INTRODUCTION

In 1965 several graduate students in the De'partment of Anthro-
pology, University of California, Berkeley, instituted what promises to

become a long-term archaeological research project concerned with analysis
of coprolites, or desiccated human excrement, a type of paleobiological
material that is seldom preserved in most of the world's archaeological

sites. This report summarizes recent findings made in the course of the
continuing research project, and presents three new studies of the

palynological, paleo-ornithological, and faunal remains found in the

Lovelock coprolites. Lastly, there is offered an interpretation of some
of the information that is now available concerning Lovelock Cave and
culturally related Great Basin sites.

Lovelock Cave, located at an elevation of 4240 feet a.s.l. on

the north flank of the Humboldt Range in Churchill County, Nevada, is a
dome-shaped chamber about 160 feet long and 40 feet wide formed in a

limestone outcrop (cf. Plate 3). The cave is about 2.5 miles south and

some 300 feet above the southeast shore of the now-extinct Humboldt Lake,
which was a remnant of ancient Lake Lahontan (Morrison 1961; 1964). The

first occupation of the cave by man probably occurred about 2000-3000 B.C.
(Heizer 1967). Cultural material, rockfall, aeolian dust, bat guano,

rat-nest debris and assorted trash gradually accumulated inside the cave,
eventua'lly forming a deposit that was more than fifteen feet thick in the

southwest end of the cavern (Loud and Harrington 1929; Grosscup 1960, 1963).
Occupation of the interior of the cave apparently came to an end a few
hundred years before Caucasian settlement of the Humboldt Valley in the
mid-nineteenth century, although the outer rockshelter appears to have
been resorted to, perhaps in times of valley flooding or during periods
*of intense winter cold, until as recently as A.D. 1800.   Following the
time when man apparently no longer occupied the main cave chamber, a

deposit of bat guano varying from three to six feet thick accumulated over
parts of the archaeological midden.  Removal of the guano for commercial
putposes in 1911 led to discovery of the well-preserved archaeological

material contained in the underlying powder-dry cultural strata.    During
1912,'1. L."Loud 'of the University of California, Berkeley, working un-

'assisted, recovered from the archaeological midden some 10,000 artifacts

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made of wood, vegetal fiber, stone, skin, bone, feathers and other

materials. The physical remains of the Lovelock population found by Loud
included skeletal material, partially mummified bodies preserved by

desiccation, human hair, and an incredible amount of desiccated human

excrement.1 Almost all of the perishable material in the cave has survived
the passage of time in a quite remarkable state of preservation.2

In the period between 1912 and 1924, no provision was made to
protect the archaeological material remaining in the cave, and relic

collectors dug at random in the deposit. Loud returned to the site in 1924
with M. R. Harrington (then attached to the Heye Foundation), in order to

make additional collections and to examine the stratigraphy of the western
end of the cave, which Loud had been denied permission to dig in 1912

(Loud and Harrington 1929).   At the conclusion of the 1924 field season

the site was again abandoned, and destructive digging by relic collectors
has continued from that date up to the present time.

In 1950 R. F. Heizer and a field party of Anthropology students
from the University of California, Berkeley, collected from the disturbed
midden a number of coprolites, most of which were of human origin but of
unknown stratigraphic provenience. Fifty-one of these coprolites were
analyzed by N. L. Roust, using a dry-dissection technique developed by

him (Roust 1967:49-88). In 1958 G. L. Grosscup examined the Lovelock Cave
artifact collection made by Harrington in 1924 and now housed in the

Museum of the American Indian, Heye Foundation, New York.    Grosscup s

comprehensive analysis (1960) is the only published modern assessment of
Lovelock Cave archaeology.

In 1965 Heizer and another generation of graduate students

returned to Lovelock Cave in order to collect coprolites of known strati-

graphic provenience. Several score specimens were found in a crevice along
the edge of the ancient cave entrance; another accumulation was found in
a small undisturbed remnant of refuse located well inside the cave (for

these locations see Heizer 1967, Fig. 1). One of the crevice or entrance
coprolites (UCLA sample number 1071-E) produced a radiocarbon date of

145 + 80 years (Tubbs and Berger 1967:89-92), while a radiocarbon date of
1210 + 60 (circa A.D. 740) was obtained from a cache or interior specimen
(UCLA 1071-F).   Twenty entrance and thirty interior specimens were

analyzed in 1966 and reported upon by R. Cowan (1967) and R. Ambro (1967).

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These fifty coprolites were assigned reference numbers in the order in
which they were analyzed. The twenty coprolites from the entrance and
the thirty coprolites from the interior were studied at the same time,

so that one cannot tell readily by the reference number whether a parti-
cular coprolite came from the older interior lot or the younger entrance
group.  Since it would be confusing to renumber the fifty coprolites, the
original number system has been retained and reference to entrance copro-
lites are prefixed with E- and interior ones with I-. For more ready

cross-reference to Ambro (1967) and Cowan (1967) we provide the following
list of the coprolite numbers of each lot. Numbers omitted (1-4, 53-54)
were incompletely analyzed and were therefore not tabulated by Cowan and
Ambro: Interior coprolites (I-) Nos. 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21,
22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 32, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 49, 50,
51, 55. Entrance coprolites (E-) Nos. 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23,
29, 31, 33, 35, 38, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 52, 56.

