On May 26, 2022 Dr. Greg White presented a virtual lecture titled “Research Potential of the Borax Lake Site: A Western Clovis Locality in California’s North Coast Ranges”.
The Borax Lake site was identified by a private citizen in the late 1920s and reported to scientists in 1935. Archaeologist M. R. Harrington compared the finds to discoveries at Blackwater Draw Locality No. 1, and between 1936–1946 pursued six seasons of field work at the site. Harrington’s reports were broadly rejected by U.C. scientists, but the finds were reappraised in 1967–1968 on the basis of seminal obsidian hydration studies. The new studies supported Harrington’s Clovis claim, but the stratigraphy was problematic producing a dense and tangled mix of Archaic and Clovis artifacts.
In this talk, you will learn more about the artifacts found at the site both past and present, the results of the obsidian hydration studies, the reason for the mysterious mixture of Archaic and Clovis artifacts, and areas of potential research at Borax Lake.