Eighty miles east of Crater Lake, near the village of Paisley, Cressman recently excavated a small cave. Here again, beneath a thin stratum of pumice, human artifacts were obtained. Among the remains were part of a mat made of shredded sagebrush bark, some sagebrush rope, a two-ply twisted basketry warp, the butt end of an atlatl point, and chalcedony and obsidian scrapers. Elsewhere,2 evidence has been published to show that the pumice above the artifacts came from Mount Mazama.
In a second cave near Paisley, Cressman uncovered a rich collection of bones overlain first by a sterile deposit a few feet thick and then by a layer of pumice. Among the bones Chester Stock3 identified those of bison, mountain sheep, camel (probably Camelops), horse, a large dog (wolf), a fox, and probably bear. Among these, writes Stock, “are two genera, namely horse and camel, that we generally regard as more characteristic of the Pleistocene than of the Recent epoch. Some of the remaining forms do not range in the region where the cave is located at the present time.” Unfortunately, there is no means of knowing how long a time is represented by the sterile layer separating the bones from the overlying pumice.
Some day, it can hardly be doubted, bones of animals, possibly also bones of man, will be discovered beneath the pumice blown from Mount Mazama, for the glowing avalanches, erupted before the formation of Crater Lake, rushed down the flanks of the volcano at such tremendous speed that everything in their path must have been destroyed. When such remains are discovered, they will most likely be in the valley of the Rogue River. In the meadows bordering the Rogue, hundreds of animals must have been surprised and overwhelmed by the onrushing flows of pumice. By the chance of erosion or excavation their entombed bodies may yet be brought to light.
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