The Lithic Technology of a Wetland Transient Land Use Strategy: The View from Pluvial Lake Mojave, California

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Early Human Dynamics in Arid and Mountain Environments of the Americas" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Knell et al. (2023) developed a biotic resource structure and optimal foraging theory inspired land use model for Silver Lake, one of two playa lakes that once formed pluvial Lake Mojave in California’s central Mojave Desert. The land use model predicted that Paleoindians remained longer around productive, high-rank wetland habitat resource patches as part of a wetland stable strategy (WSS) but more frequently moved between basins as part of a wetland transient strategy (WTS) when patch rank was low. A simplified test of the land use model confirmed that Silver Lake was a low-rank wetlands resource patch during the terminal Pleistocene-Early Holocene (TP-EH) and inhabited by Paleoindians who employed a WTS. This study uses geochemical source data and a technological analysis of chipped stone artifacts from 13 TP-EH sites to more fully understand the strategies Paleoindians employed around Silver Lake and, by extension, Lake Mojave. Technological strategies identified at Silver Lake are then compared to those from other Great Basin and South American arid environment pluvial/playa lakes. Establishing relationships between technology and land use in disparate arid environments reveals how Paleoindians expanded into and adapted to the myriad of ecosystems they encountered.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• Early Human Dynamics in Arid and Mountain Environments of the Americas

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51804