The Southern California Milling Stone Horizon: Some Comments

Claude N. Warren

doi:10.2307/277913

The Southern California Milling Stone Horizon: Some Comments

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/277913 ◽

1967 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 233-236 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Claude N. Warren

Keyword(s):

Southern California ◽

Settlement Pattern ◽

California Coast ◽

Early Horizon

AbstractOwen’s (1964) brief comments on the Glen Annie Canyon site include some comments and criticisms that are in error, and the validity of his interpretation of the archaeology and archaeologists of the Southern California Coast may be challenged. Owen uses the term “Early horizon” where he should use “Milling Stone horizon”; his criticisms of Wallace’s 1955 paper are unjustified; what he claims to be the archaeologists’ description of the Oak Grove culture is inaccurate. His argument for a nomadic population during the Milling Stone horizon is based on a weak analogy, and his notion that the interpretation of a “more or less sedentary” settlement pattern for the Milling Stone horizon is a “convenient fiction agreed upon by some southern California archaeologists to facilitate the construction of artifact typologies” is in error. Data are presented to support the interpretation that the population of the Milling Stone horizon was a Central-Based Wandering people.

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Assertions, Assumptions, and Early Horizon (Oak Grove) Settlement Patterns in Southern California: A Rejoinder

American Antiquity ◽

10.2307/277914 ◽

1967 ◽

Vol 32 (2) ◽

pp. 236-241 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Roger C. Owen

Keyword(s):

Settlement Patterns ◽

Southern California ◽

Settlement Pattern ◽

Radiocarbon Dates ◽

Early Horizon

AbstractC. N. Warren makes six criticisms of a paper by Owen (Owen 1964), each of which can easily be rejected. The six comments, accompanied briefly by the grounds for their rebuttal, are: 1) that “Early horizon” cannot be used to label the period, when in reality “Early horizon” is as appropriate as any other term, and more so than many that are in use; 2) that a negligent comment is directed at a paper by W. J. Wallace, which though unimportant, is temperate and accurate in the estimation of the author; 3) that a reference to a paper by Warren and True is groundless and misleading when it indeed is pertinent and direct; 4) that an analogy used is weak, although the argument does not proceed by analogy; 5) that suggestions regarding the utility of radiocarbon are optimistic when in fact insight in the use of radiocarbon dates can provide information on duration of habitation on any site; 6) that comparisons between the probable settlement pattern of Early horizon California coastal populations and some of the Fuegian Canoe Indians are inappropriate, an opinion which indicates that Warren’s knowledge of the basis of the comparison is faulty. It is suggested that despite Warren’s criticism, the Glen Annie Canyon site report and the associated paper may stand unamended and lead to a better understanding of the settlement patterns of early Southern California coastal populations during the so-called Milling Stone horizon.

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