Thomas and colleagues (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) evaluated the 1940s excavation and subsequent repatriation of Spirit Cave Man, an Indigenous Nevadan whose remains were radiocarbon dated to older than 10,700 years. Living just 16.09 km (10 miles) west of Spirit Cave, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe filed a 1997 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) claim requesting repatriation of the Spirit Cave ancestor they call “The Storyteller.” This request ignited a two-decade-long legal dispute that ultimately led the tribe to permit DNA testing that documented a 10,000-year genetic continuity that linked The Storyteller to the subsequent Lovelock culture and suggested connections to modern Paiutes living there today—without total population replacement. We argued that the Spirit Cave case underscores some of the moribund concepts and assumptions that led twentieth-century Great Basin anthropology to misread this long-term episode of Indigenous resilience and survivance.
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) take exception to “a small portion of a complex article” (their words) to question our interpretation of mortuary and caching practices in the Lahontan basin. We welcome another Indigenous voice and are grateful to each of these authors for expanding the conversation. My coauthors (Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) have asked me to address Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) on their behalf, and I am honored to do so. Preferring paths of “constructive disagreement” (in the sense of Snider Reference Snider2008), my comments are based on respectful, evidence-based exchanges of opposing viewpoints aimed at fostering deeper understandings, innovation, and better decision-making—not merely cultivating division.
Here, I make five clarifications: (1) emphasize our reliance on most probable interpretations, (2) correct misinterpretations of the Lahontan Basin mortuary/caching practices, (3) compare “unique” patterning of the Lahontan and Bonneville Basins with the northern Great Basin, (4) reinforce the heritage role of the Wá∙šiw (Washoe) Tribe, and (5) express my preference for epistemological pluralism in Americanist archaeology.
Most Probable Interpretations
Most readers of American Antiquity recognize, at least implicitly, the vast differences separating the “harder” and “softer” sciences. Employing rigorous mathematical models and controlled experimentation, hard scientists (such as physicists and chemists) are fully capable of producing highly accurate, quantitative, and reproducible results. As is the case among other less-exact sciences (including sociology, psychology, and political science), archaeologists generate results trending more toward relative, subjective, and/or time-sensitive conclusions—hardly mimicking the more rigorous results of the physical sciences.
Americanist archaeology has long recognized—even underscored—the implicit incompleteness of the data and the inherent cautions required. In concert with many Quaternary scientists and geologists, I believe that after duly acknowledging the constraints, there comes a time when the working archaeologist should be willing to take a stand, based on what the available data actually seem to say. I have previously engaged “most probable interpretations” as a workaround solution to
bridge the gap between method and substance. [Most probable] interpretations stand merely as what I consider to be the best bet when all the presently available evidence is taken into account. Alternatives are entertained whenever possible, and in many cases, it is possible to assess the relative probabilities associated with each interpretation [Thomas Reference Thomas1983:440; see also Pendleton and Thomas Reference Thomas1983:6; Thomas Reference Thomas1985:374, Reference Thomas1988:289, 291, 324, 328, 334, 564, 579, 583, 589, 611, Reference Thomas2020:713].
When or if alternatives prove untenable (especially in light of newer data), they can be swapped out for new hypotheses.
A similar “most probable explanation” (MPE) has surfaced in contemporary Bayesian network analysis. These “most probable” perspectives share the same baseline objective—to move from a framework of absolute truth to one of probabilistic belief, where exceptions are not necessarily falsifications but rather evidence that updates the probability of a theory (or alternative hypotheses; Butz et al. Reference Butz, Hommersom, van Eekelen, Ciucci, Pasi and Vantaggi2018). Our previous consideration of The Storyteller and deep history of the Lahontan Basin was framed from this “most probable” perspective—and so is this comment.
Bonneville Basin Mortuary Patterns
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) provide a great service by detailing and explicating mortuary patterning in the Bonneville Basin (BB), evidence we had only briefly referenced (Thomas Reference Thomas2024:181, 183; Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:259). Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:Supplemental Material 1 and 2) significantly expand previous summaries to include excavation histories, site stratigraphies, age estimates, and approximate number of burials where they have been recorded. They document that the Bonneville drainage and its immediate surrounding margins contain at least 18 mortuary sites (apparently spanning at least 12,000 years), with a minimum of 91 ancestral burials and likely more.
Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) conclude that during all intervals of the precontact Holocene, Indigenous people of the Bonneville Basin sometimes interred ancestors in habitation caves and rockshelters, some apparently associated with site occupations but others more in isolation. Bonneville communities also placed ancestors at open-air sites throughout most of the Holocene, suggesting that “the number of those open site interments exceeds that of cave burials by an order of magnitude or more” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:4). These ancestors were often (but not always) sent away with associated grave goods, sometimes in shallow graves, and some were placed on the surface in the back of caves (or, in later times, on the floor of existing structures).
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:3–4) point out “two remarkable exceptions” to this generalized mortuary pattern in the Bonneville Basin, at Lehman Cave and Snake Creek Cave (on the eastern flank of the Snake Range). More than three dozen individuals (of unknown antiquity) were interred inside these karst caves. Access to both caves is “extremely difficult, verging on the impossible,” with typical habitation debris absent. Obviously, neither Lehman Cave nor the Snake Creek burial cave was a “residential” locality.
From this baseline, Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) compared Bonneville Basin and Lahontan Basin mortuary patterns, and I will do the same.
Comparing Mortuary Practices in the Bonneville and Lahontan Basins
Here are direct quotes from our two-part, most probable interpretations of mortuary and caching practices in the Lahontan Basin:
Paleoindians began burying their deceased inside Lahontan Basin caves at least 11,000 years ago. . . . Only a handful of the caves and rockshelters of the Lahontan Basin show even sparse habitation [although there are] extensive clusters of Paleoindian artifacts along the pluvial lake margins. . . . [unlike elsewhere in the Great Basin], few such surface assemblages suggest long-term residential occupations. . . . Adams and colleagues (Reference Adams, Goebel, Graf, Smith, Camp, Briggs and Rhode2008:608) characterized the surface Paleoindian record of the Lahontan Basin as “isolated occurrences of humans in an otherwise empty landscape” [and] this why the Early Holocene 14C record of the Lahontan Basin derives almost exclusively from mortuary/cache contexts. . . . These distinctive Paleoindian mortuary practices defined the Lahontan Basin as a uniquely spiritual space, rather than just some place to live [Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:250, 251, 259; emphasis added].
We juxtaposed our most probable interpretation of this “unique Paleoindian pattern” against the significantly different practices that emerged during the Lovelock interval (∼4500–650 cal BP) when
the Lovelock culture [shifted] the Lahontan Basin from a sparsely occupied sacred space into a homeland of nearly sedentary settlements. . . . Still using their ancestral burial places in the nearby caves of the Carson and Humboldt Sinks, Lovelock communities augmented long-standing [Paleoindian] mortuary practices by burying the deceased near their marshland villages. They stayed away from the Pyramid-Winnemucca mortuary/cache caves [Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:253].
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) curiously confined their comparison to just the early part of our Lahontan Basin interpretation (which they term LLDB), mistakenly suggesting that we hypothesized that the Paleoindian mortuary/cache patterns in the Lahontan Basin “persisted throughout its occupational history” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:11). The phrase “throughout its occupational history” does not appear in our article, and this unfortunate misquote (already picked up in some popular accounts) distorts our most probable interpretation and requires correction.
Our most probable interpretation of these Paleoindians was simple: caves and rockshelters in the Lahontan Basin contained only the most sporadic evidence of human habitation. These places were almost entirely used to cache seasonally specific belongings and/or to bury deceased ancestors. Paleoindians lived elsewhere most of the time (likely far away). In projecting our Paleoindian-specific hypothesis across the entire Holocene, Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) obscured our key point: the Paleoindian interval in the Lahontan Basin was followed by a second, quite distinct pattern when the Lovelock culture emerged around 4500 cal BP.
But after clarifying their misinterpretation of our Paleoindian hypothesis, we agree with Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) when they (appropriately) apply our most probable interpretation to post-Paleoindian times: “With two major exceptions, all the burials in BB caves and rockshelters are found in what appear to represent ‘residential’ sites, as opposed to what Thomas and colleagues (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) describe as ‘mortuary/cache’ sites” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:2). Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:5–11) detail at considerable length the archaeology of Lovelock Cave, the Humboldt Lakebed site, Hidden Cave, Stillwater Marsh, Dryden Cave, the Shinners sites, and many others. Each of these post-Paleoindian sites helps enhance our Lahontan mortuary/cache cave hypothesis for the Lovelock interval. We have done this before (Thomas Reference Thomas2024:239–243, 334–337, 419–423, 529–534, 582–591, 670–672), but in reiterating the evidence, Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:5–11) strengthen our most probable interpretation.
