Photograph of the 55 foot high natural bridge in Death Valley, ca.1900-1950. Two men stand to the left of center underneath a rock formation in the shape of an arch, while an automobile is visible from the side towards the background between vertical canyon walls. A barrel can be seen to the right of the automobile and in front of a pile of rocks. Rocky soil can be seen from the foreground towards the background.Photograph of an automobile in the bottom of Titus Canyon in Death Valley, ca.1900-1950. An automobile is visible to the left of center on rocky soil, while a man stands to the left of it. Tall, vertical canyon walls can be seen to the left and right, which have cuts in the sides that cause the appearance of rectangular shapes in the rock. Another canyon wall is visible in the background.Photograph of Odessa Canyon on the way to Death Valley from Barstow in Calico, ca.1900-1950. An automobile is visible at center on a dirt road curving towards the left around a canyon wall. The road runs from bottom right towards center and is lined by rocky canyon walls. Mountains are visible in the background above the walls. Photoprint reads: “On the road to the mining camp of Bismark”.Photograph of automobiles and cattle in Imperior (Imperial?) Valley, owned by Mr. Yates, Death Valley, ca.1900-1950. Five men and women are visible standing at center around two parked automobiles with cloth tops. A heard of cattle can be seen behind the cars at right in a fenced enclosure on flat desert land. Mountains are visible in the background.Photograph of four people standing near a salt pool in Death Valley, ca.1900-1950. Three men are standing at center near the rocky edge of a wide salt pool. A fourth man is seated on a rock at right. The pool is in the foreground at left and is roughly circular in shape. The liquid in the pool is a frothy light color. The desert behind the men is rough and rocky, and there is a steep mountain range running across the image in the distance.Photograph of five people stopping for water at Granite Wells, Death Valley, ca.1900-1950. The people are gathered around a large wooden watering trough at center. Three men are filling a large canteen at center, while a man and another person, possibly a woman, are washing their hands in the foreground at right. There are three early-model automobiles parked in the background at right. In the distance, a large, flat portion of the desert rises up into a tall plateau. The desert ground is covered with small bushes.Photograph of the dirt road into Death Valley from the southern end, ca.1900-1950. The heavily traveled road runs from the foreground at center into the distance. There is a single automobile parked near the side of the rutted road at right. Several people are standing near the car. The desert around the road is sparsely covered with low bushes. A tall mountain range is visible in the distance. Picture file card reads “From Puck negative #4”.Photograph of a small graveyard in Death Valley, ca.1900-1950. Three crude graves are in the foreground at center. They all consist of dirt mounds with wooden crosses. Lines of small rocks decorate the mounds. The area around the graves is cleared of brush, but many bushes are visible in the distance. A tall mountain is in the background at center. The cross at left reads “1896-1936 Martin Zapata Nedisdo en Leo Gto. Mexico”; the middle cross is illegible; and the third cross reads “Died Feb. 27 1935 Amado Santacruz Age 54”. Picture file card reads “From Puck negative #22”.
In warm weather —and it is hardly ever cold in their tropic valley —the men wear only a breech-clout, and the women a single garment generally made of flaming bandannas bought in the piece. They dress their long hair in curious ropes, and plaster the scalp with mud, tattoo the chin in wild patterns, and have no ornaments save fichus, which they make with great skill from tiny glass beads.
They have been practicing cremation from time immemorial, and were just having a funeral near East Bridge. The corpse, dressed in its best, was stretched on top of a huge pile of dry old ties from the railroad, and the chief mourner touched a torch to the heap of dry brush at the bottom. As the flames sprang aloft and hissed and roared, the mourners stood in a gloomy ring, chanting a wild refrain ; and as the savage fire and savage song went on, they threw upon the pyre from time to time all the earthly possessions of the deceased, and one by one their own garments and ornaments.
Passing the strange, jagged spires of peaks, which are called the Needles because two of them have natural eyelets, —though these are visible only from the canon, and not from the railroad, —I crossed the 1300-foot drawbridge, now abandoned for a fine new cantilever, a dozen miles below, and stood upon the there forbidding soil of California. A night at the rather pretty little railroad town of Needles, and I started off again into the grim Mojave Desert. It was the beginning of two hundred miles whose sufferings far outweighed all that had gone before . . .
Nevada History: XXVII SOME NEVADA TRAGEDIES From James G. Scrugham, Nevada: The Narrative of the Conquest of a Frontier Land (1935), vol. I
The Story of Mouse
One of the wildest frontier lands left in the United States is embraced in the southern tip of the State of Nevada, between the confluence of the Virgin and Colorado rivers and the site of the great Boulder dam project construction.
Bonelli Landing – Lake Mead
Some thirty-five years ago (123 years in 2023), this area was the scene of one of the most remarkable man hunts ever taking place within the state’s confines. This thrilling drama’s chief actors were eight: three Pahute Indians and five white men.
The leading character was an Indian named “Mouse” by his fellow tribesmen, of his habit of hiding out in the brush and his sly and silent movements. Although of a retiring and surly disposition, he was a good worker and possessed a crafty and intelligent mind.
The next character in importance and interest was one “Red Eye,” the most skilled Indian tracker of his tribe. He derived his name from bloodshot flecks which were always visible in the whites of his eyes, and was well-liked by the white men on account of his loyalty and industry as a ranch hand.
