Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

In September 2001, during the course of an archaeological project on the western shore of Tulare Lake in Kings County, California, a human proximal phalanx of the left first digit of an adult of indeterminate sex was found in the wall of an irrigation canal in the Tulare Lake Basin, at a depth of ca. 180 cm. below the surface. The bone was subsequently radiocarbon dated to 4,360 ± 70 RCYBP (cal BP 5,270 to 5,170), making it the first human bone from the lake basin to be dated in this manner, and thereby adding to the sparse radiometric data base for Middle Holocene sites in the San Joaquin Valley. As an integral part of the cultural study, the geologic assessment of the project area demonstrated that intact archaeological deposits in this area of the lake basin would likely occur some distance west of the present 190-ft. elevation. Such deposits would also lie several feet below younger alluvial fan deposits.