We further agree when Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:16) discuss population size and settlement pattern: “The LLDB differs from the BB in two significant ways: (1) the population appears to have been higher throughout much of the Holocene, and (2) specialty cache caves are much more numerous in the Lahontan Basin than they are in the BB.”
Population Size: With respect to population size, they say,“It remains clear there are more than twice as many cave sites with burials in the LLDB than have been reported for the BB, and probably at least three times as many individual burials. The actual number of caves with burials is probably higher” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:12). We agree.
Settlement Pattern: With respect to settlment pattern, they say,
A second apparent difference between the two basins, beyond the number of burials, is the presence of numerous cache caves in the LLDB containing no evidence of long- or short-term occupations or even of diurnal use. Although caches are certainly present in some of the BB caves, there are no known special-purpose cache caves unrelated to human occupation. People simply made caches in places where they lived. In the LLDB, on the other hand, there are probably a dozen or more sites where people were caching things, but evidence of occupation is minimal at best [Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:12].
We agree.
We cannot, of course, agree with the conclusion that “overall, in terms of burial locations in the two major lake basins of the Great Basin, they are very similar . . . the LLDB is not unique compared to the BB” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:12). As detailed above, our most probable interpretations were misrepresented, and we can only attribute this conclusion to the authors’ conflation of Paleoindian and post-Paleoindian cache/mortuary patterns in the Lahontan Basin.
Mortuary Patterns in the Northern Great Basin
Given the variability in most probable interpretations regarding “uniqueness” between the Lahontan and Bonneville basins, it seems appropriate to explore similar evidence for mortuary/caching practices in the northern Great Basin, where two “most probable” explanations emerge.
First Most Probable Explanation
Although ancestors were quite commonly interred elsewhere in Oregon (at the Dalles, along the Oregon coastline, in the Willamette Valley, and at the open-air Bergen site in Fort Rock Valley), mortuary remains are quite rare in the Great Basin caves of Oregon. I previously hypothesized that northern Paleoindian foragers often sheltered in Paisley Cave, Connley Caves, and Fort Rock Cave (among many others), which contained almost exclusively the debris of everyday life—with only the most occasional burial of Paleoindians and later ancestors (Thomas Reference Thomas2024:182–184). I interpreted the exceptions as rare and in very small numbers (usually just isolated elements from one or two individuals).
I still believe that the most probable hypotheses for both Paleoindian and post-Paleoindian cave sites in Oregon’s hydrological Great Basin remain those of abundant habitation debris, with mortuary practices barely involved at all. Several archaeologists (with decades of experience working in this region) have told me they agree with this interpretation.
Second Most Probable Explanation
But we must likewise respect opinions from a couple of other archaeologists (also quite familiar with the northern Great Basin) who emphasized to me the importance of the Paleoindian exceptions and the lack of solid dating. Ancestral remains have been recorded from at least nine northern Great Basin sites, three perhaps dating to the Paleoindian period (Table Rock #3, Dirty Shame Rockshelter, Catlow Cave); five remain undated, and one is likely late. Three sites contain undated remains from confirmed early deposits (Fort Rock Cave, Connley Caves, Cougar Mountain Cave).
Contrasting Great Basin Mortuary Practices
Currently available archaeological data lead me to conclude that the most probable interpretations point to multiple distinct (“unique”) mortuary patterns during the Great Basin Holocene.
Lahontan Basin
We stand by our previous “most probable interpretation” (Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) and correct the misreading by Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026). We believe that Paleoindians only rarely “lived” in the Lahontan Basin; instead, they cached possessions for future visits and buried ancestors in the caves and rockshelters, which were more of a sacred space than a habitation area. After approximately 4500 cal BP, Lovelock culture communities continued to use the ancestral burial places in the caves of the Carson and Humboldt sinks, but they significantly altered these long-standing mortuary practices by frequently also burying the deceased near their marshland villages.
Bonneville Basin
We agree with Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:16) that the most probable interpretation for the Bonneville Basin is that
With two exceptions, the BB cave sites contain extensive evidence of residential occupations, with people conducting daily living activities in the same places where the deceased were sometimes buried. This pattern is evident throughout the Holocene from at least 13,000 years ago to the end of the Fremont period, about 650 years ago. Throughout this time, the deceased were also buried at a variety of open locations, ranging from interments in or near residential sites to isolated locations.