The third Indian character was a fierce old Indian woman who proved to be the Nemesis of the story, stirred to heroic action by the theft of a large and much-prized cabbage from her garden.
Daniel Bonelli – Huntington Library
Of the white actors, the most important was Daniel Bonelli, a famous pioneer settler of the early days. He conducted a hay and vegetable ranch near the junction of the Virgin and Colorado Rivers. Also, he operated a ferry over the latter stream connecting with the main trail south through Arizona. He employed a large number of white men and Indians to assist in his livestock, farming, and ferrying enterprises, among whom was a strong, fearless cowpuncher named George Sherwood, who later appears prominently in the story.
Other white men who figured notably in the tragedy were two young prospectors, Davis and Stearns, who were searching for placer gold on the bars of the Colorado River. These men were accompanied by an elderly prospector k, Majorreenowalt, whose chief function was to serve as camp tender.
The story begins at Bonelli’s ranch on the Colorado River. The place was then on the main line of travel between Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and the rich mining camps of Pioche and Delamar on the north to points in Arizona, Mexico, and elsewhere in the south. A continual stream of travelers passed, many of whom were fugitives from justice-seeking oblivion in distant, isolated places.
Bonelli’s Ferry
Others were nomads seeking the warmth of southern climes in winter and the coolness of the highlands of the north in the summer. In addition to revenues derived from his voyage over the Colorado and sale of hay and supplies to passersby, Bonelli also made extensive trade in meat and produce with the flourishing mining camps at El Dorado Canyon, Chloride, Gold Basin, and a score of other places.
In the operation of his ranch, Bonelli employed several Indian hands, including Mouse and Red Eye.
The Bonelli Home in Rioville (Bonelli Landing)
On a spring evening in 1896, when the story begins, the Indian Mouse somehow secured a quantity of whisky that he drank. Under the alcoholic stimulant, his naturally vicious disposition had no restraint, and Mouse started a promiscuous shooting at the other Indians in the camp. They fled to the main ranch and informed Bonelli that Mouse was on a killing rampage, and their lives had only been saved by the bad aim of the drunken aggressor.
Bonelli and some of his ranch hands then went to the Indian camp and disarmed the crazed Mouse, locking him in an adobe outhouse for the night. The next morning the Indian had become sober and appeared entirely docile. However, Bonelli, knowing the disposition of Mouse, gave him his discharge and ferried him over to the Arizona side; after returning to the man, his gun and ammunition were taken away the previous evening.
From Bonelli’s Ferry, the Indian went to a mining camp called White Hills and worked a few days cutting Joshua trees for fuel. Becoming tired of the labor, he stole a horse and set out for one of his old haunts at Indian Springs, some eighty miles away at the foot of the Charleston Mountains.
Mouse attempted to cross the Colorado River back to Nevada at a point opposite the old trail up the Las Vegas Wash, evidently intending to obtain food supplies at the Las Vegas ranch en route to his destination.
Just before he reached the Nevada shore, his horse became so deeply mired in the quicksands that he could not be extricated. Mouse was compelled to leave the struggling animal, and he made his way up the river toward a prospector’s camp, which he sighted on the Arizona shore. This camp was occupied at the time by the three men mentioned above, Davis, Stearns, and Major Greenowalt, who were prospecting for placer gold in the river bars. They had a small boat which they used for the purpose and accommodatingly crossed the river to meet the Indian when he signaled to them.
After being fed by the prospectors, who were obviously tenderfeet in the country, the crafty Mouse aroused their interest by relating the story of a fictitious ledge of gold-bearing quartz, which he claimed to have discovered in an almost inaccessible canyon, some ten miles back from the camp.
Early the following day, accompanied by Davis and Stearns, the Indian started for the scene of the alleged find, Greenowalt remaining at the river location. Davis and Stearns were never again seen alive.
The next morning the scene of the story shifts back to the Bonelli ranch, some twenty miles further up the river from the prospectors’ camp.
Among the horses on the place were two handsome gray geldings, half-brothers five and six years old, which Bonelli had bought from a band of well-bred horses being driven from northern Nevada to the Arizona market. These animals were the best in the place, but one was a much better saddle horse than the other, owing to a more tractable disposition.
During the time Mouse worked on the ranch, he was familiar with the horses and their characteristics. On the morning in question, when the ranch hands went into the fields to harness the stock, the best gray horse was found to be missing. This caused no particular excitement until it was found that his bridle was also gone.
Speedily circling the fields in search of tracks, the buckaroos discovered where the lost horse had been led out toward the Virgin River by a man wearing leather boots, who mounted at the bank before plunging into the stream. A hasty inspection of the shorelines revealed no place where the rider could have come out from the river. A general alarm was sounded, and all hands set out to find the trail of the thief. After a couple of hours’ delay, the outcoming tracks were finally located on the opposite side, more than a half mile above where the stolen animal had entered the water. The extraordinary effort made to throw pursuers off the track indicated that the horse stealer was a person of some skill and experience who had gained a probable ten or twelve-hour start on possible pursuers. However, Bonelli acted promptly. He armed two of his best riders with Winchester rifles and instructed them to stay with the trail until they recovered the horse or killed the thief.
