ABSTRACT
The Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) event is argued to have had dramatic effects over much of the North America if not all of the northern hemisphere, and the case for its effects on prehistoric human populations has been focused on the entire continent, with no particular emphasis on California. Research in the last 10 years related to the YDB hypothesis and the Clovis culture has established firmer chronologies for climate change and the human presence during the late Pleistocene in North America. In California, even in recent years, the term "Paleo-Indian" has been applied simply to the period predating 10,000 years cal BP because tool assemblages and cultures have long been ill-defined and poorly dated. Well-preserved stratified sediments from the Santa Barbara Basin have produced the high-resolution faunal and records that are consistent with global trends identified in such sequences as the Greenland ice cores.