Northern Great Basin
Twin “most probable interpretations” emphasize that unlike elsewhere in Oregon, the caves and rockshelters within the hydrological Great Basin contained almost exclusively everyday habitation debris. These caves may (or may not) have contained the occasional burial of Paleoindian and/or post-Paleoindian ancestors.
The upshot is that I must amend my previous conclusion about “unique” mortuary practices in the Intermountain West to account for the differing interpretations of Oregon caves and rockshelters. It is ironic that the Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) arguments enhance (rather than disprove) most probable explanations of diversity in mortuary/caching practices across the Holocene Great Basin.
Heritage Role of the Wá∙šiw Tribe
Because modern Northern Paiute people tend to avoid the ancient burial caves of the Lahontan Basin, Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) hypothesized that other groups likely lived in them. Citing oral traditions, historical linguistics, and archaeological data, they suggest that the ancestors of the Wá∙šiw (Washoe) were responsible (at least in part) for utilizing and occupying many of the cave/rockshelter and open-air sites in the Lahontan Basin, including some of those with burials.
We agree completely and said as much:
We are grateful to Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:14–16) for expanding our most probable hypothesis.
A word seems in order about why we (Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) structured our discussion of mortuary/cache patterning in the Lahontan Basin as we did. Current archaeological understandings of past Indigenous relationships in the United States are clouded by the fact that repatriation and reburial claims are decidedly claim-driven—specifically requiring that lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, or Native Hawaiian Organizations register formal requests for the return of ancestral remains and cultural items. Repatriation consultation under NAGPRA occurs after one or more valid claim is presented, initiating a process involving documentation, public notice, and potentially resolving competing claims before transfer. Registering such claims can be an emotionally and financially expensive process that many tribes decide to avoid.
When assembling The Storyteller team in the fall of 2020, I contacted the Tribal Preservation Historical Officer of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, inviting him to partner up with our Indigenous and non-Native group to address the difficult issues involving the ancient burial caves located on traditional tribal lands in the Carson and Humboldt sinks, Pyramid Lake, and Winnemucca Lake. Responding, “I don’t think we have much to offer about cave burials,” the THPO politely declined my invitation to join us and wished us good luck on the project, and we respected that decision.
Thomas et alia (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) emphasized that the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe stood alone in formally requesting repatriation of The Storyteller. The tribe members fully understood that their Spirit Cave NAGPRA claim could be controversial within the tribe and perhaps cost them dearly. Even beyond the gut-wrenching decision to authorize destructive DNA testing, some tribal members saw NAGPRA itself as “unhealthy,” because speaking of the dead or handling repatriated remains is delicate and dangerous. Given that the Spirit Cave repatriation cost the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe more than $300,000, some in this small tribe thought the funds would have been better spent on improved healthcare and education.
When the Fallon tribe registered its formal NAGPRA claim, tribe members felt that responsibilities to ancestors and fears of ghost sickness justified the urgency of the return of The Storyteller back home. Had there been other tribal claimants, the consultation, affiliation, and repatriation decisions could have played out differently. This is why Thomas and colleagues (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) emphasized the role of the Fallon tribe in pioneering deeper understandings of survivance for all Indigenous people of the far West. As we pointed out, the consequences extend well beyond the Paiute and Shoshone of Fallon and continue to underscore some of the outdated and ill-conceived notions of total population replacements that still cloud twenty-first-century archaeology.
Epistemological Pluralism
In conclusion, we continue to side with Benjamin Franklin, George Patton, and Albert Einstein in believing that when everyone thinks alike, nobody is thinking very much. We salute the inclusion of Indigenous insights into Americanist archaeology and welcome the epistemological diversity expressed by Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) in helping foster multiple perspectives on the deep history of the Intermountain West.
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that no alterations are made and the original article is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press or the rights holder(s) must be obtained prior to any commercial use and/or adaptation of the article.
You have
Access
Open access
Thomas and colleagues (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) evaluated the 1940s excavation and subsequent repatriation of Spirit Cave Man, an Indigenous Nevadan whose remains were radiocarbon dated to older than 10,700 years. Living just 16.09 km (10 miles) west of Spirit Cave, the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe filed a 1997 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) claim requesting repatriation of the Spirit Cave ancestor they call “The Storyteller.” This request ignited a two-decade-long legal dispute that ultimately led the tribe to permit DNA testing that documented a 10,000-year genetic continuity that linked The Storyteller to the subsequent Lovelock culture and suggested connections to modern Paiutes living there today—without total population replacement. We argued that the Spirit Cave case underscores some of the moribund concepts and assumptions that led twentieth-century Great Basin anthropology to misread this long-term episode of Indigenous resilience and survivance.
