The Journal of California Anthropology

One of these archaeological sites merits special description, for it consists of the physical remains of a special procurement activity which is of major importance to the economy of the native people of the Great Basin, which includes portions of Eastern California. The activity is the pine nut harvest, discussed in detail by the ethnographers who have worked in the area, including Downs, Lowie, Steward, and Stewart, none of whom, however, has described a particular situation. Nor can I find an archaeological description of a pine nut camp, although D. H. Thomas implies in several papers that they were discovered and identified in the course of his Reese River Valley survey in central Nevada.