Stillwater Marsh is an archaeology locality in the

Carson Sink Carson Sink is a playa in the northeastern portion of the Carson Desert in present-day Nevada, United States of America, that was formerly the terminus of the Carson River. Today the sink is fed by drainage canals of the Truckee-Carson Irriga ...

in western Nevada discovered when heavy flooding in the 1980s unearthed many human remains. The great diversity in plant life and altitudinally-determined microenvironments that surrounded the marsh helped to make it a popular place to live, as evidenced by archaeological findings.Larsen, C.S., and R.L. Kelly, 1995, Bioarchaeology of the Stillwater Marsh: Prehistoric Human Adaptation in the Western Great Basin. ''Anthropological Papers of The American Museum of Natural History'' 77. 170 pp. p 9. At Stillwater Marsh, skeletal remains were the primary means used to determine how people lived in the area. As large numbers of skeletons had not previously been found at

Great Basin The Great Basin () is the largest area of contiguous endorheic watersheds, those with no outlets to the ocean, in North America. It spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, Oregon, Wyoming, and Baja Californi ...

sites, Stillwater Marsh offered a remarkable opportunity to learn about daily life, as reflected in the human remains. A area of the site was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1975 as Stillwater Marsh, which provides limited protections.

Skeletal Remains

Flooding in the

between 1982 and 1986 unearthed approximately 4,000 human bones from an estimated 416 people. These bones were found in isolated, scattered graves across a ten square mile area.Raymond, A.W., 1992, Who Were the Ancient People of Stillwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Nevada. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. There were no indications of formal funerary services as evidenced by the lack of grave goods. Excavations at the Stillwater Marsh site were begun by the Nevada State Museum in 1985 and 1986, then continued by the Human Skeletal Field Survey team, a group of archaeologists that conducted the majority of research on the Stillwater Marsh skeletal remains, in 1987. Over 140 of the skeletons were deemed to be “relatively complete,” while many of the others were characterized by as little as one piece of bone. The skeletons found in Stillwater Marsh were not representative of a single population, but instead from different groups of people who resided in the area over the course of about 3,000 years. Radiocarbon dates indicate that there could have been people living in the Marsh for as long as 2,500 years, with the earliest settlement possibly coming approximately 3,200 years ago.Morris, K. and A.W. Raymond, 1993, People of the Marsh: A Cultural and Natural History of Stillwater National Wildlife Refuge. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The skeletal remains suitable for analysis displayed a range of health conditions. Some were found without any pathological issues that would indicate health problems. Others, however, had characteristics indicative of a difficult lifestyle. From Site 26Ch1046, one of the scattered burial pits found within the Stillwater Marsh locality, the skeletons of two young males were analyzed. Their bones demonstrate the effects of poor nutrition, as evidenced by unusual depressions at muscle attachment sites. One of the skeletons showed signs of anemia, as denoted by the presence of cribra orbitalia, which could have developed as a result of a nutrient-poor diet. Further evidence of cribra orbitalia was found by the Human Skeletal Field Survey in the summer of 1987. A juvenile skeleton was excavated that displayed anemia in this same pattern. While not exactly a sample of the population, these three young skeletons seem to indicate that appropriate nutrition may not have always been available for children, whose immune systems were still developing, leaving them more susceptible to infection. One of the most notable characteristics found in the Stillwater Marsh skeletal series is the occurrence of

osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis is a type of degenerative joint disease that results from breakdown of articular cartilage, joint cartilage and underlying bone. A form of arthritis, it is believed to be the fourth leading cause of disability in the world, affect ...

Osteoarthritis Osteoarthritis is a type of degenerative joint disease that results from breakdown of articular cartilage, joint cartilage and underlying bone. A form of arthritis, it is believed to be the fourth leading cause of disability in the world, affect ...

is characterized by pitting on joint surfaces and bony outgrowths around the outer surfaces of joints. Of the approximately 67 cases of

found in the remains, a multitude of those cases had the disorder to the point of eburnation. The amount of effort required to remove the soft tissues in joints, leaving just bone-to-bone contact, such as in the hips or knees, is immense.

that extreme indicated a highly mobile lifestyle. With the exception of the amount of

represented in the skeletal remains, the Stillwater Marsh people fit the definition of a hunter-gatherer society; the males ventured away from camping sites to hunt game, while the females remained close to the campsites gathering nuts, plants, and other foodstuffs It is evident, though, from the bones that they had to work more to meet their nutritional requirements than many other hunter-gatherer societies. Evidence from the skeletal remains shows that the majority of joints were affected by eburnation, including the jaw, ankles, wrists, and elbows, in addition to the hips and knees. There are a few ways for eburnation to occur: the continual movement of those joints, ingestion of a specific fungus that consumes cartilage or a combination of the two. The presence of bone in the joints is another way in which

presents itself. In the case of the Stillwater Marsh people, it seems more likely that continual movement of the joints, making bone come through the tissue layers, is the cause of their