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) take exception to “a small portion of a complex article” (their words) to question our interpretation of mortuary and caching practices in the Lahontan basin. We welcome another Indigenous voice and are grateful to each of these authors for expanding the conversation. My coauthors (Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) have asked me to address Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) on their behalf, and I am honored to do so. Preferring paths of “constructive disagreement” (in the sense of Snider Reference Snider2008), my comments are based on respectful, evidence-based exchanges of opposing viewpoints aimed at fostering deeper understandings, innovation, and better decision-making—not merely cultivating division.
Here, I make five clarifications: (1) emphasize our reliance on most probable interpretations, (2) correct misinterpretations of the Lahontan Basin mortuary/caching practices, (3) compare “unique” patterning of the Lahontan and Bonneville Basins with the northern Great Basin, (4) reinforce the heritage role of the Wá∙šiw (Washoe) Tribe, and (5) express my preference for epistemological pluralism in Americanist archaeology.
Most Probable Interpretations
Most readers of American Antiquity recognize, at least implicitly, the vast differences separating the “harder” and “softer” sciences. Employing rigorous mathematical models and controlled experimentation, hard scientists (such as physicists and chemists) are fully capable of producing highly accurate, quantitative, and reproducible results. As is the case among other less-exact sciences (including sociology, psychology, and political science), archaeologists generate results trending more toward relative, subjective, and/or time-sensitive conclusions—hardly mimicking the more rigorous results of the physical sciences.
Americanist archaeology has long recognized—even underscored—the implicit incompleteness of the data and the inherent cautions required. In concert with many Quaternary scientists and geologists, I believe that after duly acknowledging the constraints, there comes a time when the working archaeologist should be willing to take a stand, based on what the available data actually seem to say. I have previously engaged “most probable interpretations” as a workaround solution to
bridge the gap between method and substance. [Most probable] interpretations stand merely as what I consider to be the best bet when all the presently available evidence is taken into account. Alternatives are entertained whenever possible, and in many cases, it is possible to assess the relative probabilities associated with each interpretation [Thomas Reference Thomas1983:440; see also Pendleton and Thomas Reference Thomas1983:6; Thomas Reference Thomas1985:374, Reference Thomas1988:289, 291, 324, 328, 334, 564, 579, 583, 589, 611, Reference Thomas2020:713].
When or if alternatives prove untenable (especially in light of newer data), they can be swapped out for new hypotheses.
A similar “most probable explanation” (MPE) has surfaced in contemporary Bayesian network analysis. These “most probable” perspectives share the same baseline objective—to move from a framework of absolute truth to one of probabilistic belief, where exceptions are not necessarily falsifications but rather evidence that updates the probability of a theory (or alternative hypotheses; Butz et al. Reference Butz, Hommersom, van Eekelen, Ciucci, Pasi and Vantaggi2018). Our previous consideration of The Storyteller and deep history of the Lahontan Basin was framed from this “most probable” perspective—and so is this comment.
Bonneville Basin Mortuary Patterns
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) provide a great service by detailing and explicating mortuary patterning in the Bonneville Basin (BB), evidence we had only briefly referenced (Thomas Reference Thomas2024:181, 183; Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:259). Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:Supplemental Material 1 and 2) significantly expand previous summaries to include excavation histories, site stratigraphies, age estimates, and approximate number of burials where they have been recorded. They document that the Bonneville drainage and its immediate surrounding margins contain at least 18 mortuary sites (apparently spanning at least 12,000 years), with a minimum of 91 ancestral burials and likely more.
Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) conclude that during all intervals of the precontact Holocene, Indigenous people of the Bonneville Basin sometimes interred ancestors in habitation caves and rockshelters, some apparently associated with site occupations but others more in isolation. Bonneville communities also placed ancestors at open-air sites throughout most of the Holocene, suggesting that “the number of those open site interments exceeds that of cave burials by an order of magnitude or more” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:4). These ancestors were often (but not always) sent away with associated grave goods, sometimes in shallow graves, and some were placed on the surface in the back of caves (or, in later times, on the floor of existing structures).
