Culture · Early Archaic
Desert Archaic
7000 BCE–500 CE, North America — Great Basin & Plateau
The Desert Archaic covers the mobile foragers of the Great Basin, Mojave and Colorado Plateau from about 7,000 BCE to the adoption of the bow and, in places, the arrival of farming. Dry caves such as Danger Cave, Hogup Cave and Lovelock Cave preserved basketry, sandals, nets, duck decoys and wooden atlatls that are otherwise lost. Collectors hold chipped stone almost exclusively, since perishables come from cave excavations and are not legally traded.
| Dates | 7000 BCE–500 CE |
|---|---|
| Period | Early Archaic |
| Region | North America — Great Basin & Plateau |
| Areas | Great Basin, Mojave Desert, Colorado Plateau |
| Typical objects | Projectile point, Scraper, Drill |
| Typical materials | Obsidian, Obsidian (Glass Buttes), Chert, Basalt |
Identification
Diagnostic material includes Pinto and Gatecliff split-stem points, Elko corner-notched and eared points, Humboldt lanceolates and crescents from early sites. Obsidian from many Great Basin sources dominates, with basalt and chert, and ground-stone manos and metates are ubiquitous. Perishable objects with intact cordage or fibre are almost always museum material.
Legality
In the United States, prehistoric artifacts may be collected and sold only when they come from private land with the landowner's permission; removal from federal, tribal or most state land is prohibited under ARPA and state statutes. Funerary objects, human remains and sacred items are covered by NAGPRA and are not legitimately traded, and Canadian provinces treat archaeological finds as Crown or provincial property. The Great Basin is overwhelmingly federal land managed by the BLM, so the burden on a seller to show private-land origin is heavy, and cave perishables are near-certainly illicit.
Reproductions and fakes
Obsidian points are easy to knap and to age with sand-blasting, so Elko and Pinto reproductions are common at rock shops. Obsidian hydration rims, visible under a microscope on genuine pieces, are absent on fresh fakes. Basketry and sandal fragments offered as Great Basin cave finds are frequently modern Native crafts or Peruvian textiles.
Cite this article
Stratum Study. "Desert Archaic" (Culture). Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21. https://stratum.black/study/cultures/desert-archaic. Accessed 2026-09-21.
@misc{stratum-desert-archaic,
title = {Desert Archaic},
author = {{Stratum Study}},
howpublished = {\url{https://stratum.black/study/cultures/desert-archaic}},
year = {2026},
note = {Culture article, Stratum Study pack 2026.09, as of 2026-09-21; sources: stratum. Accessed 2026-09-21.}
} Citations carry the pack version and the article's as-of date so they resolve to the same text later. The facts themselves belong to the sources listed below; cite those for the science.