Lake Lahontan: A Pleistocene Pluvial Lake in the Northwest Great Basin—Paleoenvironments and the Archaeological Record

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Israel Russell in 1883 suggested that the shorelines of ancient Lake Lahontan were so pristine that the lake must have been only a few hundred years old. Today it is known that this spectacular Pleistocene Lake, present in a unique environment, has been around for at least the last two million years with an extraordinarily complex history. Increasing evidence of human entrance into the Northwest as early as 14,000 to 18,000 BP, following the Columbia River into the interior Great Basin, is creeping into the picture. I wish to present some glimmering evidence of the dramatic changes that Paleoindians had encountered in this complex and dynamic paleoenvironment.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• SAA 2024: Individual Abstracts   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 41522.0