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:3–4) point out “two remarkable exceptions” to this generalized mortuary pattern in the Bonneville Basin, at Lehman Cave and Snake Creek Cave (on the eastern flank of the Snake Range). More than three dozen individuals (of unknown antiquity) were interred inside these karst caves. Access to both caves is “extremely difficult, verging on the impossible,” with typical habitation debris absent. Obviously, neither Lehman Cave nor the Snake Creek burial cave was a “residential” locality.
From this baseline, Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) compared Bonneville Basin and Lahontan Basin mortuary patterns, and I will do the same.
Comparing Mortuary Practices in the Bonneville and Lahontan Basins
Here are direct quotes from our two-part, most probable interpretations of mortuary and caching practices in the Lahontan Basin:
Paleoindians began burying their deceased inside Lahontan Basin caves at least 11,000 years ago. . . . Only a handful of the caves and rockshelters of the Lahontan Basin show even sparse habitation [although there are] extensive clusters of Paleoindian artifacts along the pluvial lake margins. . . . [unlike elsewhere in the Great Basin], few such surface assemblages suggest long-term residential occupations. . . . Adams and colleagues (Reference Adams, Goebel, Graf, Smith, Camp, Briggs and Rhode2008:608) characterized the surface Paleoindian record of the Lahontan Basin as “isolated occurrences of humans in an otherwise empty landscape” [and] this why the Early Holocene 14C record of the Lahontan Basin derives almost exclusively from mortuary/cache contexts. . . . These distinctive Paleoindian mortuary practices defined the Lahontan Basin as a uniquely spiritual space, rather than just some place to live [Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:250, 251, 259; emphasis added].
We juxtaposed our most probable interpretation of this “unique Paleoindian pattern” against the significantly different practices that emerged during the Lovelock interval (∼4500–650 cal BP) when
the Lovelock culture [shifted] the Lahontan Basin from a sparsely occupied sacred space into a homeland of nearly sedentary settlements. . . . Still using their ancestral burial places in the nearby caves of the Carson and Humboldt Sinks, Lovelock communities augmented long-standing [Paleoindian] mortuary practices by burying the deceased near their marshland villages. They stayed away from the Pyramid-Winnemucca mortuary/cache caves [Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:253].
Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) curiously confined their comparison to just the early part of our Lahontan Basin interpretation (which they term LLDB), mistakenly suggesting that we hypothesized that the Paleoindian mortuary/cache patterns in the Lahontan Basin “persisted throughout its occupational history” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:11). The phrase “throughout its occupational history” does not appear in our article, and this unfortunate misquote (already picked up in some popular accounts) distorts our most probable interpretation and requires correction.
Our most probable interpretation of these Paleoindians was simple: caves and rockshelters in the Lahontan Basin contained only the most sporadic evidence of human habitation. These places were almost entirely used to cache seasonally specific belongings and/or to bury deceased ancestors. Paleoindians lived elsewhere most of the time (likely far away). In projecting our Paleoindian-specific hypothesis across the entire Holocene, Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) obscured our key point: the Paleoindian interval in the Lahontan Basin was followed by a second, quite distinct pattern when the Lovelock culture emerged around 4500 cal BP.
But after clarifying their misinterpretation of our Paleoindian hypothesis, we agree with Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) when they (appropriately) apply our most probable interpretation to post-Paleoindian times: “With two major exceptions, all the burials in BB caves and rockshelters are found in what appear to represent ‘residential’ sites, as opposed to what Thomas and colleagues (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) describe as ‘mortuary/cache’ sites” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:2). Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:5–11) detail at considerable length the archaeology of Lovelock Cave, the Humboldt Lakebed site, Hidden Cave, Stillwater Marsh, Dryden Cave, the Shinners sites, and many others. Each of these post-Paleoindian sites helps enhance our Lahontan mortuary/cache cave hypothesis for the Lovelock interval. We have done this before (Thomas Reference Thomas2024:239–243, 334–337, 419–423, 529–534, 582–591, 670–672), but in reiterating the evidence, Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:5–11) strengthen our most probable interpretation.
We further agree when Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:16) discuss population size and settlement pattern: “The LLDB differs from the BB in two significant ways: (1) the population appears to have been higher throughout much of the Holocene, and (2) specialty cache caves are much more numerous in the Lahontan Basin than they are in the BB.”
Population Size: With respect to population size, they say,“It remains clear there are more than twice as many cave sites with burials in the LLDB than have been reported for the BB, and probably at least three times as many individual burials. The actual number of caves with burials is probably higher” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:12). We agree.