The pursuing posse followed the tracks up the sandy shores of the Rio Virgin until they reached the Bitter Springs Wash, the drainage channel for a great range of territory to the west of the Virgin.
At the head of this wash are springs of bitter waters that will support life, although hardly palatable enough for human consumption. Here the crafty Mouse, for he was the thief, left the bottom of the wash where trailing was easy and took to the dolomitic limestone banks where vegetation and the soft ground were scanty, and no imprints were made. However, the very hardness of the ground defeated the purpose of the Indian thief. The rough limestone caused the horse’s hoofs to bleed, leaving a plain track for the pursuers to follow.
All through the long afternoon and in the moonlit evening, the Bonelli buckaroos followed the trail. About ten o’clock at night, while going over a steep declivity covered with loose lime shale, one of the horses missed his footing and started both riders and their steeds to slide into the precipitous gulch below. When the descent was stopped, both horsemen were so exhausted from the efforts of the day that they dismounted and unsaddled their animals, leaving their bridles on.
Both men wrapped themselves in their saddle blankets and took turns sleeping through the remainder of the night. On the following morning, they were up at the first peep of dawn, ready to resume the trail. However, it was found that the horse who had missed his footing was so badly bruised and cut that he could hardly walk, and the trailers decided to go back to the Bonelli ranch for reinforcements.
On arriving home early in the afternoon and reporting their adventures, the master of the ranch immediately detailed George Sherwood, his ranch foreman, and Red Eye, the skilled Indian tracker, to follow the thief to the end. From the information available, Sherwood and Red Eye decided that the horse thief was heading for the Las Vegas ranch, seventy-five miles away, as that was the nearest food and water available.
Pushing their horses to the utmost, the trailers arrived at their destination the second evening after leaving the Bonelli ranch. Then it was found that the Indian Mouse had arrived the night before on foot, wearing leather boots, with a story of having killed his crippled horse in the Muddy range at a point near where the first pair of pursuers had lost the bloody trail the day before.
It then became obvious that Mouse was the thief and that the lost horse was dead; otherwise, he would have been brought in for water. As further evidence of the guilt of the Indian, he had silently slipped away in the night soon after the ranchmen fed him, and his tracks indicated that he had made directly for the rugged fastnesses of the Charleston Mountains, some thirty miles away.
A successful pursuit was impossible, so after two days’ rest, Sherwood and Red Eye started on their return to the Bonelli place to inform their employer of the identity of the criminal. Arriving at the foot of the Las Vegas Wash, where Mouse had lost his first stolen horse in the quicksands of the Colorado River a few days before, Sherwood and his companion saw a flock of buzzards circling around and eating the remains of the animal, which projected from the quicksand.
As night was approaching, they rode up the river to a point opposite the prospectors’ camp.
Here Major Greenowalt rowed over and informed them that his partners had left five days before with an Indian named Mouse, who was to show them the location of a rich gold ledge. The Major was greatly disturbed by the protracted absence of his companions, as they had only carried food and water for a one-day trip.
On hearing the Major’s story, both Sherwood and Red Eye became apprehensive that the surly Mouse, with whom they were well acquainted, had added murder to his crime of horse theft.
The next morning they rode back to the home ranch and reported their information and suspicions to Mr. Bonelli.
The aroused ranch owner immediately organized a posse that went down the river to seek the missing men. Again the indomitable Red Eye took up the trail over rough and hard ground.
After two days of tedious tracking, Red Eye finally led the posse to the foot of a steep declivity where the mutilated bodies of Davis and Stearns were discovered. The boots had been removed from the feet of Stearns, accounting for the boot tracks made by Mouse when he had stolen the gray gelding at the Bonelli ranch.
Reconstructing the tragedy, Mouse appeared to have taken the lead until he enticed the two prospectors to the lonely place where the bodies were found. There he suddenly turned and vented his blood lust against the white race by shooting both Davis and Stearns.
The bodies of the unfortunate gold seekers were carried down to the river, then transported 100 miles in skiffs to Needles, California, from whence the remains were shipped back to relatives in the East.
With his dastardly acts fully revealed, Mouse became a hunted outcast, to be killed on sight. Even his tribal compatriots were in terror of him and sought his extermination as a crazed killer.
Mouse Tank – Valley of Fire
For two years, the murderer remained at large, living on seeds, nuts, and rodents and making an occasional raid on a prospectors camp for flour, bacon, and beans. There was found evidence of where Mouse had killed a wild mustang at a water hole and made jerky of the meat.
Finally, there came an end to this bold and much-feared outlaw. In the course of his wanderings, he came to a mountain overlooking a narrow valley where some of his fellow tribesmen had a little truck garden by a water hole. He descended in the night and stole some corn and cabbage to assuage his hunger.
This act led to his undoing. The cabbage belonged to an astute old squaw, who picked up the trail and followed it enough to identify it as belonging to Mouse from certain peculiarities of gait with which she was familiar.
Returning to the camp, the old squaw set up a hue and cry, which brought about the speedy organization of a well-armed posse to endeavor to capture the murderer. Red Eye, the tracker, led the hot pursuit. Day and night continued the chase through the flaming red sandstones of the Valley of Fire, then up the Meadow Valley Wash to Cave Springs and back again toward the Muddy River.
Bonelli had relays of men to provide food and water for the pursuers, as he was determined that the miscreant should not again escape.
