California Archaeology

This report describes the results of plant surveys with Native American elders along designated District 7 highways. The surveys were intended to elicit information concerning culturally significant plant gathering sites and other sites with contemporary cultural significance to Native Americans who are indigenous to the Caltrans D7 Los Angeles County project area. The project roads consist of approximately 400 miles of county roadway. Along the corridors on both sides of the highways, the roads were surveyed for culturally significant plants and other Native American traditional cultural properties visible above ground, extending approximately fifty feet from the highway right-of-way. The survey team identified a total of 106 species of culturally significant plants growing along the project roadways. The culturally significant plants have been recorded and mapped as “Gathering Places” (GP) with information describing the highway and gathering site.

This report presents results of historical and archaeological investigations of the Vitrified Products Corporation manufacturing plant, an architectural ceramics factory that operated in San Diego from 1923 to 1942. The factory site is located at the corner of Rosecrans Street and Pacific Highway near Old Town San Diego (Figures 1 and 2). The investigation combined historic research and archaeological excavations of the factory site. Archival research was conducted at the San Diego Historical Society Research Archives, City of San Diego Central Library, San Diego County Museum of Natural History Library, University of California at San Diego Central Library, and the Library of San Diego State University. The purpose of the project was to locate and identify archaeological remains of the factory and, through a combined interpretation of archival and archaeological data, determine how the kilns and related facilities operated. Remains of four downdraft kilns exemplifying two distinct designs and segments of a complex transfer flue system were identified. The site has been recorded at SDSU and the Museum of Man (Attachment 1). The kiln remains were initially discovered during grading for the County Mental Health Facility. Grading was halted, and the program described in this report was implemented to mitigate adverse impacts to the historic site. Production of this report completes the mitigation requirements identified by County staff. The preparation of this report was completed with information provided by Karl Gurcke, expert on brick and tile production. Mr. Gurcke provided valuable references and insight into the remains. His participation was necessary to the successful completion of the mitigation program

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) in archaeological research has greatly increased in recent years (Conolly and Lake 2006; Kvamme 1999; Lock and Stancic 1995'; Wheatley and Gillings 2002). It is now widely used and has become an integral part of the archaeological tool kit (Katsianis et al. 2008; Knabb 2008; Lawson Lawson 2007; Lieff 2003; McCoy and Ladefoged 2009; Sharon et al.2004); however, much of the archaeological
use of GIS focuses on regional analysis of landscapes and settlement patterns (A.. 2000; Kennett 2005; Kvamme 1999; 1995; McCoy and Ladefoged 2009; Pletka 2005; Teeter et al., Chapter 9). Less common is the application of GIS on an intrasite scale. In this chapter, we examine use of GIS as an effective tool to conduct an intrasite spatial analysis on San Nicolas Island.
spatial analysis on San Nicolas Island.
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If belief drives behavior, what did first nations peoples believe? Though a material approach attempts to bridge the gap, other disciplines such as philology may be of assistance and compatible with a strict material diagnostic. This paper marries material evidence and current theory with immaterial evidence from other disciplines for a working model to understand the most basic questions as to why there were people in America before Columbus.

Abstract:  The Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) is the premier English historical society when it comes to the Age of Discovery.  Its 2 volume Hakluyt Handbook is a comprehensive guide, first proposed by Dr. R. A. Skelton and Professor D. B. Quinn, consisting of materials and the sources of Richard Hakluyt’s nearly 300 volumes of primary records regarding the Age of Discovery voyages, travels and other geographical material.  In the early 1960’s the Council of the Society set up a committee to work on the project and began enlisting contributors for the guide. After years of hard work by its members, The Hakluyt Handbook was completed and finally published in 1974. The Handbook Preface by C. F. Beckingham, Hakluyt Society President, stated that there had never been a comprehensive study of Rickard Hakluyt’s works along with the background of his sources.  Beckingham’s hope was that the correlation between overlapping disciplines of the handbook be used by various scholars would give rise to further study.  This is one such study.

On Wednesday, Dec. 21, nations in the Northern Hemisphere will mark the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year. For thousands of years people have marked this event with rituals and celebrations to signal the rebirth of the sun and its victory over darkness.

At hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of missions stretching from northern California to Peru, the winter solstice sun triggers an extraordinarily rare and fascinating event – something that I discovered by accident and first documented in one California church nearly 20 years ago.  See article at On Wednesday, Dec. 21, nations in the Northern Hemisphere will mark the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year. For thousands of years people have marked this event with rituals and celebrations to signal the rebirth of the sun and its victory over darkness. See link to online magazine at https://theconversation.com/a-sacred-light-in-the-darkness-winter-solstice-illuminations-at-spanish-missions-70250

A visual and historical overview of the Spanish and Indian missions of California with photography by world renowned photographer Melba Levick, and text by anthropologist and California missions scholar Rubén G. Mendoza, PhD.

Publish Date: March 20, 2018
Format: Hardcover
Category: Architecture - Buildings - Landmarks & Monuments
Publisher: Rizzoli
Trim Size: 9 x 9
Pages: 256
US Price: $55.00
CDN Price: $75.00
ISBN: 978-0-8478-6151-4
See https://www.rizzoliusa.com/book/9780847861514

We did this project as part of a survey for a Timber Salvage Project in Sequoia National Forest.
Citation: 1991 Archaeobotanical Remains from 05-13-52-88 (CA-TUL-569). In Cultural Resources Inventory of the Proposed Divide Salvage Area, Tule River Ranger District, Sequoia National Forest. by B. P. Wickstrom and K. Roper Wickstrom, BioSystems Analysis, Inc., Santa Cruz, CA.


Moore et al (2008) from the USGS describe these basins as follows: "Meter-size granite basins are found in a 180-km belt extending south from the South Fork of the Kings River to Lake Isabella on the west slope of the southern Sierra Nevada, California. Their origin has long been debated. A total of 1,033 basins have been inventoried at 221 sites. The basins occur on bedrock granitic outcrops at a median elevation of 1,950 m. Median basin diameter among 30 of the basin sites varies from 89 to 170 cm, median depth is 12 to 63 cm. Eighty percent of the basin sites also contain smaller bedrock mortars (~1-2 liters in capacity) of the type used by Native Americans (American Indians) to grind acorns. Features that suggest a manmade origin for the basins are: restricted size, shape, and elevation range; common association with Indian middens and grinding mortars; a south- and west-facing aspect; presence of differing shapes in distinct localities; and location in a food-rich belt with pleasant summer weather. Volcanic ash (erupted A.D. 1240+-60) in the bottom of several of the basins indicates that they were used shortly before ~760 years ago but not thereafter. Experiments suggest that campfires built on the granite will weaken the bedrock and expedite excavation of the basins. The primary use of the basins was apparently in preparing food, including acorns and pine nuts. The basins are among the largest and most permanent artifacts remaining from the California Indian civilization." https://pubs.er.usgs.gov/publication/sir20085210

Poor chronology has long plagued the Patayan archaeological tradition of the far-western reaches of the North American Southwest. Archaeologists typically rely upon ceramics to assign associated materials to the broadly defined Patayan I, II, and III periods. However, as data amass, it is becoming increasingly clear that the established date ranges for certain types of Patayan pottery tied to those periods are inaccurate, and that the overall chronology may benefit from revision. Consequently, there are renewed calls to reassess the ceramic typologies and identify attributes with utility for dating affiliated archaeological phenomena. Here I focus on one such attribute, the stucco surface treatment on Lower Colorado Buff Ware. While the prevailing typology regards stucco as diagnostic of the Patayan II and III periods (circa AD 1000– 1900), I present data that show stucco is conspicuously absent from contexts dating before AD 1400 but is rather common thereafter. I conclude Lowland Patayan potters began applying stucco to their wares between 1400 and 1600, and this attribute is therefore useful for dating associated material to a narrower AD 1400–1900 timeframe.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this report is to provide results of archaeological test excavation of two locations. The first is the Ranch House at Warner's Ranch, also called the Warner-Carrillo Ranch House, a national historic landmark located in eastern San Diego County about 1 mile east of the intersection of Highways 79 and S2 (San Felipe Road). The second is the site of Jonathan T. Warner’s House and Store located directly to the north of the Ranch House on the northern edge of Buena Vista Valley. Excavations at the Ranch House at Warner’s Ranch revealed the long history of the building’s evolution in several features encountered during the investigation. The foundations document a building that evolved over a period of time. In addition to wall foundations, interior excavations revealed remains of early floors and surfaces. It seems that during the Vail Ranch period beginning in 1888, the building was rebuilt as a family home for the company's foremen and achieved its current configuration and appearance. It seems that such improvements as wooden floors, stone facings on the base of the east and west wall, and board and batten siding along the south and west sides of the south wing were part of a general rehabilitation of the building that can be documented by its appearance in photographs taken during the late 19th and early 20th century. Remains at the Jonathan T. Warner’s House and Store Site represent a large complex of buildings. Nine features were ultimately identified through survey and excavation. Due to the limited amount of testing, conclusions are tentative and somewhat ambiguous. Originally built and occupied by J.T. Warner and his family, the site appears to have been reoccupied after Warner abandoned it following its destruction by the Indians in 1851. This conclusion is based on the discovery of two packed earthen floors in the ruins of one building, and the deposition of artifacts manufactured after 1851 in a refuse sheet deposit. As a result of this apparent reoccupation, more work is necessary before it can be determined what parts of the complex originated with Warner and what are the results of later rebuilding. The artifact assemblage stands out from other sites in several aspects. It is the lowest in consumer items. The collection, on the other hand, is one of the highest for munitions. In these aspects it closely resembles the Carrizo Creek Stage Station assemblage and shows the unique isolated environment of both of these backcountry locations. http://sohosandiego.org/warners/images/TwoForksInTheRoad.pdf

