Anthropologists speak of sedentarization and settling down" as  though mobility has always characterized hunter-gatherer adaptations. In addition to subsistence success, mobility is seen as advantageous in resolving conflict, gathering information, and controlling population growth. Sedentism among hunter-gatherers is traditionally seen as exceptional, explained in terms of coercion, circumscription, or unusually productive environments. This thesis, in studying low-mobility hunter-gatherers of central California, questions traditional anthropological wisdom about sedentary adaptations. The study begins by reviewing explanations of hunter-gatherer mobility and sedentism, and finds that mobility reduction has been achieved through varied strategies, under a wide range of environmental conditions. Resource productivity, diversity, and stability, as well as water availability, are identified as four important  variables in mobility level. Focusing on one central California stream drainage, a detailed reconstruction of local environment uses these variables as a basis for four alternative settlement pattern models. The models are compared with information from three sources: ethnographic  and ethnohistoric records, describing contact-period settlement