont avoided the confrontations necessary to exclude competitors and maintain territorial boundaries. We propose an explanatory model relating to seasonal mobility and settlement dispersion to explain why the costs of territoriality may have outweighed the benefits.

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