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

pdf

File Size

6700 KB

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Available for download on Tuesday, December 15, 2026


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