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Figure 5. Bryne Cache in situ with cave stick. Photograph by Josh Roth.

and location within the storage basket suggests it likely served as the storage basket base, a repair after the
initial base was lost. It is not evident whether the basket was intentionally made to serve as a base for the
storage basket (B1), or, whether the basket was repurposed as the base after being damaged.
An approximately two meter-long cave stick made from a trimmed California juniper (Juniperus
californica) bough was found resting against the cliff face holding the cache, and leaned into the cavity
containing the baskets (Figure 5). Whitby’s (2012) work shows that it is not uncommon to find such sticks
associated with caches in the greater Southern California region. McArthur’s (2015) analysis suggests that
cave sticks may have had a number of purposes such as marking a cache location, being used as part of the
architecture of storage such has for hanging baskets, or even being simply part of the cache themselves,
saved for potential future usages. Such sticks being associated with baskets in caves or shelters are therefore
best called “cave sticks” which reflects their possible multiple usages. While a poorly understood
phenomena, the temporal importance of cave sticks seems to point to relatively late usage. Recent work on
cave sticks shows no evidence of them being utilized any earlier than the Late Period (i.e. no earlier than
circa A.D. 1350, and perhaps not this early) into the Mission Period. Further research should help clarify
this issue as there are very few dated caches with associated cave sticks.

DOCUMENTATION METHODS
In considering extraction of the baskets and the unique nature of an in situ cache, a highly detailed
documentation through multiple methods was undertaken, emphasizing redundancy and minimalizing
errors. To that end, Devlin Gandy and Joshua Roth recorded the in situ cache assemblage through both laser
scanning and photogrammetry modeling. David Robinson made additional archaeological sketches. The

SCA Proceedings, Volume 30 (2016) Bryne, Gandy, Robinson, and Johnson p. 218