Pinto Points

In the 1920s, early California archeologists Elizabeth and William Campbell began field work that eventually covered much of the Mojave and Colorado deserts. The Pinto Culture, first described by the Campbells, was based on a series of sites associated with an ancient braided stream channel in the Pinto Basin at the eastern end of Joshua Tree National Park.

Conservative dates for the Pinto Culture are during the early Holocene when the climate was changing towards drier environmental conditions. This collection of stone tools provides the basis for dating the earliest known human occupation of the park and marks the cultural adaptation to desert living. Pinto points are also found in other desert sites of California and the Great Basin. Analysis suggests that Pinto points were manufactured almost solely by percussion alone with little or no shaping using pressure flaking.

The seemingly extreme Joshua Tree desert provided Native Americans, miners, cattlemen, and homesteaders a rich and diversified lifestyle that current residents and park visitors can still experience in the park’s nearly 800,000 acres.