Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

In this paper, we report on a second attempt to recover pollen from the Leonard Rockshelter sediments. In 1976, we directed our attention to two series of samples that included the whole of the stratigraphic sequence. The samples were collected during the 1950 excavation, and had since been stored in the Lowie Museum of Anthropology (Berkeley). Like Hansen, we found it impossible to extract pollen from the lower bat guano layer, but the overlying silt and rockfall layers yielded reasonably well-preserved pollen in countable quantities. The results of the analysis in large part support the Antevs model and also throw new light on the "significance" of climatic change in the Great Basin.