This general fact is significant and worth establishing clearly, while the more specific questions of tribal affiliation and cultural identity are treated with the caution they require.

The Great Basin in the Centuries After Paisley

The Paisley evidence documents a moment — or rather a series of moments, spanning the period of pre-Clovis and Clovis-contemporaneous occupation — in the long human history of the northern Great Basin.

Understanding what came after the Paisley period adds context to the site’s significance.

In the centuries and millennia following the period documented by the Paisley coprolites, the northern Great Basin experienced significant environmental change.

Lake Chewaucan, which had been a prominent feature of the landscape during the late Pleistocene, began to shrink as the climate warmed and the glacial melt that had fed it diminished.