For at least the last half-century, Middle Holocene "red abalone middens" have been of interest to a variety of scientists working on the Channel Islands of California. Paleoclimatologists, oceanographers, ecologists, and archaeologists have all offered hypotheses to explain their widespread occurrence; however, quantification of their midden constituents has generally been insufficient to explain both their temporal and spatial variability. Detailed zooarchaeological analysis is a key component in understanding why these middens appeared at about 7,500 cal B.P. and disappeared at about 3,300 cal B.P. Faunal data from three radiocarbon (carbon 14) dated red abalone middens on San Miguel Island are presented. The analysis demonstrates both the geographic and temporal variability inherent within these sites, and suggests that our models for explaining their presence must account for this complexity.

In this short paper we describe a crescent fragment recently found at a site on San Miguel Island. Crescents are important terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene time markers in California and the Great Basin, but knowledge about their distribution, chronology, and function is limited by incomplete reporting of their occurrences in the published literature. Although several crescents were found on the Channel Islands by antiquarians or early archaeologists, very few have come from known sites or specific contexts The crescent from CA-SMI-681 comes from an upland lithic scatter, a context that supports a utilitarian function associated with the manufacturing, use, and maintenance of points and related hunting equipment The crescent adds to the evidence for a substantial presence of Paleocoastal peoples on San Miguel and the other northern Channel Islands.

A stratified and deeply buried Middle Holocene shell midden (CA-SMI-396) on San Miguel Island recently produced evidence of the earliest securely dated water bottle and tarring pebbles in southern California. Several asphaltum basketry impressions, including what appears to be a fragment of a coiled basket, and two tarring pebble features were found eroding from shell midden deposits dating as early as 5130 cal BP. We suggest that water bottle production may have developed during the Middle Holocene on the Channel Islands, where fresh water resources were scarce, as a response to the relatively warm and dry periods of the Middle Holocene. The coiled basketry impression is unique for this time period in the Chumash area and its implications are difficult to assess.