. The most common joint affected by the disorder was the lumbar vertebrae of both males and females. There was extensive damage, when compared to the other joint surfaces on the skeletal remains, to the lumbar vertebrae. This damage indicates that there was lifting and heavy work being conducted by the Stillwater Marsh people. Females, however, had a higher frequency of

in their lumbar vertebrae than males did. This was the only measurement of

in which females exceeded males. Males had extensive

from their ankles up through to their shoulders. The majority of joint damage was bilateral in males and suggestive of travel with heavy loads up from and down to the Marsh. While this cannot be necessarily proven, the amount of

in the Stillwater Marsh population was so much greater than that of surrounding low-level populations that it appears to be a logical argument. Age was also a factor in demonstrating the extent of this disorder. Despite the longer life span of females,

still affected males more frequently. A study done by Clark Spencer Larsen and Christopher B. Ruff on bones collected by the Nevada State Museum provides support for age and nutritional deficiencies as factors for

. The selected long bones included in this study were shown to have an immense amount of strength, which was required for the amount of heavy work they conducted. However, skeletons that were 40 years or older at the time of their death show a surprising lack of replacement to damaged bone. Nutrition is believed to be the major cause of the amount of bone loss based on the relatively young age, when compared to other prehistoric populations, at time of death of most of the skeletons. An additional feature found on the teeth of the Stillwater Marsh people were hypoplasias, disturbances in the normal formation of enamel caused by nutritional and environmental stresses on the body. The appearance of these defects is most prominent at the labial and buccal surfaces after extended utilization of the occlusal surface wears down the teeth. After a study was conducted by Dale L. Hutchinson and Clark Spencer Larsen using teeth from approximately 40 of the skeletal remains collected by the Nevada State Museum and the Human Skeletal Field Survey, it was found that

hypoplasia Hypoplasia (; adjective form ''hypoplastic'') is underdevelopment or incomplete development of a tissue or organ. The skeletal remains of the people who once inhabited the Stillwater Marsh region tell us they worked very hard for their subsistence.

Subsistence

Nutrition played a large role in determining the skeletal health of the Stillwater Marsh people. The number of human remains found suggests that the Marsh was one of the more populous regions in the

, indicating that the people living there has to become adept at using all of the natural food resources at their disposal. One of the major food sources in the

was the pine nut. There is no evidence of the Stillwater Marsh people consuming pine nuts, however. Pine nuts did not even appear in the Marsh area until a little over 1000 years ago. Paleoethnobotanical samples from the Stillwater Marsh site show that seeds were a major part of these prehistoric peoples’ lives. Some of the more common seeds discovered were bulrush, cattail, and pickleweed, to name a few. Bulrush, however, was the most abundant seed found at the site. It is believed that, like other Native Americans, the Stillwater Marsh people utilized this seed as a source of nutrition. Based on the skeletal remains and knowledge of how hunter-gatherer societies functioned, females were most likely the ones that gathered these seeds for their families and communities. Additionally, some of these plants, mainly bulrush and cattail, are still in the Stillwater Marsh area. This seemingly indicates that they provided a continual food source for when people lived in the Marsh, as opposed to when they moved into the uplands for part of the year. In addition to plant species, the area also had numerous sources of animals for food. Migratory birds played a major role in the lives of the Marsh people. Nets were the primary method utilized to capture the birds. Some of the more common birds in the area were mallard ducks and coots. The birds not only served as a source of food, but also as a means of some basic human comforts. The feathers and skins of these birds were utilized in the creation of clothing for the Stillwater Marsh people. Another animal that played a pivotal role in the diet of the Marsh people was fish. The main fish species that they relied on was the

tui chub The Tui chub (''Siphateles bicolor'') is a species of freshwater Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish belonging to the Family (biology), family Leuciscidae, which includes the daces, chubs, Phoxinus, Eurasian minnows and related fishes. This fish is ...

, a type of minnow. The people used smaller tui chubs as a food source, as evidenced by the amount of skeletal remains of the fish found throughout the locality's sites.Butler, V.L., 1996, Tui Chub Taphonomy and the Importance of Marsh Resources in the Western Great Basin of North America. ''American Antiquity'' 61: 699-717. Small mammals, mainly rodents, provided nutrition for the Stillwater Marsh people when fish, like the

, and birds were out of season. Rodents, such as the ground squirrel, were cooked whole, whereas small mammals, like the muskrat, had the fur removed before cooking.

Conclusion

There are still some unanswered questions about the people who lived at the Stillwater Marsh, such as why males had such severe

. Additional research needs to be conducted as to where the people of the Stillwater Marsh went after use at the burial area was discontinued. The skeletons that were analyzed from Stillwater Marsh were reinterred on land owned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They are under protection by the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe.

References

External links

* * * {{Authority control Geography of Churchill County, Nevada Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Nevada National Register of Historic Places in Churchill County, Nevada