Recent research indicates that late prehistoric Numic expansion onto the western slope of the southern Sierra Nevada was facilitated by a competitive edge held by migrating groups, mainly Great Basin-derived settlement and subsistence behaviors fine-tuned to the uncertainties of living in Little Ice Age mountain environments. But ethnographic, linguistic and archaeological evidence also suggests widespread borrowing from California cultures and the development of complementary social and economic relationships with California groups. This indicates a negotiated and elastic, rather than an overtly-competitive process of territorial expansion.

Reports the results of archaeological mitigation efforts conducted in advance of construction of the Los Vaqeruos Reservoir at previously recorded sites CA-CCO-447/H, -458/H, -459, -468, -469, -621/H, -636, -637, and a newly discovered site, CA-CCO-696, the later which contained two buried components. The upper buried component at CCO-696 contained a diverse assemblage of artifacts, numerous residential features, and about 150 human burials, with most dating to between about 1500 and 2500 cal BP. The lower deeply buried component at CCO-696 contained a human burial radiocarbon dated to about 7400 cal BP and an artifact assemblage of handstones, millingslabs, and a wide-stem projectile point radiocarbon dated between about 9400 and 9800 cal BP, which are among the oldest known cultural remains in the region.

The Franciscan missions of California have long proven a symbol for polarized portrayals of the Hispanic colonization of the region. Whether by virtue of the Spanish colonial legacy in other areas of the Americas or the founding narratives of the US as the world's first Protestant nation, Hispanic contributions have long been deemed secondary to an authentic American history. Despite recent efforts to interrogate the archaeology, ethnohistory, and social history of the missions, Castillo fails at all levels of analysis to acknowledge contemporary scholarship in an effort to vilify California's founding communities. This work is rife with politicized misinformation; the conflation of ethnohistorical traditions, chronologies, and cultures; an ethnocentric narrative of Hispanic, Californio, and, thereby, Latino traditions; and specious characterizations of indigenous peoples. The author's narrative of victimization reduces American Indians to helpless pawns in their own destruction while demonizing those Indian alcaldes or magistrates charged with maintaining order and administering corporal punishment. Ultimately, Castillo's narrative only further diminishes the Hispanic and indigenous heritage of California by constructing yet another pulp fiction borne of a thorny thicket of contradictory claims, illogical historical constructs, and anti­Hispanic/Catholic perspectives best left to blog posts.

The Late Period (700 B.P. to Spanish contact) archaeological record of the central California coast provides opportunities to evaluate models of hunter-gatherer-fisher land use. Along the San Simeon Reef region in northern San Luis Obispo County, prevailing models of human adaptations during this interval are characterized by an abandonment of coastal habitats and littoral resources in favor of interior locations and terrestrial game and flora.  Based on an analysis of data collected during excavations at two single-component sites (CA-SLO-71 and CA-SLO-115), ethnographic information, and existing archaeological information I argue that Playano populations continued to use littoral environment through Spanish contact.
Living in rich and diverse coastal and pericoastal locations, the Playano developed distinctive means for coping with unique environmental and social circumstances. Subsistence remains and artificial evidence clearly show a trajectory of intensifying marine resources that is apparent along several lines of evidence. These includes an expansion of diet breadth, an increased dependency on marine fisheries, a shift to lower-ranking terrestrial species, and an increase in resources such as marine mammals that potentially equate to higher search and handling costs.  Intensification of local resources is also apparent in the increased use of thermal alteration, possibly indicating drying fish for storage and trade.  Late Period settlement patterns appear relatively mobile, with primary and secondary residential sites predominately situated along the coast and procurement locations in near coastal valleys. The transportation of marine shellfish at the on-set of the Late Period to Lower Nacimiento Valley Watershed sites 30 km east of San Simeon Reef provides compelling evidence of coastal access by interior groups or an interior-marine resource trade.  The drought conditions associated with the Medieval climatic anomalies, between 100 and 900 B.P. and again at 800 and 650 B.P., appear to have transformed resource availability and were a precursor to transitions in settlement patterns.

