California & West Coast

1. California & West Coast Introduction Natural Environment West Coastal Pacific Culture History

2. Introduction • Geographically and ecologically defined: • The archaeological subarea of California • Corresponds roughly with the state of California • Includes portions of • Extreme western Arizona • Adjacent portions of extreme northwestern Mexico (the Mexican states of: Sonora and Baja California del Norte) • Note:, within the Estados Unidos Mexicanos two of their states exist on the peninsula of Baja California: Baja California del Sur and Baja California del Norte. 

4. Characteristic subsistence • Subsistence tended to be dominated by local resource availability • Coastal peoples tended to extensively exploit marine and seacoast resources • Sea mammals • Fish • Shellfish

5. Tools reflected • Procurement • Fishhooks • Lances • Media (i.e., material) • Abalone shell • Whale bone, etc.

6. Fish hooks

7. Abalone shell

8. Interior valley • Extensively exploited and concentrated upon wild acorns. • Acorn utilization: • Acorns are a good source of food, but are very rich in tannic acid • Thus, prior to consumption, they require a fairly sophisticated set of processes: • Shelling • Soaking (repeatedly bathed and cleaned to leach out the tannic acid) • Drying, Pounding, Cooking

9. Technology for acorn exploitation • Pounding stones • Nutting stones (stones with hole depressions where nuts are placed so they won't fly off when hit with a pounding stone) • Watertight baskets: • For soaking and leaching • For boiling (using hot stones—stone boiling) • For storage • Grinding stones: • Manos and metates • Mortars and pestles

10. Pomo baskets, mortar and pestle Edward Curtis Collection, LOC

11. Northwest California • Similar in some ways to the Northwest Coast cultures: • Maritime-riverine subsistence • Woodworking emphasis • Preoccupation with wealth • Languages: • Athabaskan • Algonquin • Exemplary culture: • Prehistoric: Point St. George Site • Ethnographic: Yurok, Karok, Wiyot, Tolowa

12. Prehistoric Fish Traps, CA Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23129

13. These tule blinders were worn by Ajumawi men during night fishing expeditions. They shaded the eyes from torch light and allowed better vision to spear or trap. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23127

14. These basket traps were part of an elaborate kit of fishing materials developed by the Ajumawi. They are preserved in the Field Museum in Chicago. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23127

15. The Ahjumawi stone fish traps are constructed of vasicular basalt rocks from the cold water springs. The walls channel the spawning fish into a series of chambers where eggs are deposited in the crevices of smaller gravel. The spring flow provides beneficial oxygen to the developing eggs. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23127

16. California State Parks is working with native Ajumawi residents to preserve the unique stone fish traps and more fully understand their use. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23127

17. A large boulder of vesicular basalt can be found along the shore at Ahjumawi Lava Springs State Park. It has been pitted with scores of small cupules, thought to be a result of ancient religious practices. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23133

18. These tule sandals are preserved in the Field Museum in Chicago. They were collected from Ajumawi fishermen around 1902 by Dr. John Hudson. http://www.parks.ca.gov/default.asp?page_id=23127

19. Eel River Archaeology A complex panel of rock art designs was recorded at the site. The panel measures 253 cm wide and 150 cm from the ground level to the top. A tremendous complexity in motifs and figures is represented. http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23165

20. Circles, linked diamonds, tally marks and abstract shapes are also very common elements http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=23165

21. Central California • Central Valley • Many societies sharing social customs • Basketry, House form, Technical processes (i.e., acorn processing) • Fair amount of cultural sharing with peoples of the Great Basin • Languages: • Penutian speakers • Exemplary culture: Prehistoric: Windmiller • Ethnographic: Wintun, Miwok, Yokut

22. Windmiller site and Complex • 4,000-2,500 BP • Cemetaries with elaborate grave goods, red ochre and shell beads. • Sites have manos, metates, bone tools, stone tools and clay cooking balls. • Bone remains include deer, elk, pronghorn, rabbit, waterfowl, and salmon.

23. Windmiller artifacts

24. Berkeley pattern artifacts

25. Augustine Pattern

26. Southern California Coastal tradition • Marine subsistence • Languages: • Shoshonean • Yuman • Exemplary culture: • Canalino Culture (Prehistoric) • Chumash (Ethnographic)

27. Eel Point, CA • Eel Point is located on San Clemente Island in California. • It was occupied from 7040 B.C. to 1400 A.D. and was "one of the longest sequences of near-continuous marine resource exploitation on the west coast of North America”.

28. How did people get to San Clemente? • Located in a deep ocean basin and never closer to the mainland. • Watercraft of some kind was used to reach the island, though no evidence of what that may have been.

29. Eel Point Site

33. Morrow Bay: 8,000 years • An 8000 year old site at Cayucos containing only mussel and abalone shows us that early inhabitants focused on collecting shellfish from the rocky intertidal zone. • People living closer to the newly formed bay began to take advantage of estuarine resources. Fish were commonly caught with hook and line. • Various seeds, including grasses, tarweed, and red maids, also contributed to the diet and were ground on flat milling slabs with hand-held manos.

34. Morrow Bay Area, CA

35. Artifacts From Morrow Bay Manos and metates

36. Morrow Bay Milling slab

37. Shell Artifacts from Morrow Bay Mussel shells Shell bead necklace

38. Southern Desert California traditions • Shares much with the Southwest: • Pottery • Maize agriculture • Sand painting

39. San Dieguito and the Harris Site • Excavations at the Harris Site confirmed Rogers' main conclusions and obtained radiocarbon dates that placed the site's occupation as far back as 8200 B.C. • Characteristics suggested for San Dieguito Complex assemblages • abundant scrapers, • large, percussion-flaked bifaces; • flaked crescent stones; • Lake Mohave or Silver Lake style projectile points; • a scarcity or absence of milling tools (manos and metates); • and an absence of small projectile points and pottery.

40. San Dieguito Complex http://www.sdrvc.org/pdfs/Newsletter-MAY-2004.pdf

41. Harris Site http://www.sdrvc.org/pdfs/Newsletter-MAY-2004.pdf

42. Rock Mortars http://www.sdrvc.org/pdfs/Newsletter-MAY-2004.pdf

43. California prehistory and ethnohistory • May provide an example of "optimally efficient" hunting-and-gathering societies, capable of sustaining: • Dense population levels • Sedentary village life • Sophisticated "political-economic arrangements of some scale"

44. Analogue to • Caldwell's "Primary Forest Efficiency" in the Eastern Woodlands • Other intensive foraging societies such as those of the Pacific Northwest Coast (discussed already) • They represent optimal examples of what it means to be: • "Archaic" in the New World • "Mesolithic" in the Old World

45. At the time of Contact • California was an ethnic and linguistic patchwork quilt of societies. • Spanish accounts speak of sizeable stable villages • Villages exhibited social stratification