America's Oldest Basketry

Rainer Berger, Millie Bendat and Andrea Parker

We have determined the earliest calibrated dates on three types of basketry from the Great Basin of western North America. The oldest twined basketry dates to 10,380-10,918 cal BP, reed duck decoys to 2355-2773 cal BP, and wooden sandals of sagebrush bark or twined tule to 9247-10,375 cal BP and 9242-9836 cal BP, respectively.

[Radiocarbon Volume 40, Numbers 1-2, 1998]