The Buttonwillow Complex: A Proposed Western Stemmed Tradition Variant in the Southern San Joaquin Valley, California

In the mid-twentieth century, excavations at the Buena Vista Lake site (CA-KER-116) in the southern San Joaquin Valley of California resulted in the identification of a deposit dating from the early Holocene characterized as a San Dieguito variant. This deposit contained several fragmentary points, crescents, faunal remains, and large features consisting of processed freshwater bivalves. Since the 1960s, the Buena Vista Lake site was the sole well-dated example of human occupation in the region during the early Holocene. However, similar materials have recently been identified at the Buttonwillow site (CA-KER-2720) and comparable materials are also known at Tulare Lake. These three examples appear to form a coherent pattern of a Western Stemmed Tradition variant in the southern San Joaquin Valley, a variant proposed here as the Buttonwillow Complex.