Presenter: Katelyn McDonough
Mentor: Dennis Jenkins
Oral Presentation
Major: Anthropology
The Paisley 5 Mile Point Caves are located in the Summer Lake Basin of south-central Oregon. Preservation of perishable materials is excellent within the caves, and has yielded the earliest evidence of human DNA yet discovered in the Western hemisphere. Bone fragments of many large mammals have been preserved in very early deposits.
To investigate the human utilization of megafauna resources at this site during the terminal Pleistocene (>12,900 cal. BP) through Younger Dryas/ Early Holocene period (9,000 – 12,900 cal. BP), we statistically examined the distribution of artifacts, megafauna bones, and coprolites (ABCs). Artifacts used in this study included basketry, cordage, modified bulrush, formed lithic tools, lithic debitage, ground stone, and human hair. Bones were limited to megafauna with a minimum net weight of 225 kg. If the distribution of large mammal remains was affected by cultural activity, we would expect to see significant correlations between bone and artifact distributions. Conversely, negative to weak correlations between these material types would be expected to result from the natural deposit of bones by nonhuman predators. This project produced statistically significant correlations, which suggest that distributions of large mammal bones are not random, and have likely been affected by cultural activity. To further investigate the causes of these correlations, future research will focus on broadening the statistical analyses of ABCs to Caves 1 and 5, comparing artifact assemblages from EH/YD and late Pleistocene deposits, using small class size faunal remains as a fourth comparative variable, and incorporating additional DNA and radiocarbon dates.