Reassessing the Paleoindian Witt Archaeological Locality, Tulare Lake, San Joaquin Valley, California

ABSTRACT

In the late 1960s, a portion of a private artifact collection obtained from the “Witt site,” located along the southwestern shoreline of Tulare Lake in California, was described. Included were fluted “Clovis-like” points, stemmed points, and crescents believed to reflect Paleoindian occupation(s). Subsequently, the Witt site has been seen as being one of three “major Clovis localities” known in California. Since the late 1980s, other private collections from the Witt Archaeological Locality (WAL), have been described and some limited excavations have been conducted at a number of the sites and loci. The work at the WAL and analysis of the fluted points now suggest that any Clovis presence was probably less than believed, and that most of the early material from the site indicates an occupation by Western Stemmed Tradition groups. Here, the extant data on the Paleoindian materials from the locality are summarized, reviewed, and reassessed.

KEYWORDS:

• Paleoindian
• Clovis
• Western Stemmed Tradition

Acknowledgements

I greatly appreciate the assistance, encouragement, comments, and suggestions of Todd Braje, Ted Goebel, Jill K. Gardner, Ken Gobalet, Jerry Hopkins, Jack Meyer, Rob Negrini, Mike Rondeau, R. E. Taylor, G. James West, the reviewers for the journal, and particularly Mike Moratto and Jeff Rosenthal. Luke Wisner prepared figures 1, 3, and 6, and Joe Cramer prepared figures 4 and 5. The collections and records from the CSUB excavations at the Tulare Lake sites are believed to be stored at the Kings County Museum but were not available to the author for further study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Mark Q. Sutton began his archaeological career in 1968, earned his PhD in Anthropology at the University of California Riverside in 1987, and is Professor Emeritus at California State University, Bakersfield. He now teaches at the University of San Diego and works for Statistical Research, Inc. Sutton’s research has focused on the archaeology of hunter-gatherers in California and the Great Basin and more recently on Paleoindians. His recent work includes “The ‘Fishing Link’: Salmonids and the Initial Peopling of the Americas” (2017), “Paleoindian-Era Beveled Osseous Rods: Distribution, Dating, and Function” (2018), and “Paleoindian Colonization by Boat? Refining the Coastal Model” (2018) all published in PaleoAmerica.

ORCID

Mark Q. Sutton http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2065-5157