Journal of California and Great Basin Anthropology

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.