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Why was early spring often a difficult season for Great Basin food supplies?
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Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin
Kaylei Weed (left) of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe with her two sons and mother, Elaine Ethel Weed, at the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2015.
Early spring was a particularly difficult season for the Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin because their stored food supplies, such as the piñon nuts gathered during the autumn, were often exhausted by that time of year.1
Additionally, the natural environment offered little relief during this transition: new plant resources were not yet mature, and prey animals were typically lean and wary, making them more difficult to hunt. While some groups were able to mitigate these shortages by fishing during spring spawning runs, the season remained a period of significant nutritional challenge for many pedestrian bands who relied on the seasonal availability of wild resources.12