The loose bilaterality of the Shoshone was ideally adapted to their mode of existence. Our data show some tendency toward matrilocality, but Steward states that, in Idaho, this is true primarily of the early years of marriage, after which the couple could exercise a bilocal option (Steward, 1938, p. 214). The direction of the choice depended on such situational factors as the prestige of either mate's parents or their wealth in horses. In any event, there was no marked preferential weighting of either line. Our informants reported that the married couple often shifted back and forth for varying periods of time. Ultimately, the mounted Shoshone may be just as profitably looked on as neolocal, as were the western Shoshone, for the couple did not necessarily live with or adjacent to either mate's parents. People were quite free to join other relatives or to associate closely with unrelated persons. This, and the periodic splitting up and reamalgamation of larger groups, inhibited any development of large, solidary nuclei of bilateral kinsmen. Relationships were traced bilaterally and widely, but ties were amorphous and weak. Lacking bounded and corporate kin groups, persons were highly individuated and possessed maximum geographical mobility. We may well conclude that, from the point of view of social structure, the mounted Shoshone were typologically much like the Great Basin people with whom they had close relations. Easily diffused items of culture, such as their material inventory, many religious beliefs, and their mode of warfare, establish their intimate historical connection with the Plains. But the higher levels of social integration found among the Shoshone are of a situational nature and are not well integrated with the fundamental facts of family life and more stable modes of grouping. It would be erroneous to conclude from this, however, that this amorphous, Basinlike social structure was nonadaptive to the Plains. That it is not at all atypical of the area is indicated by Eggan's statement (1955, pp. 518-519):