Late Pleistocene to Holocene history of Lake Warner and its prehistoric occupations, Warner Valley, Oregon (USA)

Abstract

During the late Pleistocene, Warner Valley (Oregon, USA) was filled by Lake Warner; however, little is known about its rise and fall and how its changing lake levels effected the distribution of the valley’s earliest occupants. The discovery of Paleoindian projectile points along ancient shorelines of the lake spurred us to examine them for geochronological controls to aid in constructing the lake’s history. We found that Lake Warner filled the valley floor between ca. 30,000 and 10,300 cal yr BP, probably reaching its maximum ca. 17,000–16,100 cal yr BP before it began to recede. People arrived with Clovis and Western Stemmed Tradition (WST) projectile points before ca. 12,800 cal yr BP, around the time the lake stalled in its retreat. When the lake continued its decline, people using WST points followed it southward into the valley floor, where dune-and-slough topography began developing ca. 10,300 cal yr BP in response to episodic wetting and drying during the early Holocene. By the time Mazama tephra fell, ca. 7600 cal yr BP, the once large lake was divided into a series of small lakes, ponds, and sloughs that attracted people to their abundant resources of endemic fish and marsh plants.

Late glacial through Early Holocene environments inferred using pollen from coprolites and sediments recovered from Paisley Caves, Oregon

“…As is the case today near riparian settings, riparian and arid steppe taxa are closely juxtaposed; our results are consistent with geologic evidence for freshwater being much closer to the caves than it is today. Our findings correspond well with results from other pluvial lake basins near the Chewaucan Basin, including pollen and highwater stand timings from Warner Valley to the east (Wriston and Smith, 2017) and pollen, macrobotanical analysis, and highwater stand timings from Fort Rock Basin to the north (Friedel, 1993;Egger et al, 2021;McDonough et al, 2022).…”

“…After the YD, there was warming and increased effective moisture in conjunction with increasing insolation during Northern Hemisphere summers (Kutzbach et al, 1998). While the YD shorelines are poorly constrained at Summer Lake, it appears likely that Summer Lake levels rose at the start of the Holocene (Hudson et al, 2021), as has been suggested for nearby Warner Lake (Wriston and Smith, 2017).…”

Genetic approaches reveal a healthy population and an unexpectedly recent origin for an isolated desert spring fish

“…The study examined specimens collected from five sites in two subbasins of the Warner Lakes basin. These subbasins connected hydrologically 12,000 years ago when Pleistocene Lake Warner filled the modern Warner Valley [ 44 ]. Foskett Spring, Dace Spring and Coleman Creek lie within the endorheic Coleman subbasin at the extreme southern end of the Warner Valley, while Twentymile and Deep Creeks lie outside the Coleman subbasin and drain towards Crump Lake (Fig.…”

“…3 ). Previous studies [ 27 , 40 ] assumed that these fish came to occupy their tiny habitat about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, during the final desiccation of pluvial Lake Warner [ 43 , 44 ].

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Fiber Artifacts from the Paisley Caves: 14,000 Years of Plant Selection in the Northern Great Basin

“…Early occupation periods of the caves are interpreted as brief, temporary visits during fall and spring for upland seed collecting (Kennedy 2018). Caves 2 and 5 were the most prolific for the Paisley period occupation (15,700–12,800 years ago), including cordage, bone tools, botanical remains, obsidian and chert flakes, Pleistocene animal bone, and stemmed points (Beck and Jones 2010; Jenkins et al 2012; Wriston and Smith 2017). The Paisley period is therefore defined as 15,700 to 12,800 years ago, the Connley period as 12,800–11,500 years ago, and the Fort Rock period as 11,500–9000 years ago, based on dates acquired from Paisley, Connley, and Fort Rock sites (Aikens et al 2011; Jenkins et al 2004).…”