Robert G . Elston

A tremendous amount has been learned about the Prearchaic (before 9000 BP) Great Basin since we advocated a perspective of sexual division of labor based on Human Behavioral Ecology a decade ago. Many investigators have taken our advice and a few have challenged our assumptions and inferences. One of the most substantive critiques has been that we misunderstood the paleoenvironmental parameters of ungulate populations during the PleistoceneeHolocene Transition (PHT). Simultaneously, behavioral ecologists have advanced our understanding of sexual division of labor among modern foragers, but these studies appear to have gone unnoticed by Great Basin prehistorians. We review findings of the last ten years and suggest that the key to understanding patterning in the PHT still relies on understanding (a) variability in men's and women's foraging goals, (b) the abundance and distribution of large prey, (c) how changing environmental parameters effect both the division of labor and the distribution of resources, and (d) the relative influence of search and handling costs on residence time in PHT wetlands. We suggest that consideration of how paleoenvironmental variability structured sexual division of labor remains key to fully understanding Prearchaic lifeways in the Great Basin.

The area along the eastern and southeastern margins of the Tengger Desert, NW China, which is sensitive to the summer monsoon variations, was selected for studying the environmental conditions surrounding the transition between Paleolithic foragers and Neolithic farmer/pastoral-ists. Short cores were obtained from four lake basins in the southwestern Tengger using a hand-driven piston coring device. Proxies from these cores were supplemented by ra-diocarbon ages obtained from lake sediment cores, shoreline features and spring mound deposits. Together these records provide evidence of millennial-scale climate change events from the Pleistocene-Holocene transition to the present. Lake/wetland events, representing periods of more intensive summer monsoon, occur in the records at ~12.7—11.6, ~10.1, ~9.3, ~8.0, ~5.4, ~1.5, and ~0.8 ka BP. They do suggest that century- to millennial-scale climatic cycles are characteristic of the Holocene in the southeastern Tengger Desert although the ch...

These are the titles of the individual Tosawihi Quarries reports  by Intermountian Research that  the Bureau of Land Management has assembled into a downloadable compendium. The present document gives the individual report titles,  authors/editors and page numbers of the very large document. The URL will take you to a menu of US states; select NEVADA, and then click on BLM Cultural Resource Publication #16, Elston, R. G., C. Raven, and E. E. Budy. 2006. Here is the URL:

https://www.blm.gov/learn/blm-library/agency-publications/cultural-resource-series

Please let me know i f you have questions.

This work models the prehistoric archaeological sensitivity of northern Railroad
Valley, treats the Gravel Bar Site and the Trap Springs Archaeological Complex, and addresses regional cultural management over an area of 527,175 acres. The model universe includes a large playa basin, portions of the Duckwater, Currant, Bull Creek, and Hot Springs drainages, and adjacent flanks of the White Pine, Grant, Duckwater, and Pancake Ranges. To model human behavior in such complexity requires understanding environmental variability in time and space. We created a fine-grained classification of prehistoric resources and their distributions, allowing the use of optimal foraging theory to predict prehistoric foraging behavior. Data used in our model and its development includes soil and range type descriptions developed by the Natural Resource Conservation Service to define unique habitats (each offering a particular suite of plant and animal resources to prehistoric foragers), and abiotic factors influencing the foraging utility of habitats (slope, proximity to water, and availability of toolstone). To estimate temporal variability in resource distributions over the last 10,000 years, we referred to the paleoenvironmental record relevant to the study area, analyzed the geomorphology of the study area, defined 13 landforms in it (fans, lake shorelines, etc.), and estimated their relative age. Next, optimal foraging theory and an understanding of archaeological site formation processes allowed us to predict the abundance, function, and complexity of prehistoric sites in each habitat type. We ranked predictions according to an eight point archaeological scale summarizing the potential of each habitat type for toolstone reduction, residential occupation, and men's and women's foraging activity. A monothetic site typology classified the existing database of 1323 prehistoric sites and isolates as lithic reduction sites, residential base camps, men's foraging sites, and women's foraging sites. Finally, we tested model predictions against the site typology, analyzed the predictive failures, and fine-tuned the model accordingly. The refined model anticipates the density and content of 94% to 97% of known sites. Moreover, sites thought significant by the field archaeologists who observed them are highly correlated with archaeological complexity scores, showing that the model accurately tracks the distribution of prehistoric sites that are eligible f o r inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

the model and the archive of existing archaeological inventories and site records.

This paper concerns C. William (Billy) Clewlow’s contribution to archaeological ideas and their development relative to the prehistory of the Sierra Nevada around Lake Tahoe and the western Great Basin between the mid-1960s and early 1970s. The work of Clewlow and his fellow U.C. Berkeley graduate student James F. O’Connell was crucial to the solution of typological problems I faced in trying to organize a large collection of projectile points from the east slope of the Sierra Nevada. Clewlow’s work with point typology was important far beyond the east slope, however; it contributed to the development of Great Basin/Sierran point keys still in use today. Clewlow was the first Great Basin archaeologist to recognize in print the utility of named point types with known temporal ranges for the study of disturbed deposits and surface archaeology.