The coprolites were processed by the trisodium phosphate

(NA P0) rehydration method developed by Callen and Cameron (1960). Pre-
liminary analysis of the major food items contained in the ancient

excrement revealed the broad outlines of the Lovelock subsistence economy
as it was manifested during the time when the coprolites were deposited.

The homogeneous dietary pattern exhibited by the constituents of these two
groups of coprolites is of no small interest in view of the fact that the

radiocarbon da-tes obtained from sample specimens indicate that the entrance
coprolites date circa A.D. 1800, while the interior specimens evidently
were deposited about 1000 years earlier - - approximately A.D. 740.

Ambro and Cowan,, who were chiefly responsible for the analysis
of the fifty coprolites, worked with the help of volunteer undergraduate
laboratory assistants and prepared over 600 microscope slides of individ-
ual food items. Most of the coprolite constituents were identified as to

general class (that is, as seeds, plant remains, feathers, etc.). Generic
and specific identifications were to be completed during future phases of
the Lovelock project, and because of this a relatively high percentage of
the gross coprolite constituents remained unidentified. Dietary re-

construction through coprolite analysis ultimately depends, of course, on
accurate identification and reliable quantification of as many food items
as possible. To date about 80% of the items mounted in 600 microscope
slides have been identified by various specialists in the biological

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sciences.  Earlier, fish bones, mostly those of Tui Chub (Siphateles

bicolor), were examined and described by Follett (1967), two coprolites

were checked for viable pathogens (Tubbs and Berger 1967), and occlusion-
impressions in masticated vegetal "quids" were studied by Turner (1967).
During 1968 the Lovelock Research project was continued by Napton with
minimal funds secured by Heizer, and this phase of the project resulted

in identification of samples of mammal hair, pollen grains, and feathers
contained in the coprolites.   Studies of plant remains, seeds, shells,

insects, human hair, osseous material, and many other items found in these
coprolites have been completed and reports of the findings are now in
preparation. Preliminary interpretation of the lacustrine subsistence
adaptation manifested in Lovelock Cave is set forth in the concluding

section of this publication. We wish to thank the Wenner-Gren Foundation
for Anthropological Research for their generous support of this project,

and express once more to Dr. Sanford Elberg, Dean of the Graduate Division
at Berkeley, appreciation for his interest and support in providing the
means of instituting this program in 1965.

A publication subvention provided by the Wenner-Gren Foundation
has been used to publish the present report, and we express our deep
appreciation to the Foundation for its support.

In September 1968 we received a generous grant from the National
Science Foundation (GS 2297) and note here that some of the data reported
in this publication have been secured since the grant was activated.

The senior author wishes to thank Professor R. F. Heizer for
his enthusiastic support and encouragement during all phases of the

Lovelock coprolite project, and gratefully acknowledges the assistance

of Professor T. D. McCown, Dr. Robert Rodden, Richard Ambro, Bruce Browning,
Walter Stienecker, Karen Nissen and Jane Beaumont.

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NOTES

The Lovelock collections housed at Berkeley include some 2000 human
coprolites. Coprolites were found in abundance in the cave during the
excavations of 1912 by L. L. Loud, who remarked (1929:35);

The human excrement in the cave reveals, on

the part of the ancient inhabitants, an incred-
ibly coarse diet of seeds, hulls, and tough

plant fibers. Some of the excrement was over
2 inches in diameter.

Loud's brief observation of the contents of this ancient excrement marks
the beginning of Lovelock Cave coprolite investigations.

The basic reports on Lovelock Cave are by Loud and Harrington (1929)
and Grosscup (1960). Additional studies of materials from the cave

include an examination of a sling pocket (Heizer and Johnson 1952:139-147),
and description of projectile points recovered in 1965 from the guano

miner's dump (Clewlow 1968a:89-101). Orchard (1925:187-190) has described
porcupine quillwork displayed in some of the Lovelock minor crafts.

Baumhoff and Heizer (1958:49-59) studied the relationship between pre-
historic Lovelock Cave and recent California Indian basketry.

Jones et. al. (1967:123-128) have analyzed a wooden effigy found in

Lovelock Cave. Skeletal remains were studied by Kennedy (1959), Gifford
(1926) and Wyman and Boyd (1937).

Tubbs and Berger (1967) note that the interior coprolite UCLA 1071-F
produced a radiocarbon age of 1210 + 60, which gives a historical age
of either A.D. 880, A.D. 800, or A.D. 680. An approximate historical

date of A.D. 740 may be obtained by subtracting the radiocarbon age from
the present date, where "present" is assumed to be A.D. 1950 (Deevey,
Flint and Rouse 1967). By the same means the entrance coprolite

UCLA 1071-E can be assigned an approximate historical date of A.D. 1800.

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