Revisiting San Clemente Island’s Radiocarbon History

Author(s): Scott Kremkau; Andrew Yatsko; Kenneth Becker

Year: 2017

Summary

SRI recently completed NRHP site evaluations for 20 sites on San Clemente Island, as part of our on-call cultural resource management contract with Naval Facilities Engineering Command, Southwest Division. Radiocarbon dates from 19 of the sites clustered into four discrete occupational episodes, all dating to the Late Holocene (post 3800 B.P.). The episodes were separated from one another by 200 -400 year intervals. Radiocarbon dates from other Late Holocene sites across the island studied by one of the co-authors seem to follow the same pattern, suggesting that the 200-400 year intervals are occupational hiatuses, when the island was either sparsely populated or abandoned. This paper compiles all published radiocarbon dates from this island, and attempts to define these hiatuses. The paper also discusses settlement patterns on the mainland that may correspond to these hiatuses.

Cite this Record

Revisiting San Clemente Island’s Radiocarbon History. Scott Kremkau, Andrew Yatsko, Kenneth Becker. Presented at The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, Vancouver, British Columbia. 2017 ( tDAR id: 430024)

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Keywords

Spatial Coverage

min long: -125.464; min lat: 32.101 ; max long: -114.214; max lat: 42.033 ;

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 17434