This web site describes and analyzes the Calico Archaeological Site and the Calico Lithic Industry, which have been controversial since they appear to support the presence of tool-makers in California’s Mojave Desert some 200,000 years ago–nearly twenty times more remote in time than the generally-accepted date for the earliest human arrivals in the Americas.

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* (This Page): Table of Contents
* 2 About this Site: Caution!
* 3 Introduction
* 4 The Setting: The Manix Basin
* 5 Manix Basin Artifact Assemblages
* 6 The Lake Manix Lithic Industry
* 7 The Calico Lithic Industry
* 8 Artifact-Geofact Issues and the Calico Site
* 9 Calico Site Geology and Age Assessments
* 10 Calico Site Stratigraphy
* 11 Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction
* 12 Age of the Calico Artifact-Bearing Beds
* 13 How It Began
* 14 Dig Procedure
* 15 The Rock Wren Locality at the Calico Site
* 16 Louis Leakey’s Perspectives on the Calico Site
* 17 References
* 18 Glossary
* 19 Contributors