An Early Maritime Biface Technology at Daisy Cave, San Miguel Island, California: Reflections on Sample Size, Site Function, and Other Issues

Abstract

In North American archaeology, the study of distinctive biface technologies has been critical to understanding early migrations, adaptations, and interactions—from Clovis and other fluted points, to stemmed or leaf-shaped points of the Far West, and the wide variety of point types that mark later time periods. In most terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene sites of coastal California, points and other bifaces are relatively uncommon and crude, a pattern sometimes attributed to a heavy economic focus on shellfish and plant food gathering. At Daisy Cave on San Miguel Island, stratigraphically-controlled excavations during the 1990s recovered a small assemblage of bifaces that seemed to fit this general pattern. Recent data suggest, however, that a sophisticated maritime hunting technology existed on the Northern Channel Islands during the terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene. In this article, we describe the bifaces recovered from Paleocoastal (∼10,200 to 8500 cal BP) strata at Daisy Cave, then discuss site function, small sample size, and other issues that can limit the interpretation of ancient technologies and cultural-historical relationships. The result is a cautionary tale about interpreting small assemblages of projectile points and bifaces from early Pacific Coast sites, where sea level rise and coastal erosion already pose significant interpretive problems.