Implications of Ritual Biface Caches from the Irvine Site

Excavations at the Irvine site (CA-ORA-64) yielded two unusual cache features, each containing a pair of large ceremonial bifaces, but one of these caches also contained a plummet charmstone and a globular perforated stone. One biface was knapped of Buck Mountain obsidian, a northeastern California resource over 1100 km. from ORA- 64. Two bifaces were fashioned of dull-gray glassy materials exotic to coastal southern California, and the fourth biface was made of Monterey chert. These large ritual bifaces indicate late Early Holocene or early Middle Holocene cultural connections between the northwestern Great Basin and Orange County.