Makoto Kowta, reviewing my recent Fifty Years of Archeology in the California Desert (Journal of California Anthropology 3[2]:93-94) has noted my positivist biases, commented that I have "covered the material well" and revealed "new and interesting historical details," and expressed concern because I did not address "management of archaeological resources vis-a-vis the non-specialist public." While I am always grateful for essentially commendatory reviews, I am both disappointed and a little disturbed by Kowta's treatment of my work.

This paper summarizes information on California's Holocene environments and presents archaeological evidence for some dramatic cultural adjustments from natural changes. Some goals include showing how archaeology may be used: (1) to help validate models of environmental change developed in other sciences; (2) to independently discover environmental trends and conditions; (3) to add the dimension of human adaptation to studies of environmental change; and (4) to show how natural changes affected particular localities. Findings not only suggest how archaeology may contribute to better paleoenvironmental reconstructions, but also raise questions about the long-term viability of current land use patterns in the far west.