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| As the Pleistocene Epoch drew to a close ten thousand years ago, and the
rivers of glacial ice melted, people lived in an environment dramatically
different from today—both cooler and wetter. Lakes and swamps existed
where no water remains now. Lush grasslands covered the plains, supporting
mammoths, mastodons, horses, camels, and, in some areas, bison. |
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| Projectile points found along an extinct water channel in the Pinto Basin
represent the earliest known human occupation of this area. Dated from four
to eight thousand years ago, this Pinto culture was first described by amateur
archeologists, William and Elizabeth Campbell in the 1930s. |
| The Campbells believed that there had been a river flowing through Pinto
Basin but more recent research by geologists dispels the notion that there
was either a river or a lake in Pinto Basin by the time humans occupied
the area. |
| The points collected by the Cambells are thick and triangular in shape,
with notched shoulders and a broad stem. Pinto hunters attached the points
to a wooden spear shaft and used a spear thrower, or atlatl, to propel the
spear. Based on the relatively large number of Pinto points—as well
as cutting and scraping tools—compared with the few seed-processing
implements found at these early sites, it is believed that Pinto Culture
was a mobile population dependent upon large game hunting and seasonal plant
gathering. |
| The period of Pinto Culture occupation was an era of decreasing moisture,
and by the end the environment was probably close to what we have today.
As the Pleistocene water sources dried up, only desert adapted plants and
animals survived. The archeological evidence suggests that the human population
gradually adapted as well, by hunting smaller game and processing small
seeds. |
| Little evidence links the Pinto Culture with today’s tribal groups.
The Cahuilla, Chemehuevi, and Serrano who followed the Pinto period had
a more diversified strategy of hunting and collecting food items that included
distinct changes in stone tools and increasing numbers of hard-seed milling
stones. |
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