Archaeological Research Facility

In August, 1952, the present authors and Thomas Bolt carried out anarchaeological reconnaissance of the high Sierra from Markleeville(Eldorado County) in the South to Hobart Mills (Nevada County) in theNorth, and from Cisco (Nevada County) in the West to Spooner Lake(Douglas County, State of Nevada) in the East. The boundaries of ourreconnaissance area were roughly 39025' to 380 30' N. Lat. and 1200 25'to 1190 50' W. Long.Our work was supported by a grant from the Claypool Fund established byMr. W.C. Claypool, Smithfield, Utah, and we express our appreciation hereto Mr. Claypool and President Robert Gordon Sproul, administrator of theFund. We express our special appreciation to Mr. Loring J. Barker andhis son, James, of Berkeley, California for calling to our attention sitePla-5 and for their gift to the UJCAS of a large collection of chipped implementsfrom the site. Our results, while not outstanding in any way,nevertheless represent a solid contribution to Western prehistory. Thearea surveyed by us has never, so far as we can determine, been searchedby archaeologists, and our collections and data therefore represent completelynew information. Our problem was not clearly defined before wewent into the field, but we were particularly anxious to try to determinesomething concerning the aboriginal settlement pattern in the high Sierraabove the winter snow line. Sites were noted by us at elevations between5500 and 7800 feet.