This report outlines the history of Lake County's longest operating resort and attempts to place the existing structures and features in chronological order.  The report was prepared as a land use planning CEQA document and contains recommended mitigation options in the event that proposed development will encroach on historic resources.  This public report contains no archaeological site location information.

Archaeologists working in the far western Southwest distinguish the Lowland Patayan tradition by virtue of a distinctive, typically undecorated, light-colored pottery found along the lower Gila and lower Colorado rivers and in surrounding deserts. Known generally as “Lower Colorado Buff Ware,” research into Lowland Patayan pottery has a convoluted history, including the formulation of multiple typologies that are incompatible and whose chronologies contradict each other. This article discusses this history and critically evaluates the prevailing typology to expose some of its shortcomings. It also presents some data amassed over the past 40 years to show that the chronology girding it is inaccurate. To overcome this problem, I suggest that researchers of Lowland Patayan pottery temporarily set aside the ceramic type concept and consider the importance of attributes in relation to well-defined research questions, with particular attention directed at chronological refinement and material sourcing.

Sophisticated diagnostics have allowed archaeologists to make great inroads in understanding America's First people. At the same time, modern archaeology has assumptions about reality that have limited its scope and ability to integrate other disciplines into its theories, disciplines that would clarify and cement a harmony of the disparate and isolated work sites into a model of global proportions. If beliefs determine behavior, it runs near impossible to paint a holistic picture as to what drove the complex peopling of America from the material record alone.  This paper marries material evidence and current theory with immaterial evidence from other disciplines for a working model to understand the most basic questions as to why there were people in America before Columbus. This paper was originally submitted for scholastic review in 2014.

This chapter examines the ontology of Indigenous South-Central California with a focus on the colorful pictographs of the Chumash. I argue that interpretations of rock art from shamanic perspectives has dehistoricized the art and cast imagery within essentialist cognitive terms, effectively curtailing the possibility of interpreting the images as something more than the standard outward expression of a universal neuropsychological function. By contrast, considering Indigenous ontologies affords a much better understanding of both rock art and Native perceptions of their environment, allowing us to move closer to an emic perspective and to appreciate Indigenous social dynamics and rock art in social rather than cognitive terms.

This paper examines the use of V-style fish traps on the western recessional shorelines of ancient Lake Cahuilla. We use multiple lines of evidence to examine the function of these traps, including ethnographic data, fish biology, excavations of fish traps, and experimental replication of fish trap designs. Our study indicates that biological characteristics of the fish were central to the effectiveness of the traps and dictated trap placement and design.

Diverse types of analysis and interpretive goals have been applied to aboriginal ceramics in the California deserts. This brief discussion focuses specifically on vessel forms as clues to functional patterns in the archaeological landscapes, and the contributions that can potentially be made at the level of field observations and basic laboratory analysis. Some previous approaches seem to suffer from poor replicability, too limited applicability, interpretive sterility, and/or insufficient documentation. An alternative focus on a small number of simple, relatively well-defined, and interpretively significant attributes is proposed. A few thoughts are offered here concerning the ways in which evidence from prehistoric ceramics is being generated and used in the California deserts region. First, the scope needs to be narrowed down a little: • There is a considerable range in general kinds of ceramic artifacts in this region, including pipes, figurines, rattles, anvils, and scoops, among others. The discussion here is just concerned the most abundantly represented kind of ceramics: pottery vessels, such as ollas, jars, bowls, canteens, and trays. • A considerable range of kinds of analyses have been applied to local pottery. Those analyses include studies of clays and inclusions (petrography, x-ray fluorescence, neutron activation analysis), manufacturing techniques (shaping by paddle-and-anvil vs. coil-and-scrape, firing in oxidizing vs. reducing atmospheres), residues (charcoal, cross-over immunoelectrophoresis), decoration (painting, incising, punctation, burnishing, appliqué), and physical dating (radiocarbon, luminescence). This discussion is limited to the vessels' forms. • Research objectives that have been addressed through local ceramic analyses include chronology, ethnic identity, patterns of mobility and exchange, and technology. The emphasis here is on the usefulness of this evidence to interpret site functions, and beyond those local functions to infer settlement patterning or landscape archaeology. • Finally, there are two main approaches to describing and classifying the results of ceramic analyses: classification by types, and classification by attributes. In previous papers it has been argued that there are serious drawbacks in the overuse or premature use of typologies (Laylander 2009, 2010; Laylander and Schaefer 2014; Schaefer and Laylander 2014). Those arguments are not repeated here, but the primary focus is on attributes and the choices made concerning which attributes to document and analyze. Malcolm J. Rogers and Michael R. Waters created typologies of vessel forms. Rogers did