The track was lost and found, then lost and found again. Mouse used every concealment art, but the tireless Red Eye never gave up the trail.
After nearly two weeks of hide and seek, the posse cornered Mouse early one morning at a lonely water hole on a gypsum flat near the Muddy River. Here the outlaw made his last stand.
Cursing and screaming, Mouse exchanged shot for shot with his pursuers. However, his pistols were no match for the high-powered rifles of the posse. The savage murderer finally fell, with his body literally riddled with bullets. Thus was avenged the deaths of Davis and Stearns, and the whole countryside felt relief from the sinister shadow of the Indian Mouse.
Emerging Efforts to Define the Coso Obsidian Economic Exchange System in the Rose, Fremont and Antelope Valleys of the Western Mojave Desert, California By Mark R. Faull, California State Parks (Ret.) Proceedings of the Society for California Archaeology, Volume 19, 2006, pp 159-167
Archaeological investigations in and about Red Rock Canyon State Park in Kern County’s El Paso Mountains have unveiled a series of lithic procurement sites, the nature of which is primarily designed to support other off-site prehistoric communities. The rise and fall of these support sites coincide with the peak production of Coso obsidian. The nearest contemporary community for postulated interaction would likely represent the Koehn Lake village complex (CA-KER-875). A reexamination of the Sutton model developed for Koehn Lake, along with other sites in the region, leads to a new interpretation of local complexity, connectivity, and interdependence potentially aligned with the Coso economic system, whereby major villages potentially served in an interlinked fashion to facilitate the widespread dispersal of the valuable Coso volcanic glass.
The ambitious goal of this inquiry is to initiate the concept of the interconnectedness of site function within a portion of the western Mojave Desert when viewing a series of regional prehistoric sites that are contemporaneous to the peak period of Coso obsidian quarrying and distribution. The ensuing discussion of the Coso Obsidian Economic Exchange System rests mostly upon a reexamination of the works conducted by others, whereby I hope to stimulate new perspectives of thought and approach.
For purposes of definition, references to the Coso Obsidian Economic Exchange System are equivalent to the “Coso Hot Springs Exchange System” of Ericson (1981:119-122) and Hughes and True (1985:326, 334), as well as the “Sugarloaf production and exchange system” of Allen (1986:10). In addition, Allen (1986:1) referred to the Coso trade as an “egalitarian economic system.” Discussing more general California obsidian trade, Bouey and Basgall (1984:135) referred to “areas of economic articulation.” Such areas provide cultural connections and ties that are worthy of investigation.
The examination of the possible cooperation of communities holds certain potentials for elucidating the interlinked, complex relationships and possible interdependent functions of a suite of archaeological complexes, which in this instance stretched from the southeastern Sierra through the Antelope Valley in California’s western Mojave Desert. Such research also holds promise for identifying era- specific archaeological complexes within a regional framework or perspective.
The ensuing discussion focuses primarily upon the Late Gypsum/ Newberry through the Rose Spring/Haiwee periods of peak Coso obsidian production and distribution, which potentially interconnect the Rose, China Lake, Fremont, and Antelope valleys of the western Mojave. Per the work of Gilreath and Hildebrandt (1997) and many others, this period of pronounced economic and cultural florescence has been shown to have met its demise with the close of the Rose Spring/Haiwee period, perhaps associated in some fashion with the series of progressive droughts now referred to as the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (see Stine 1994 and others).
THE EL PASO MOUNTAIN QUARRIES AND THE KOEHN LAKE SITE
For 20 years, my place of employment within this region was Red Rock Canyon State Park, a landscape that beckons travelers to pause from their journeys amidst spires and cathedrals of stone. These canyonlands never fail to astonish — yielding unending discoveries in the realms of the biotic, the paleontological, and the archaeological. Pursuant to a large expansion of the park in 1994, State Park staff began documenting extensive prehistoric chert and chalcedony quarries (Faull 2000; Faull and Sampson 2004; Sampson 2003).
These extensive quarries and secondary reduction sites display temporal affinity with the rise and fall of the Coso obsidian quarries and economic system (Faull and Sampson 2004). These sites were purely supportive of other off-site communities or activities, and were not self-sufficient. Thus it became apparent that the quarries were connected within a larger regional cultural system. But who quarried the stone, and where was its destination? The closest contemporaneous community would be the primarily Rose Spring-era village complex at nearby Koehn Dry Lake to the south.
The Koehn Lake village (KER-875) was excavated by Dr. Mark Sutton and has become one of the premier cornerstones of Dr. Sutton’s proposed western Mojave Desert model (Sutton 1986, 1988a, 1990, 1991, 1996; Sutton and Everson 1992; Sutton and Hansen 1986). Thanks are due to Dr. Sutton for his effort to refine Mojave Desert archaeology by proposing testable models of the prehistoric past.
Sutton noted that the primarily Rose Spring-era Koehn Lake village site rests principally above a shoreline associated with ancient Koehn Dry Lake (Sutton 1986:8, 1988a, 1990, 1991, 1996; Sutton and Hansen 1986:3-7). The village abuts aeolian dunes once crested by a sizeable mesquite community (Sutton 1986:2, 7, 1990:3), now decimated by agricultural drawdown of the local water table (Pampeyan et al. 1988). During excavations, Sutton encountered a collapsed circular, semi-subterranean juniper structure, as well as frequent juniper remains (Sutton 1990:3, 1991:179; Sutton and Hansen 1986:2). In addition, Sutton later excavated a prehistoric juniper structure found at the Honda Test Track site (KER-2211) located 3 km west of the Koehn Lake village (Sutton 1990:5, 1991:139,180). As Sutton (1991:179) noted, the closest modern juniper communities lie 15 to 30 km distant in the southern Sierra Nevada.
