Posí-Pleistocene adaptation to the arid environment of the Great Basin area of the western USA, which continues to be practised in some areas to this day. It is characterized by the utilization of a wide variety of food sources. Both big and small game animals as well as numerous plant species were exploited in a cyclical pattern typical of the Archaic lifestyle. The hallmark artefacts are the basket and the flat milling stone. Evidence of the Desert Tradition has been found not only in much of the western USA, for example Ventana Cave and Danger Cave, but also in northern Mexico. Probably its best known manifestation is Cochise. See Table 9, page 552.
The Macmillan dictionary of archaeology, Ruth D. Whitehouse, 1983Copied