At our camping spot one morning, I chose to walk over to my friendly vehicle and aquire a refreshing bottled water. Sitting in my favorite chair, I noticed on the ground a bright red flake of jasper. Of course, jasper is not found in this part of Death Valley or in decomposing granite. The sharp edges and smooth underside proved one thing: it was a flake from tool knapping, an activity performed by natives for thousands of years to make all manner of stone tools. I stared at this, and eventually I realized that there must be more.
Flakes were made in thousands, of imported materials from often far away. Obsidian came from a hundred trail miles to the north, from Obsidian Dome near Mammoth Mountain. I'm not entirely sure where jasper or a some of the others came from, but I haven't seen any of it naturally in Death Valley. The red jasper flakes are these most common here and at other sites across the desert; I saw plenty of it the pictographs site and elsewhere. Tools made were mostly arrowheads for birds and deer, though axes were also made. Points are most commonly found, but I didn't see any at this site.
Walking around the boulder pile I found probably close to fifty different flakes, and replaced they after I had picked them up for pictures. Hidden in the boulders I found a mortar or mortero, a grinding hole in the rock.
I'm assuming this location was a summer camp for Death Valley's Timbsha Shoshone, and it's boulders create many caves which are much cooler than the surrounding desert. I clambered around for a long time and never saw any evidence other than the flakes and the grinding slick. There was one large room I couldn't access, but I had no reason to believe there was any rock art here.
Beavertail Cactus in blossom
The famed mortero
Inside one of the boulder caves
If you look closely in this picture, there are seven flakes on the ground.
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