The discovery of the ancient Koehn Lake shoreline combined with the juniper frequency on-site underscores Sutton’s postulated Western Mojave model, whereby he proposes a mesic regime sufficient to support a lake stand and to lower the juniper community to the shoreline of ancient Koehn Lake (Sutton 1991:179, 1996:238, 243; Sutton and Everson 1992:62; Sutton and Hansen 1986). Such a model bears certain attractive features, which help to explain the local cultural florescence of the late Gypsum through middle Rose Spring periods. In addition, Sutton proposes that the desiccation of the lake stand at 1000 B.P. led to the eventual abandonment of the Koehn Lake site (Sutton 1991:178181, 1996:232; Sutton and Everson 1992:62-63).
PROXY DATA AND KOEHN DRY LAKE
To date, no paleoenvironmental studies have been conducted upon Koehn Lake proper to confirm or deny the model. Therefore, proxy data must suffice for analysis. To the north, Searles Lake near Trona does bear evidence of a shallow, highly saline, fluctuating Holocene lake stand (Smith 1979:95, 96, 109). Two-thirds of the way up through a Holocene mud overburden, a radiocarbon date of 3520 B.P. has been documented (Stuiver and Smith 1979:69, 73). This lake stand appears associated with the known pluvials of roughly 4000 and 2000 B.P. (see Smith 1979:109, Figure 41). The upper deposits at present cannot yet be correlated to match the postulated Rose Spring era Koehn lake stand.
Farther to the north, Stine (1995:9) has concluded “that Owens Lake was exceptionally low, and perhaps non-existent during extended portions of the Haiwee [Rose Spring] time.” Stine (1995:4, 9) cites the work of McGuire (1994) who documented archaeological remains at INY-3541, which range in age from roughly A.D. 135 to 933 and reside on a moderately low beach line of Owens Lake. This beach line lies at 1,093.2 m, roughly 3.4 m below the historical high stand of Owens Lake (Stine 1995:9). The data from McGuire (1994), as well as from Stine (1995), do appear convincing that a lower-than-normal, rather than higher-than-normal, stand for Owens Lake existed during much of the late Gypsum and Rose Spring periods, contrasting with the postulated model for Koehn Dry Lake.
At present, the closest correlative pattern to that proposed for Koehn Lake appears to be distantly removed at Lower Pahranagat Lake northeast of Las Vegas, Nevada. At this location a pattern of summer- shifted rainfall apparently produced and maintained a shallow lake during the Rose Spring era, where previous to and following this period marsh habitat had predominated (Wigand and Rhode 2002:341).
More direct proxy data appear available to analyze the postulated down-slope shift of the juniper community into the vicinity of Koehn Lake. In nearby Red Rock Canyon four archaeological sites have now been excavated which bear in part strata of either Gypsum or more commonly Rose Spring era assemblages: KER-147 (Robinson 1981), KER-246 (Harvey and Gardner 2003), KER-250 (McGuire et al. 1982), and KER-5043 (Gardner 1998). Despite their presence up-slope and up- canyon from Koehn Lake, no juniper remains have been discovered at these sites. Gardner (1998:123, 139) specifically notes such an absence in her thesis, which investigated portions of the Sutton model.
Elsewhere, Peter Wigand (2003), working at the Airport Playa site to the north in the Coso Mountains, reports pursuant to both packrat midden and pollen studies a continuity of plant communities over the past 2,600 years. While ratios of plant species vary within the composition, the community members themselves remain constant (Wigand 2003). Rhode and Lancaster (1996:17-24), working south of Koehn Lake at Edwards Air Force Base, report an identical situation involving fluctuating species ratios but consistency of plant communities status over the last 5,600 years. To the east of Koehn Lake, research at Fort Irwin confirms an identical scenario of general plant community consistency during the later Holocene over the last 3,500 years (Basgall and Hall 1992:5; Koehler and Anderson 1993).
In the absence of proxy data supporting a dramatic down-slope shift in the juniper community, perhaps other scenarios might account for the presence of juniper at Koehn Lake; the most logical counter- conclusion being that invested energy transported juniper to the site. Why would a community invest such an effort to establish outposts at both Koehn Lake and at KER-2211, 3 km to the west? What other qualities about these sites would motivate such an effort? Expending such extreme energy speaks to some form of strategic importance for the location of these communities.
THE POTENTIAL COSO OBSIDIAN TRADE CORRIDOR(S)
Following Gilreath and Hildebrandt’s (1997) seminal work on the Coso Volcanic Field — and the earlier documentation of Coso obsidian distribution by other regional researchers (Ericson 1981; Ericson and Glascock 2004:780-781, 783, Figure 1; Ericson and Singer 1971; Ericson et al. 1989; Hughes and True 1985; Koerper et al. 1986; Meighan 1978), insufficient attention has been expended examining the logical inter- connective footprint of the Coso Economic Exchange System, which delivered high-quality obsidian to much of the southern California coast.
