Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

The Great Basin is well known for its rich record of prehistoric basketry. Although uncommon, sandals, like other types of basketry, can be directly dated and offer data regarding technology and, potentially, ethnicity. Here we report on the contents of a storage pit from a rockshelter in Warner Valley, southcentral Oregon. Its contents, which included ber sandals, a piece of a basket or bowl, and a bundle of shredded sagebrush bark, were directly dated. These dates and the techniques used to manufacture the artifacts provide information about the spatial and temporal distribution of sandals and other basketry types in the northern Great Basin. Furthermore, they suggest that the Klamath, whose ethnographic territory did not include Warner Valley, occupied that area until relatively recently.