We report an investigation of forty-two prehistoric sites in the upper Yellow River valley located in
Guide, Jianzha, Hualong, Xunha and Minhe, Qinghai Province, China, including forty-four new radiocarbon
dates from twenty-four sites, review published archaeological surveys and radiocarbon dates,
analyze landform features and discuss the reasons for spatial and temporal variety of regional prehistoric
human settlement. Our results suggest that people occupied the upper Yellow River valley during the
early Holocene, but a continuous archaeological record begins only after about 5500 Cal yr BP. Thereafter,
the intensity of prehistoric human settlement in the area is varied. Neolithic human settlement spread
northwestward to high altitude areas of the upper Yellow River valley during early-mid Majiayao and
Qijia periods, but moved southeastward to lower locations in the area during late Majiayao period.
During the Bronze period, two coeval archaeological cultures, the Kayue and Xindian, occupied the upper
Yellow River Region. Kayue archaeological sites are numerous and widely distributed in the high areas of
the upper Yellow River, while Xindian sites are restricted to the lowest basin of the region. Variation in
site density and location are likely the result of changing paleoclimate and technology.

Thanks to Anne Dowd for organizing this symposium, and all who contributed papers for participating. I am sorry that George Odell was not present to share his vast experience in this field; we all will very much miss his work and insights documented in Anne Dowd’s comprehensive review of his teaching, research, and publications. His ideas about lithics are summarized in the two companion articles published in the Journal of Archaeological Research (Odell, 2000, 2001), and in his book, Lithic Analysis (Odell, 2004). Odell argued that to understand even the simplest cases of toolstone procurement and distribution requires the consideration of many variables including where toolstone occurs and how it was procured. In this article I take the opportunity to address some of these issues in terms of selection, planning, and convenience.

"Intensification technologies used in late Pleistocene northern China include microblades, milling stones
and pottery, all of which have been implicated in development of agriculture in northern China, perhaps
influenced by the harsh climate of the Younger Dryas. This paper examines the adaptive function of these
technologies in the context of late Pleistocene climate and environment. It is proposed that microlithic
technology was a tool of mobile foragers focused on hunting, and the initial use of pottery was probably
connected to bone grease production. Only milling stones were initially a plant-oriented intensification
technology, but their sparse, episodic appearance in the late Pleistocene did not lead to persistent
intensification involved in the development of agriculture. It was only after the Younger Dryas in the
context of improved Holocene climate and greater primary productivity that these three technologies
converged with changes in mobility to become part of the agricultural revolution in northern China."

East Asian ostrich (Struthio anderssoni Lowe) was thought to have become extinct sometime in the Late Pleistocene. Petroglyphs portray ostrich with Pleistocene animals, and ostrich eggshell (OES) fragments and ornaments from Holocene sites were considered to be older fossils. Here we summarize previous radiometric dates for ostrich eggshell (OES) and present 15 new calibrated accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) dates, indicating that ostrich survived in Mongolia and northern China until at least 8.9 ka BP. The dates in our sample population suggest a correlation between Struthio and warm steppe environments, with extirpation probably related to essential changes in Holocene steppe ecosystems including human expansion. This study assesses the usefulness of Asian OES for archaeological dating by AMS, constrains the date of Asian ostrich extirpation, and investigates palaeoenvironmental implications of ostrich survival and extinction.

Microblade technology was important in hunter-gatherer adaptations throughout northern Asia from the late Pleistocene through the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and beyond. To date, most studies from the region are concerned with origins, technological lineages, and culture history. In contrast, we direct attention to issues involving the role of microlithic technology in adaptive strategies and problem solution among north Asian hunter-gatherers by looking at artifact design and risk analysis. First we discuss the function of Asian microblades and outline the general costs and benefits of organic points with microblade insets over simple organic points and flaked stone points, as well as the relative advantages of wedge-shaped and split-pebble microcores in terms of the Z-score model. We conclude with a review of the role of microlithic technology as a risk-minimizing strategy of Arctic and sub-Arctic large-game hunters in northern Asia and suggest furtherlines of inquiry.

Recent investigations of an open-air site (26La4434) along the northern shore of Pleistocene Lake Gilbert in Grass Valley, Nevada revealed a buried deposit with preserved organic material and Prearchaic technology. Here we report preliminary analyses examining the stratigraphy, chronology, artifacts and faunal remains recovered from the site.

Between 1987 and 1992, Intermountain Research (IMR) conducted a program of survey, testing, and data recovery at Tosawihi Quarries, north-central Nevada on behalf of various gold mining consultants and companies. The  area containing silicified outcrops and associated archaeological localities occupies about 28,500 acres, with intensive quarrying in about 825 acres. IMR Conducted block surveys in the area of intensive quarrying and in areas peripheral to it (Western Periphery, Eastern Periphery, Northern Corridor) where mining operations were contemplated. Unlike the the nearly continuous distribution of quarry features and associated debris in the primary quarry area, the localities in the peripheral areas were spatially discrete and functionally diverse, including quarries, short-term residential loci containing food processing implements and exotic lithic materials, small reduction loci and isolated artifacts. This volume contains discussions about chronology, subsistence, reduction trajectories, toolstone extraction, assemblage characteristics, site function , spatial relationships and economics of lithic production, along with appendices. Volume 1describes
the research context (natural and cultural landscape, economic models, research design), analytical data classes, and site descriptions.