Numerous researchers have hinted at or suggested that a connective trade corridor, possibly involving Coso obsidian, functioned within the western Mojave through the Antelope Valley (Ericson and Meighan 1984:147; Koerper et al. 1986:57; Robinson 1977; Sutton 1980:221, 1981:124, 1988a:76-78, 1988b:25, 1989:109; Warren 1988:4647). Along these lines, Sutton (1989:101, 107-109) has discussed the Mojave Desert patterning of Coso obsidian in a post-A.D. 1000, Late Period or Protohistoric temporal context. The focus of this inquiry mostly predates that context.
Other possible Coso trade corridors might involve the southern San Joaquin Valley, although few targeted studies have yet occurred. This potential inter-connective economic corridor warrants further investigation in tandem with the Mojave Desert economic system.
Perhaps in a larger context the presence of the Koehn Lake village could be viewed as integral or sustaining to the economic system of Coso obsidian exchange through the western Mojave Desert. As such, let us briefly examine the regional pattern of village establishment within a potential Coso context.
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF DESERT VILLAGES
The earliest dated village within the Antelope Valley is that of Lovejoy Springs (LAN-192). At this site, a group inhumation dated at 2720 B.P. included a Coso obsidian Elko point and one youth draped in over 3,000 beads (Love 1992, 1996:106; Sutton 1988a:52; Toney 1968:810). Thus, the inception of village establishment within the Antelope Valley already displays connection between the coast, trade in beads, and Coso obsidian from the north.
Looking elsewhere in the Antelope Valley, a second significant village complex west of Rosamond (KER-303) has yielded an excavated residential structure (probably made of juniper) dated to 2370 B.P. and 2140 B.P., subtended by nearly 1 m of midden (Sutton 1988a:39-40, 62; Sutton and Robinson 1982). Elsewhere at the site, a radiocarbon date of 2200 B.P. was obtained from a charcoal sample at a depth of 2.5 m (Sutton 1988a:39). Coso obsidian is known from the site, and burials at the site, which currently lack sufficient temporal constraints, do display copious unanalyzed shell beads (Sutton 1988a:42, 43, 56).
Changing focus to the extreme northern vicinities of the potential Coso System, the village establishment at Rose Spring (INY-372) appears to be roughly marked by a youth inhumation from Locus 1, which can be roughly dated at between 2400 to 2500 B.P. (Lanning 1963:243, 268, 281; Yohe 1992:146). This youth inhumation possesses 1,000 Haliotis ring beads along with an obsidian Elko corner-notched point (Lanning 1963:243, 260-261, 263, 320). At Locus 3 the base of the rich occupational midden has been radiocarbon dated at 2240 B.P. (Yohe 1992:94). At Locus 1 a similar date of 2200 B.P. was recovered from the 152-163 cm level of Trench 1 (Yohe 1992:140, Table 5), near the base of the rich midden defining Lanning’s (1963:242) original Stratum 2.
Again, possible village establishment appears to coincide with connectivity to the coast in terms of exchange or trade in shell beads and ornaments. Are the occurrences noted coincidental, or could village establishment contain an element of connectivity to trade? Future targeted investigations appear warranted.
Could village placement be strategic to controlling the trade in Coso obsidian? Sutton has previously illustrated how trade might have linked certain early villages in the Antelope and Fremont valleys as potential “gateway communities” developed in response to trade, as per the Hirth (1978) model, while sometimes identifying obsidian as the trade product (Sutton 1981:124, 1988a:77-78, 1988b:24, 25). Many of these villages, located near reliable water, could easily serve as strategic trade partners for Coso obsidian exchange. These Antelope Valley villages remain well positioned to serve another potential intermediate link in Coso distribution near Castaic Lake, LAN-324, where obsidian lithic artifacts and bifaces were present (Ericson 1981:Appendix 2, personal communication 2004; Ericson and Glascock 2004:781; Ericson and Singer 1971).
Farther south, trade through the Cajon Pass remains less clearly defined. The strategic presence of the culturally distinct village of Oro Grande (SBR-72) above Cajon Pass (see Warren and Crabtree 1986:191), with its near-absence of obsidian and Rose Spring points in the latter Rose Spring era (Rector et al. 1983:35, 37, 47), would appear to discourage hypotheses involving Coso trade. However, the presence of shell beads at Oro Grande (Rector et al. 1983:68-87) bespeaks a coastal connection and the presence of modest quantities of Coso obsidian in Crowder Canyon, SBR-113, SBR-421, and SBR-713, near Cajon Pass (Basgall and True 1985:5.16-5.18, 7.10; Bouey 1985:J2; de Barros 1997:5-93; White 1973:Table 4) may complicate this scenario, unless Coso obsidian moved inland from the coast similar to the scenario suggested for San Diego County (Hughes and True 1985:333). In addition, minor amounts of Coso obsidian have also been documented for the early to mid Gypsum period Siphon Site (SBR-6580) in the Summit Valley 14 km east of Crowder Canyon (Sutton et al. 1993:53).
