A First Look at the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene Record of Guano Valley, Oregon, USA

ABSTRACT

Surface sites play a vital role in interpreting terminal Pleistocene/early Holocene (TP/EH) lifeways in the Great Basin. Two years of work in Oregon’s Guano Valley by crews from the University of Nevada, Reno have revealed a rich record of Western Stemmed Tradition occupations associated with an extensive delta system that brought freshwater into the valley from the adjacent tablelands. To date, we have recorded nearly 700 diagnostic TP/EH artifacts within the relatively small delta, making it one of the densest concentrations of Paleoindian artifacts in the region. This paper presents preliminary results from our archaeological and geomorphological investigations in Guano Valley as well as an extensive toolstone source provenance analysis.

KEYWORDS:

• Great Basin
• Paleoindian archaeology
• X-ray fluorescence spectrometry
• Western Stemmed Tradition

Acknowledgements

Bill Cannon (BLM) provided logistical support, and both he and Anan Raymond (USFWS) helped us navigate the permitting process. Kristina Wiggins, David Harvey, Jennifer Mak, and Danielle Felling joined our survey crew for portions of the project. Alex Nyers (Northwest Research Obsidian Studies Laboratory) characterized the fluted point and a small sample of WST points from Guano Valley. Comments from three anonymous reviewers improved the quality of the final version.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Derek J. Reaux is a PhD student at the University of Nevada, Reno. He earned his BA at the University of Kentucky in 2014. His research interests include the peopling of the New World, lithic technology, and Great Basin archaeology.

Geoffrey M. Smith is an Associate Professor and Executive Director of the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit, University of Nevada, Reno. He earned his PhD at the University of Wyoming in 2010. His research interests include the human colonization of the Great Basin, lithic technology, and Great Basin archaeology.

Kenneth D. Adams is a Research Professor of Quaternary geology and geomorphology at the Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV. He earned his PhD at the University of Nevada, Reno in 1997. His research interests include Quaternary geology, geomorphology, and landscape dynamics in the Great Basin and elsewhere.

Sophia Jamaldin is a MA student at the University of Nevada, Reno. She earned her BA at the University of Kentucky in 2014. Her research interests include prehistoric archaeology and lithic technology.

Nicole D. George is a PhD student at the University of Nevada, Reno. In 2016, she earned her BA in anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests are centered on Great Basin archaeology with an emphasis on lithic technology and Paleoindian migration during the late Pleistocene and early Holocene.

Katelyn Mohr is a MA student at the University of Nevada, Reno and a member of the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit. She earned her BA at California State University, Chico in 2015. Her research interests include lithic technology, Great Basin archaeology, and California archaeology.

Richard L. Rosencrance is a Graduate Research Assistant of the Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit and MA student at the University of Nevada, Reno. He earned his BA at West Virginia University in 2015. His research interests include the peopling of the Americas, the Western Stemmed Tradition, and human adaptive strategies in the Great Basin.

ORCID

Derek J. Reaux http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4100-314X

Richard L. Rosencrance http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9961-0874

Notes

1 To geochemically characterize artifacts, we used an Olympus Delta DP-6000 portable XRF spectrometer attached to an Olympus Portable WorkStation (see Goodale et al. (2012) for an assessment of this model). The Delta model uses a 40 kV Rhodium (Rh) anode X-Ray tube and Olympus Innov-X Systems software. We employed the fundamental parameters calibration provided by the Innov-X software and ran our device using the two-beam (40 and 10 kV) GeoChem mode at 60 seconds per beam. To build our comparative collection, we initially characterized nearly 1000 previously sourced artifacts analyzed by the Northwest Research Obsidian Studies Laboratory (NWROSL) between 2004 and 2013. Over 60 geochemically distinct obsidian/FGV types from the northwestern Great Basin are represented in that sample. Additionally, over the last two years we visited known obsidian and FGV source locations around the northwestern Great Basin to collect geologic samples to build a more robust comparative collection. Our comparative collection currently contains 90 geochemically distinct obsidian and FGV types from our study area. To make source assignments, we analyzed ratios (in parts per million) of the Mid-Z elements strontium (Sr), zirconium (Zr), niobium (Nb), yttrium (Y), and rubidium (Rb) using bivariate scatterplots provided by GAUSS 8.0 and R software. To assess the accuracy of our in-house assignments using these methods, we submitted 43 previously uncharacterized artifacts from the Parman Localities (Smith 2007) to the NWROSL for geochemical characterization. Our source assignments of those artifacts matched the NWROSL’s source assignments perfectly, indicating that our results are very accurate. We recognize that while our current methodology generates accurate results, our data may not be directly comparable to those generated using empirical calibrations based on geologic standards.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for our Guano Valley study was provided by UNR’s Great Basin Paleoindian Research Unit, a Jonathan O. Davis Scholarship, and the Lander Endowment of the Desert Research Institute.