Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

Paleoarchaic studies in western North America comprise often competing frameworks of subsistence, technology, work organization, and gender. An alternative approach recognizes the vast energetic and bio-geographic potential of geophytes, particularly cattail (Typha latifolia), as well as the most important tool used in their procurement, the digging stick. The manufacture and maintenance of digging sticks requires flaked stone implements, primarily simple edge-modified flake tools that are ubiquitous in most early-dating assemblages. Together, this approach allows us to re-imagine the foundations of Paleoarchaic subsistence-settlement; how flaked stone technologies were organized with regard to the work efforts of both men and women; and how these groups may have expanded into unfamiliar environments.

This paper formally reports the Jess Valley obsidian source, presents its trace element composition, and sketches what we currently know about the time/space distribution of archaeological examples in northeastern California.

Llewellyn L. Loud is an iconic figure in California and Great Basin anthropology, a man who made significant contributions to the field but whose path was as unique as he was. He made his way from Maine to U.C. Berkeley, and after holding a number of positions, including as guard and janitor, worked as a senior preparator and then went on to excavate some of the most important archaeological sites in the region. As described by his supervisor A. L. Kroeber, Loud was a singular individualósolitary, stubborn, independent, and loyaló as well as being a humanist and open socialist at a time when such beliefs were far from mainstream. Six newly discovered studio photographs recently found at Washington State University are revealing of Loudís unique character. The details of this coincidental discovery are discussed here, along with relevant background information about Loud and early twentiethcentury studio portraiture.

Excavated in 1961, CA-SLO-239 at Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County produced a large but undated assemblage of stone, shell, and bone artifacts. The first radiocarbon dates obtained from faunal samples (n =5) complement temporal diagnostics that indicate the site was occupied primarily during the early Middle and Middle-Late Transition periods. A single E2 Thick-Lipped Olivella bead suggests some minimal site use during the Late Period, but the lack of Desert Side-notched and Coastal Cottonwood projectile points suggests the site was largely abandoned after 700 cal B.P. Limited provenience data constrain our ability to define components more precisely. Faunal remains show an emphasis on marine animals for the entire span of occupation. Lack of evidence for occupation during the late Middle Period (ca. 1,550ñ900 cal B.P.) is consistent with other findings from the Morro Bay area, while a focus on marine fauna is consistent with previous findings for the Medieval Climatic Anomaly. The site produced two artifacts of possible extra-local origin, including an antler harpoon point with a line hole similar to examples from northwestern North America, and a stone labret. Labrets are known from the Sacramento/San Joaquin Valley, so the origin of that artifact might not be distant. Whether the harpoon point arrived with Aleutian otter hunters during the historic era or by some other means at another time cannot be determined.

The study of ethnographic-period basketry disproportionately focuses on decorative baskets or utilitarian ones associated with the subsistence economy, and does not consider basketry technology from a behavioral-ecology perspective. The present study examines cross-cultural variation in basketry cradles in Central California, proposes a model of pre-contact diffusion of cradle technology across the Great Basin and California, and considers cradles as both a form of reproductive investment and a technology that attenuated foragingopportunity costs for mothers of breastfeeding infants.

Studies of toolstone procurement and conveyance in the Great Basin have generated an extensive database of obsidian and fine-grained volcanic (FGV; e.g., andesite, dacite) geochemistry and provenance over the last few decades. By comparison, our current knowledge of chert provenance remains poor. Here, I present compositional data obtained using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) for chert geological specimens and artifacts from Mooney Basin Quarry (MBQ) and Mahoney Canyon (MC) in eastern Nevada. Analysis of these data indicates that MBQ cherts are compositionally distinct from MC cherts, facilitating the sourcing of chert artifacts from nearby archaeological sites. I conclude that sourcing studies of chert artifacts, when pursued as a complement to sourcing studies of obsidian and FGV artifacts, promise to enrich our understanding of prehistoric socioeconomic and lithic technological organization in the region.