Award Date
December 2023
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Anthropology
First Committee Member
Barbara Roth
Second Committee Member
Karen Harry
Third Committee Member
Brian Villmoare
Fourth Committee Member
Carrie Tyler
Number of Pages
188
Abstract
Ivanpah Dry Lake is a Holocene dry lake located in the Mojave Desert along the California-Nevada border along I-15. Ivanpah Dry Lake is well studied in small parcel segments through gray literature but has had little work done in the accessible realm of academic literature. The aim of this thesis is to create a synthetic document regarding the archaeology of Ivanpah Dry Lake, focusing on toolstone use and procurement strategies employed by those who lived along the shores and on the playa of this lake. Recent research by Spaulding and Sims (2018) has revealed two new Holocene lakestands at Ivanpah Dry Lake as well as one additional Terminal Pleistocene/ Early Holocene lakestand, contrary to the existing notion of lake desiccation around 9,000 years ago. Reexamination of past Cultural Resource Management (CRM) reports and synthesis of existing site records has revealed how these new lakestands and subsequent lacustrine environments may have impacted mobility and subsistence strategies of those who occupied or passed through the area. These factors can be investigated through lithic procurement strategies including factors of material choice and the use of differing tool technologies in response to a changing climate. GIS is employed to examine how site distributions may have changed during these varying lake level periods. Additionally, this research argues that the entirety of the Ivanpah Dry Lake (IDL) area is culturally sensitive and warrants protection from further invasive development.
Keywords
Geospatial analysis; GIS; Landscape archaeology; Lithics; Mojave Desert
Disciplines
Archaeological Anthropology | Geographic Information Sciences
File Format
File Size
6700 KB
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Jones, Kara, "Toolstone Use and Procurement Along Holocene Ivanpah Dry Lake, CA" (2023). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 4886.
http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/37200512
Rights
IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/