Early Holocene pinyon (Pinus monophylla) in the northeastern Great Basin
- 20 January 1990
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Cambridge University Press (CUP) in Quaternary Research
- Vol. 33 (1) , 94-101
- https://doi.org/10.1016/0033-5894(90)90087-2
Abstract
Fine-grained excavation and analysis of a stratigraphic column from Danger Cave, northeastern Great Basin, suggests prehistoric hunter-gatherers were collecting and using singleleaf pinyon (Pinus monophylla) near the site for at least the last 7500 yr. Human use of the cave began after the retreat of Lake Bonneville from the Gilbert level, shortly before 10,000 yr B.P. In stratum 9, culturally deposited pine nut hulls appear in the sequence by about 7900 yr B.P. and are continuously present thereafter. A hull fragment in stratum 10 is directly dated to 7410 ± 120 yr B.P. These dates are at least 2000 yr earlier than expected by extrapolation to macrofossil records from the east-central and central Great Basin, and necessitate some revision of current biogeographical models of late Quaternary pinyon migration.This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit:
- Vegetation history of the deserts of southwestern North America; The nature and timing of the late Wisconsin-Holocene transitionPublished by Geological Society of America ,2015
- Great Salt Lake, and precursors, Utah: The last 30,000 yearsContributions to Mineralogy and Petrology, 1984
- Paleobiogeography of Montane Islands in the Great Basin since the Last GlaciopluvialEcological Monographs, 1983
- Late Quaternary Environments and Biogeography in the Great BasinQuaternary Research, 1982
- The Regionalization of Climate in the Western United StatesJournal of Applied Meteorology, 1976