The Witt Site is an archaeological site near

Tulare Lake Tulare Lake () (Spanish: ''Laguna de Tache'', Yokuts: ''Pah-áh-su'') is a freshwater dry lake with residual wetlands and marshes in the southern San Joaquin Valley, California, United States. After Lake Cahuilla disappeared in the 17th century ...

Kings County, California Kings County is a county located in the U.S. state of California. The population was 152,486 at the 2020 census. The California Department of Finance estimated the county's population was 152,940 as of July 1, 2019.http://dof.ca.gov/Forecasting ...

. It was found by Donald Witt, who collected artifacts of concave points, crescents, and fossilized elephant, bison, and horse bones. The site was apparently a good location for ambushing large mammals coming to the lake. Included in artifacts obtained from the Witt Site in private collections were fluted "

Clovis culture The Clovis culture is a prehistoric Paleoamerican culture, named for distinct stone and bone tools found in close association with Pleistocene fauna, particularly two mammoths, at Blackwater Locality No. 1 near Clovis, New Mexico, in 1936 ...

-like" points, stemmed points, and crescents believed to reflect Paleoindian occupations. Subsequently, the Witt Site was seen as being one of three major Clovis localities known in California. Since the late 1980s, other private collections from the site have been described and some limited excavations have been conducted. According to a 2019 article published in the journal PaleoAmerica, analysis of the fluted points now suggest that any Clovis presence was probably less than believed and that most of the early material from the Witt Site indicates an occupation by Western Stemmed Tradition groups. The location address of the Witt Site is restricted. A area at the site was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1971.

References

Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in California Kings County, California National Register of Historic Places in Kings County, California Western Stemmed Tradition {{KingsCountyCA-NRHP-stub