This report details the planning, implementation and results of a cultural resources inventory (or reconnaissance) of a 0.6% sample of approximately 1.4 million acres in the western portion of the Mojave Desert. The project was conducted in 1978-1979 by Archaeological Research, Inc. under my direction and in cooperation with the U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management (contract YA-512-CT8-160).
This document is intended principally as a management and research tool. It was prepared specifically for the BLM Desert Planning Staff, as an aid in the preparation of a plan, required under the Federal Land Management and Policy Act of 1976, for the protection and use of the California Desert. The report is addressed secondarily to anthropologists and historians, who may be particularly concerned with the substantive and theoretical findings stemming from the research. Non-professional readers may therefore find many of the discussions and other passages that follow to be of little personal interest. Hopefully, these readers may benefit, nevertheless, from the balance of the report.