To the north, with additional Eastern Sierra sources of obsidian as potential competitors, one could view the early establishment of the Rose Spring village as strategically positioned or situated to assist with the control of access and trade through the southern Owens and Rose valleys. The later establishment of two large Rose Spring/Haiwee era villages north of the Rose Spring proper, at INY-3806/H on the western shore of Owens Lake at the confluence of Cottonwood Creek and at INY3812 in the north end of the Rose Valley (Delacorte 1994:5-6; Delacorte and McGuire 1993:178, 252), combined with the establishment of the Coso Junction Ranch village (INY-2284) southwest of the Rose Spring site (Allen 1986; Gumerman 1985; Whitley et al. 1988), could potentially further strengthen control over access through time. In addition, a third sizable Rose Spring period occupation at INY-1428, also located west of Owens Lake, adds even greater presence during this critical temporal period (Gilreath and Holanda 2000:121).
Returning to the Koehn Lake village, with a calibrated radiocarbon date suggesting establishment around 1700 B.P. (Sutton 1996:235, 238), perhaps part of this site’s invested energy involved the strategic value of further controlling trade and access from realms to the south.
INCREASING CULTURAL SPECIALIZATION
Lithic Specialization
The discussed florescence of Coso quarrying during the late Gypsum and Rose Spring periods can also be viewed as a period of increasing cultural specialization (cf. Ericson 1984). Shifting from a perspective of potential specialized village establishment, examination of specialized quarry sites can follow. Gilreath and Hildebrandt (1997:178-179) have documented the increasing specialization of quarry selection within the Coso Volcanic Field during the Gypsum/Newberry and Rose Spring/Haiwee periods (see also Whitley et al. 1988:5), as well as the use of secondary bifacial reduction sites (see also Allen 1986:35).
The cryptocrystalline quarries of Red Rock Canyon State Park display a similar evolved focus and association with secondary reduction loci (Faull and Sampson 2004). Add to this the Antelope Valley rhyolite quarries (Glennan 1970, 1971; Sutton 1982) and a greater regional picture of the quarry complex emerges.
Within the localized El Paso Mountain to Fremont Valley region 94 percent of the recovered Rose Spring projectile points are fashioned from Coso obsidian. This ratio of preferred material use tends to contrast sharply with other eras within the local assemblage. However, despite this observed preference for obsidian point production during the Rose Spring period, the Red Rock cryptocrystalline quarries expand in tandem with the Coso model, indicating a reduced but specialized spectrum of use for cryptocrystalline materials within the tool kit of the El Paso to Fremont Valley segment of the Coso Economic System. In- depth analyses of local sites, such as the Koehn Lake village to the south and the Freeman Spring site (KER-6106) to the north, may offer greater insights into this more restricted, specialized use of cryptocrystalline rock within the Rose Spring tool kit.
The introduction of the bow and arrow during the period of Coso obsidian florescence has generated much debate as to the impact of such technology on both large mammal populations and lithic technology trajectories (Allen 1986; Ericson 1982; Grant et al. 1968:58; Yohe 1992, 1998; Yohe and Sutton 2000). Focusing first upon lithic technology trajectories, secondary bifacial reduction of tradable obsidian and other overlapping products of the Coso trade system could account in part for the difficulty researchers have experienced in discerning the introduction of the bow and arrow within lithic artifact assemblages.
In addition, some Antelope Valley researchers assert that local lithic trajectories suggest that Rose Spring points may have been traded into the valley as completed products (Earle 2004:12; see also the lack of debitage in Sutton 1988a:76). On the margins of the Fremont Valley at KER-1998, Sutton and Everson (1992:57) note that obsidian appeared mostly as small-sized pressure flakes, suggesting that obsidian “was being brought to the site as artifacts in generally completed form.” Examining sites, such as Coso Junction Ranch and others, for the possible specialized production of tradable points might be another line of valuable inquiry (see the Phase B change in the ratio of biface thinning versus secondary reduction reported by Allen 1986:32-33, 37, 40; see also Gilreath and Hildebrandt 1997:168).
Intensified Food Specialization
Whether or not the introduction of the bow and arrow decimated large mammal populations within this region, the archaeological record for this segment of the western Mojave is unequivocal about the intensification of focused food resources. The Rose Spring/Haiwee era witnessed both an expansion of pinyon processing (Bettinger 1975, 1976, 1980, 1989; Garfinkel and Cook 1979, 1980) and an accelerated fetish with the consumption of lagomorphs and a series of small animals (Delacorte 1994:8-10; Yohe and Sutton 2000:5), particularly hares.
Lepus procurement sees the establishment of massive specialized collection and processing sites, such as those at Freeman Spring near Walker Pass (Williams 2004), and at the Bickel site in the El Paso Mountains, KER-250 (McGuire et al. 1982). Intensive Lepus processing is known from the village sites of Rose Spring, Koehn Lake, and KER2211 (Sutton 1990:5, 1991:180; Yohe 1994; Yohe and Goodman 1991; Yohe and Sutton 2000:3). Gumerman (1985:28) documented that rabbit processing intensified during the progression of the Rose Spring period at the Coso Junction Ranch site (see also Whitley et al. 1988:6, 8). Kranz (1963:288) stated for the Rose Spring site that it was “tempting to conclude that rabbit brains were eaten, including the relatively soft cranial bones.” Ethnographically, rabbit brains have been reported as a delicacy (Christenson 1990:368). However, it should be noted that at the Bickel site in the El Paso Mountains, Lepus heads and certain parts of the extremities were removed from lagomorphs before apparent transportation off-site to the place or point of actual consumption or use (Basgall 1982:137-138).
