Great Basin (Other Keyword)

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey Cunnar. Edward Stoner.

In 2013 Western Cultural Management excavated a well preserved structure in the Great Basin. The structure dates to 3000 cal. BP and is one of few that have been discovered of this antiquity in the Great Basin region. The house was associated with a number of artifacts. Many of the tools were clearly associated with artiodactyl processing tasks within discrete activity areas. Other artifacts such as complete bi-point knives, complete projectile points, quartz crystals, fulgurites, ochre,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only William Jerrems.

Few topics have been more profound than the subject of climate change at the end of the Pleistocene and early Holocene in the Great Basin of North America and the influence that such change may have had on the earliest human inhabitants. Rapidly shifting climate is exemplified by the filling and waning of internally drained pluvial lake basins. Two very large lakes intermittently occupied a huge part of the northern Great Basin throughout the Pleistocene. Lake Lahontan and Lake Bonneville...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Rafferty.

Valley of Fire is one of the gems of Nevada archaeology known as an area rich in archaeological resources. Yet little work had been undertaken in the area. Since 2003 the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) has conducted five survey field schools in Valley of Fire designed to teach students survey and site recording. The results so far demonstrate that Valley of Fire is an area rich in rock art and other cultural resources, with new rock art sites being recorded and data from earlier recorded...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Geoffrey Cunnar. Ed Stoner. Tom Bullard.

Archaeological investigations were conducted by Western Cultural Resource Management in the Fire Creek Archaeological District in the central Great Basin. We address the results of investigations at a Paleoarchaic site containing a buried soil with both an abundant stemmed point trajectory and a Levallois-like reduction method dating to the Younger Dryas. Employing agency theory and through an examination of depositional history, the chaîne opératoire and spatial analyses, we argue that the...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Eva Hulse. John L. Fagan. Jason Cowan.

The Holocene in the northwest Great Basin is characterized by episodes of severe drought punctuated by abundant rainfall. Prehistoric people settled widely across the area against this variable ecological backdrop. Excavations for the Ruby Pipeline project have produced a wealth of data on prehistoric settlement patterns and chronologies in the northwestern Great Basin. In this paper, multiple lines of evidence are used to reconstruct chronologies of occupation that have been obscured by...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Kevin Rafferty.

Although Valley of Fire has been mentioned in the archaeological literature since the 1930s (Harrington n.d.), the first real reconnaissance surveys were conducted by the Richard and Mary Shutler in 1961 (Shutler and Shutler 1962). They recorded 32 sites throughout the park, many of which were near present-day Atlatl Rock. One particular site, 26CK206, was recorded by the Shutlers at that time, and also partially by Heizer and Baumhoff (1962). In 2011 the CSN Valley of Fire survey project...

DOCUMENT Citation Only S. Joey LaValley.

This poster reports on results from 25,745 contiguous acres of pedestrian survey in southern Steptoe Valley and the Schell Creek Range of east-central Nevada. An extensive Class III cultural resource inventory conducted in 2014 and 2015 by EnviroSystems Management, Inc., resulted in the recordation of 285 new sites, seven previously documented sites, and 386 isolated artifacts/features. These resources span the entirety of human occupation in the Great Basin. Sites include Paleoindian, Archaic,...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Khori Newlander.

Minimum analytical nodule analysis is a useful tool for recognizing the variability present within a lithic assemblage. In turn, this type of analysis permits a more complete understanding of lithic technological organization. Typically, lithic analysts use macroscopic and microscopic characteristics, as well as spatial associations, to partition lithic assemblages into subgroups, or analytical nodules, that we assume reflect a limited set of production episodes or the role of a particular type...

DOCUMENT Citation Only Robert Bettinger.

The alpine zone (above 10,000 feet) of White Mountains of eastern California is the most extensive, and by far the most intensively occupied by aboriginal groups, in the Great Basin. The earliest consistent use, beginning about 5500 BP, is by hunting parties. Beginning sometime after A.D. 600, the White Mountains village residential pattern is distinctive, featuring one or more well-built dwellings, well-developed middens, and extensive assemblages of chipped and ground stone. While hunting was...