Settlement Pattern: With respect to settlment pattern, they say,
A second apparent difference between the two basins, beyond the number of burials, is the presence of numerous cache caves in the LLDB containing no evidence of long- or short-term occupations or even of diurnal use. Although caches are certainly present in some of the BB caves, there are no known special-purpose cache caves unrelated to human occupation. People simply made caches in places where they lived. In the LLDB, on the other hand, there are probably a dozen or more sites where people were caching things, but evidence of occupation is minimal at best [Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:12].
We agree.
We cannot, of course, agree with the conclusion that “overall, in terms of burial locations in the two major lake basins of the Great Basin, they are very similar . . . the LLDB is not unique compared to the BB” (Madsen et al. Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:12). As detailed above, our most probable interpretations were misrepresented, and we can only attribute this conclusion to the authors’ conflation of Paleoindian and post-Paleoindian cache/mortuary patterns in the Lahontan Basin.
Mortuary Patterns in the Northern Great Basin
Given the variability in most probable interpretations regarding “uniqueness” between the Lahontan and Bonneville basins, it seems appropriate to explore similar evidence for mortuary/caching practices in the northern Great Basin, where two “most probable” explanations emerge.
First Most Probable Explanation
Although ancestors were quite commonly interred elsewhere in Oregon (at the Dalles, along the Oregon coastline, in the Willamette Valley, and at the open-air Bergen site in Fort Rock Valley), mortuary remains are quite rare in the Great Basin caves of Oregon. I previously hypothesized that northern Paleoindian foragers often sheltered in Paisley Cave, Connley Caves, and Fort Rock Cave (among many others), which contained almost exclusively the debris of everyday life—with only the most occasional burial of Paleoindians and later ancestors (Thomas Reference Thomas2024:182–184). I interpreted the exceptions as rare and in very small numbers (usually just isolated elements from one or two individuals).
I still believe that the most probable hypotheses for both Paleoindian and post-Paleoindian cave sites in Oregon’s hydrological Great Basin remain those of abundant habitation debris, with mortuary practices barely involved at all. Several archaeologists (with decades of experience working in this region) have told me they agree with this interpretation.
Second Most Probable Explanation
But we must likewise respect opinions from a couple of other archaeologists (also quite familiar with the northern Great Basin) who emphasized to me the importance of the Paleoindian exceptions and the lack of solid dating. Ancestral remains have been recorded from at least nine northern Great Basin sites, three perhaps dating to the Paleoindian period (Table Rock #3, Dirty Shame Rockshelter, Catlow Cave); five remain undated, and one is likely late. Three sites contain undated remains from confirmed early deposits (Fort Rock Cave, Connley Caves, Cougar Mountain Cave).
Contrasting Great Basin Mortuary Practices
Currently available archaeological data lead me to conclude that the most probable interpretations point to multiple distinct (“unique”) mortuary patterns during the Great Basin Holocene.
Lahontan Basin
We stand by our previous “most probable interpretation” (Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) and correct the misreading by Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026). We believe that Paleoindians only rarely “lived” in the Lahontan Basin; instead, they cached possessions for future visits and buried ancestors in the caves and rockshelters, which were more of a sacred space than a habitation area. After approximately 4500 cal BP, Lovelock culture communities continued to use the ancestral burial places in the caves of the Carson and Humboldt sinks, but they significantly altered these long-standing mortuary practices by frequently also burying the deceased near their marshland villages.
Bonneville Basin
We agree with Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:16) that the most probable interpretation for the Bonneville Basin is that
With two exceptions, the BB cave sites contain extensive evidence of residential occupations, with people conducting daily living activities in the same places where the deceased were sometimes buried. This pattern is evident throughout the Holocene from at least 13,000 years ago to the end of the Fremont period, about 650 years ago. Throughout this time, the deceased were also buried at a variety of open locations, ranging from interments in or near residential sites to isolated locations.
Northern Great Basin
Twin “most probable interpretations” emphasize that unlike elsewhere in Oregon, the caves and rockshelters within the hydrological Great Basin contained almost exclusively everyday habitation debris. These caves may (or may not) have contained the occasional burial of Paleoindian and/or post-Paleoindian ancestors.
The upshot is that I must amend my previous conclusion about “unique” mortuary practices in the Intermountain West to account for the differing interpretations of Oregon caves and rockshelters. It is ironic that the Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) arguments enhance (rather than disprove) most probable explanations of diversity in mortuary/caching practices across the Holocene Great Basin.
