With National Science Foundation support, Dr. Ted Goebel and his colleagues will continue archaeological excavations of Bonneville Estates Rockshelter, located in Elko County, northeastern Nevada. Their work in 2003 will focus on the rockshelter's earliest cultural occupations that span from before 10,000 to nearly 7,000 years ago. Earlier work has revealed an incredibly rich record of diagnostic spear points and other stone artifacts, perishable artifacts including fragments of baskets, cordage, and wood and bone tools, as well as well-preserved remains of plants and animals. The richness of the cave's deposits, coupled with the fact that they are well-stratified and can be securely dated, make Bonneville Estates arguably the most important archaeological site known in the eastern Great Basin for answering questions about the peopling of the intermountain west of North America and the evolution of human adaptations from the late Pleistocene into the Holocene. Work in 2003-2004 will focus on (1) firmly establishing the age and geologic context of the rockshelter's earliest cultural occupations, (2) characterizing artifact assemblages to explain human technological activities, (3) characterizing faunal and floral assemblages to explain human subsistence activities, and (4) placing the rockshelter's record into the greater context of the study of the Great Basin's first human inhabitants. The project will provide invaluable learning experiences for both graduate and undergraduate students, including those enrolled in the University of Nevada archaeological field school, and will lead to greater appreciation of the human experience in harsh arid environments. By considering the archaeological record of the eastern Great Basin within a paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental context, the proposed study will also enhance our understanding of the impacts of global change on small-scale human societies.
