Terminal Pleistocene-Early Holocene occupation span and technological provisioning strategies at pluvial Lake Mojave, California

Summary

This paper represents a first attempt to reconstruct the occupation span of Terminal Pleistocene-Early Holocene foragers around pluvial Lake Mojave, Mojave Desert, California. Models suggest and research indicates that foragers were more sedentary and made shorter moves around large, productive resource patches (large lakes, marshes), but made more frequent and longer distance moves when resource patches were small and/or widely scattered. Lake Mojave at its Pleistocene maximum was 300 km2 and reasonably considered a large resource patch; whether foragers used it this way is unknown, though. To address this, I consider (following the lead of other researchers) whether the lithic technology at Lake Mojave fits a provisioning place or provisioning individual strategy. The provisioning place strategy is expected when occupation span is long and the provisioning individual strategy when the occupation span is short. Given Lake Mojave’s large size and expected patch productivity, the provisioning place strategy is anticipated. Several variables will be used to differentiate between these strategies: toolstone selection and proximity, toolkit structure (degree of curation) and diversity, and artifact replacement patterns. Data to address these issues come from analyses of the extant Campbell and Brainerd collections, and my ongoing research along the shorelines of Lake Mojave.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 16226