Heritage Role of the Wá∙šiw Tribe
Because modern Northern Paiute people tend to avoid the ancient burial caves of the Lahontan Basin, Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) hypothesized that other groups likely lived in them. Citing oral traditions, historical linguistics, and archaeological data, they suggest that the ancestors of the Wá∙šiw (Washoe) were responsible (at least in part) for utilizing and occupying many of the cave/rockshelter and open-air sites in the Lahontan Basin, including some of those with burials.
We agree completely and said as much:
Although relevant genetic data are lacking, it is likely that multiple tribes across the American West are likewise descended from The Storyteller. Washoe tribal oral history and archaeological evidence, for instance, link the modern Washoe to the Martis complex (D’Azevedo Reference D’Azevedo and D’Azevedo1986:466; Elston Reference Elston and D’Azevedo1986) that dates to at least 6,000 to 7,000 years ago (Hockett and Spidell Reference Hockett and Jason2022) [Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025:n10].
We are grateful to Madsen et alia (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026:14–16) for expanding our most probable hypothesis.
A word seems in order about why we (Thomas et al. Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) structured our discussion of mortuary/cache patterning in the Lahontan Basin as we did. Current archaeological understandings of past Indigenous relationships in the United States are clouded by the fact that repatriation and reburial claims are decidedly claim-driven—specifically requiring that lineal descendants, Indian Tribes, or Native Hawaiian Organizations register formal requests for the return of ancestral remains and cultural items. Repatriation consultation under NAGPRA occurs after one or more valid claim is presented, initiating a process involving documentation, public notice, and potentially resolving competing claims before transfer. Registering such claims can be an emotionally and financially expensive process that many tribes decide to avoid.
When assembling The Storyteller team in the fall of 2020, I contacted the Tribal Preservation Historical Officer of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, inviting him to partner up with our Indigenous and non-Native group to address the difficult issues involving the ancient burial caves located on traditional tribal lands in the Carson and Humboldt sinks, Pyramid Lake, and Winnemucca Lake. Responding, “I don’t think we have much to offer about cave burials,” the THPO politely declined my invitation to join us and wished us good luck on the project, and we respected that decision.
Thomas et alia (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) emphasized that the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe stood alone in formally requesting repatriation of The Storyteller. The tribe members fully understood that their Spirit Cave NAGPRA claim could be controversial within the tribe and perhaps cost them dearly. Even beyond the gut-wrenching decision to authorize destructive DNA testing, some tribal members saw NAGPRA itself as “unhealthy,” because speaking of the dead or handling repatriated remains is delicate and dangerous. Given that the Spirit Cave repatriation cost the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe more than $300,000, some in this small tribe thought the funds would have been better spent on improved healthcare and education.
When the Fallon tribe registered its formal NAGPRA claim, tribe members felt that responsibilities to ancestors and fears of ghost sickness justified the urgency of the return of The Storyteller back home. Had there been other tribal claimants, the consultation, affiliation, and repatriation decisions could have played out differently. This is why Thomas and colleagues (Reference Thomas, Cossette, Benner, Camp and Robinson2025) emphasized the role of the Fallon tribe in pioneering deeper understandings of survivance for all Indigenous people of the far West. As we pointed out, the consequences extend well beyond the Paiute and Shoshone of Fallon and continue to underscore some of the outdated and ill-conceived notions of total population replacements that still cloud twenty-first-century archaeology.
Epistemological Pluralism
In conclusion, we continue to side with Benjamin Franklin, George Patton, and Albert Einstein in believing that when everyone thinks alike, nobody is thinking very much. We salute the inclusion of Indigenous insights into Americanist archaeology and welcome the epistemological diversity expressed by Madsen and colleagues (Reference Madsen, Hockett, Cruz and Rood2026) in helping foster multiple perspectives on the deep history of the Intermountain West.
Acknowledgments
I’m grateful to several friends and colleagues who helped out with this comment: Misty Benner, Anna Camp, William Cannon, Thomas Connolly, Donna Cossette, Loren Davis, Pamela Endzweig, Dennis Jenkins, Constance I. Millar, Erick Robinson, Richie Rosencrance, Diana Rosenthal Roberson, Geoffrey Smith, and Lorann Pendleton Thomas. All shortcomings remain my own.
Competing Interests
There are no competing interests.