Jerry Jerrems
Summer Lake Valley, Oregon, is part of the Pleistocene Lake Chewaucan drainage system that filled to a high stand of 4,520 feet, creating an extensive lake that encompassed the entire Abert basin of southcentral Oregon. The last high stand is thought to have occurred just before 13,000 years ago. Archaeologically, there is no evidence of human utilization of Lake Chewaucan during this time, and the earliest evidence for human occupation of the basin comes from Paisley Cave #1, excavated by Luther Cressman in the late 1930s. At Paisley Cave #1 Cressman found bones of extinct horse that may have been butchered by humans as early as 11,000 years ago.
In the summer of 2001 a Sundance research team including Don Frazier and Jerry Jerrems surveyed the Summer Lake Valley, in order to document additional late Pleistocene and early Holocene archaeological sites. Several archaeological sites with stemmed points and crescents were located on landforms thought to relate to Pleistocene Lake Chewaucan. The sites were found in and around sand dunes as well as on perched bars and back-beach playettes that likely formed during the late Pleistocene. Most of these are surface sites that can not be dated, but the presence of stemmed points and crescents suggests that they may to date to the early Holocene, between 10,000 and 7,500 years ago.
In addition to this, our team surveyed known late Pleistocene exposures along the Ana River, and searched for other exposures that might contain late Pleistocene or early Holocene archaeological sites. Most of these exposures appear to predate 20,000 years ago and are likely too old to contain traces of past human activity. The only documented geologic setting in which human-made artifacts may likely be found is in middle Holocene sand dunes that blanketed fossil beaches and back-beach playettes.