A suite of other small mammals and other animals were also widely to locally exploited by Rose Spring era populations (cf. Delacorte 1994 and others). Broadening the perspective, the Anasazi of the Southwest reportedly display a similar intensified utilization of small game, particularly lagomorphs and mice, before their profound decline, around the peak of the Medieval Climatic Anomaly (Diamond 2005:150). Perhaps a scenario somewhat similar to the Anasazi occurred in portions of the western Mojave — where initial success and population expansion possibly became increasingly difficult to support or sustain, in light of potential over-predation or increasing resource failure associated with progressing drought and aridity (cf. Ericson and Meighan 1984:150; Whitley et al. 1988:8; Yohe and Sutton 2000:1, 4).
A REGIONALIZED PERSPECTIVE
In conclusion, from north to south, village establishment within the discussed corridor of the western Mojave Desert appears to initiate with relative concurrence during the Gypsum period, with each site displaying connectivity to both coastal and Coso resources. Over time, a series of late Gypsum through Rose Spring period, potentially interdependent sites appear to arise, possibly aligned to support the fruition of the Coso Obsidian Economic Exchange System.
By approximately 1100 B.P., the Antelope Valley is well positioned to participate in the emergence of the new trade system with the Southwest, which transitions into the Late Prehistoric or Marana period (Davis 1961:4, Map 1; Heizer 1946:191; Sample 1950:4-5; Warren and Crabtree 1986:193). The Antelope Valley displays village continuity across the Medieval Climatic Anomaly and the terminal Rose Spring (Campbell 2004:8, personal communication 2005; David D. Earle, personal communication 2004; see also the data of Robinson 1977; Sutton 1988a), which marks the demise of the long-standing Coso Economic System farther to the north.
By contrast, the Fremont, China Lake, and Rose valleys to the north experience the dramatic cessation of major quarrying at Coso and the resultant disseminating trade system (Ericson and Meighan 1984:149; Gilreath and Hildebrandt 1997:iii, 179, 183; Hughes and True 1985:333, 334; Meighan 1978:160; Koerper et al. 1986:53). In tandem, the major quarrying and secondary reduction loci located within Red Rock Canyon State Park in the El Paso Mountains cease to function (Faull and Sampson 2004). Village abandonment occurs at a suite of sites, which includes the Koehn Lake village (Sutton 1990, 1991, 1996), the Coso Junction Ranch village (Allen 1986:2-3; Gumerman 1985; Sutton 1996:239; Whitley et al. 1988:5, 8; see also Yohe and Sutton 2000:3), the INY-1428 occupation site (Gilreath and Holanda 2000), the INY-3806/H village, and the INY-3812 village (Delacorte 1994; Delacorte and McGuire 1993). A significant decrease in activity is simultaneously recorded for the Rose Spring site (Lanning 1963; Whitley et al. 1988:5; Yohe 1992). Finally, the large, highly specialized rabbit procurement sites at Freeman Spring (Williams 2004) and at the Bickel site (McGuire et al. 1982) similarly demise.
In short, the system of villages and associated specialized sites, which apparently rise in concordance with the observed expansion of the Coso quarrying complex, appear to display a concurrence in their temporal cessation. In the absence of cooperative trade and possibly in light of prolonged, intensifying drought combined with local over- predation, the discussed desert-based villages of the northwest Mojave Desert appear to dissolve, never to be reassembled in the Fremont through Rose Valleys in any similar fashion.
CONCLUDING REMARKS
It is not asserted with certainty that the Coso Obsidian Economic Exchange System involved precisely all the elements contended herein. Rather, this working hypothesis and its associated observations are intended to elevate a new dialogue to incite inquisition into the possible interrelationship and function of sites stretching along a known western Mojave Desert trade corridor.
If significant interconnectedness existed in the form of a regionalized trade economy, “optimal foraging theories” and “resource intensification models” will not adequately define past realities unless they account for such specialized energies. Likewise, models that attempt to define the change in lithic technologies or trajectories will likely suffer similar frustrations unless the overlapping complexities of regional trade production are factored into the analysis. I hope that this dialogue will prove productive towards a new linkage of regional prehistoric archaeology in the western Mojave Desert of California.
The dream world was as important to the Mojave People as was the physical world. It was from this dream state instruction was given that would guide them to their destiny.
The Mojave Warrior was as brutal and violent in battle as his enemy. Even more so, not only because of strength and endurance but because those who had bad dreams; dreams of death and misfortune, were left behind in the villages with the women so as not to bring a curse to the war.
Among the small and dangerous bands were mixed the Kwanami. They were the elite warrior captains. The Kwanami were said to have dreamed of war and the death of their opponents in the womb before their birth. Their dreams would be of ripping lion and bear creatures apart with bare hands and emerging from the dust victorious and unscathed.
The Kwanami lived apart from the rest of the Mohave People, in the south of the valley where Mastamho, the God-son, fought with the serpent under the three peaks. It was here they would fast and meditate on the death of their opponents and the art of warfare.
These men who were stoic and impervious to heat, cold, hunger, and pain, would practice with their war bows and clubs in order to be the most effective in ministering death to their foes.
