Lithic technology and other archaeological investigations of Rock Creek Shelter (35LK22)

Summary

Excavations in 1967 at Rock Creek Shelter (35LK22), located within the Hart Mountain National Antelope Refuge in Lake County, Oregon, revealed a stratified record of frequent occupation that may potentially extend into the early Archaic. The artifacts recovered from the rockshelter include a chipped stone assemblage (n=1307), cordage/basketry and other perishable material (n=464), ground stone (n=24), faunal remains (n=1046), and numerous samples (n=68). The lithic material, that consists of mostly obsidian, provides an opportunity to utilize X-ray fluorescence analysis to investigate important questions in the Northern Great Basin related to prehistoric land use, mobility, and the movements of populations including significant events such as the Numic expansion. This presentation will report on these analyses and the initial baseline study conducted that included an evaluation of the site stratigraphy and establishing a site chronology from radiocarbon dating and typological distinctive bifaces and perishable artifacts. The objective is that these analyses and site report will allow us to fit Rock Creek Shelter within the larger archaeological sequence of the Northern Great Basin.

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): 16744