Criticisms of our model of the recent spread of numic speakers into the Great basin cneter on the ambiguity of linguistic evidence and apparent similarities between numic and prenumic settlement and subsistance paterns. We argue that the linguistic data are only one part of a larger body of ethnographic data that support the hypothesized spread of numic speakers and that the adaptive similarities noted between numic and prenumic are only of the broadest sort and do not vitiate the assumptions of our model. In particular, we sugest that is the intensity with which a resource is used, not the mere use of that resource, which is important in understanding competitive replacement among adaptative strategies.