Daisy Cave (official site designation CA-SMI-26) is a rockshelter located in the northern Channel Islands off the coast of California in the western United States. The lowest occupation levels of this cave date to the terminal Pleistocene, between about 12,300-11,120 years ago, and thus Daisy Cave is a Paleoindian site. Archaeologists have called Paleoindian sites located on the coasts and islands off the western edge of North America as "Paleocoastal". Later occupations have also been identified in Daisy Cave's upper levels.
The people who lived in Daisy Cave lived on marine resources such as fish, shellfish and marine mammals. Cordage has been recovered from Daisy Cave, and may represent early evidence of footwear, in addition to basketry. Because Daisy Cave is on an island, the age of the site is important, for it indicates that some sort of ocean-going vessel was used to get there during Paleoindian times. Daisy Cave would, therefore, be an example of a site that might have been occupied by people traveling along the western coast to enter the new world.
Stone tools discovered at Daisy Cave and dated to the Paleocoastal period are sparse and generally crude. However, they do include a handful of crescent-shaped bifaces and a Channel Island Barbed point, recently identified as typical of paleocoastal occupations.
Daisy Cave was excavated in the 1990s by University of Oregon archaeologist Jon M. Erlandson.
Sources
This glossary entry is part of the About.com Guide to Paleoindians and the Dictionary of Archaeology.
Connolly, Thomas J., Jon M. Erlandson, and Susan E. Norris 1995 Early holocene basketry and cordage from Daisy Cave, San Miguel Island, California. American Antiquity 60(2):309-318.
Kennett, Douglas J. 2005. The Island Chumash: Behavioral Ecology of a Maritime Society. University of California Press, Berkeley.
Erlandson JM, and Jew N. 2009. An Early Maritime Biface Technology at Daisy Cave, San Miguel Island, California: Reflections on Sample Size, Site Function, and Other Issues. North American Archaeologist 30(2):145-165.
Rick, Torben C., Jon M. Erlandson, and Rene L. Vellanoweth 2001 Paleocoastal Marine Fishing on the Pacific Coast of the Americas: Perspectives from Daisy Cave, California. American Antiquity 66(4):595-614.
