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.

Located in northwestern Nevada, Last Supper Cave was tested in 1968 and fully excavated in 1973 –1974 under the direction of Thomas Layton. The site revealed a long sequence of human occupation, including a Paleoindian component initially dated to ~9,000 – 8,000 radiocarbon years ago (B.P.). In 2008, a hearth from the lowest deposits returned an AMS date of 10,280 ± 40 B.P., suggesting that initial occupation occurred during the latest Pleistocene, over a millennium earlier than initially believed. Here we present the results of further AMS dating of the Last Supper Cave deposits and an analysis of the vertical distribution of time-sensitive projectile points in order to evaluate the site’s stratigraphic integrity. Results indicate that while some portions of the deposits were mixed, others appear to have been relatively intact, and materials recovered from them hold great potential for future research.