On the extreme Southern Edge of Orange County California, amongst the rolling grass covered hills and wooded canyons of Rancho Mission Viejo, lies a little known complex of plain nondescript buildings and large steel framed structures – known for decades as the Capistrano Test Site


In early 2010, an historical evaluation of the test site found that 11 buildings and structures associated with development of the Lunar Module Descent Engines qualify as important resources under the California Environmental Quality Act.  These features were used in the testing and development of the Lunar-Module Descent Engines from 1964 to the end of the Apollo Program in 1972

In 1877, Paul Schumacher shipped what he called a “treasure” of archaeological materials to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Known as “the Schumacher Collection,” the archaeological assemblage contains an unusually large quantity of Euro-American manufactured materials from human burials at the Tongva Village of Nájquqar (CA-SCaI-39) on Pimu Santa Catalina Island, California. Previous attempts at analyzing these rare cultural materials did not include interpretations of their meanings within the context of ethnohistorical and ethnographical information in California. Multiple lines of evidence from documentary sources and archaeological analysis suggest that the Tongva islanders, known ethnographically as the Pimu Tongva people, opportunistically acquired trade goods from Euro-American seafarers at the time of “first contact” in 1542 until their final removal from the island sometime after 1820. The ways in which the Pimu Tongva meaningfully integrated introduced materials into pre-existing cultural practices, reveal how a coastal Californian group continued to craft their own identity in the face of invasion.

The Spanish missions in California began in 1769, and grew quickly to 21, stretching 850 kilometers from San Diego to Sonoma. They were taken over by the new Mexican government in 1834, and were turning to ruin a short 64 years from founding. As self contained agricultural enterprises, milling was required, and at least nine had watermills. Little remains today - only four mill sites, three of which have standing structures. These later three mills are described in more detail. Mission mills were the first in this uncharted new world Most missions today still serve as church parishes, but are best known as historical monuments and tourist attractions .The associated mill sites play a minor role in the contemporary story of the missions.

El conjunto rupestre del Arcaico Gran Mural, situado en las sierras centrales de la península de Baja California (México), integra manifestaciones rupestres figurativas, de gran tamaño (figuras de animales y humanas), asociadas a diversos elementos abstractos, entre los que destacan las formas reticuladas, divulgadas como “estructuras rectangulares, cuadrículas, dameros y parrillas” las cuales adoptan formas elipsoidales, ovaladas y rectangulares. La vinculación de estos signos abstractos, con las grandes representaciones, muestran figurativas, ocupa un porcentaje muy bajo entre estos conjuntos rupestres, sin embargo, estas asociaciones desempeñan nos parece de un papel muy significativo y gran interés para el estudio de las expresiones simbólicas de América.

New Spain’s northwestern province of Alta California constituted a frontier for the waning years of the Spanish empire’s imperial interests of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. For the founding colonists, however, California was a frontier for new beginnings. Through the examination of diverse primary sources, including census records and mission registers, the Interrogatorio de 1812, and an 1814 respuesta to the Interrogatorio by Fray Amorós, this paper examines colonial identity formation and its recontextualization on the frontier. It is this latter document by Father Amorós that in part serves to demonstrate that the utilization of the six casta
identifications ceased to be applicable to those colonial populations of the frontier. As such, this paper explores how it was that Alta California provided an opportunity for soldiers and settlers to reject the sistema de castas (caste system) practiced in New Spain in order to establish a
distinctive and more unified identity as gente de razón. In addition, this paper examines other incentives or pull-factors that motivated prospective soldiers and settlers to relocate to Alta California. The Spanish military settlement of El Real Presidio de San Carlos de Monterey, better known as the Royal Presidio of Monterey, herein serves as a case study. Ultimately, this study intends to contribute to the current scholarship on the history and presidial ethnogenesis of Monterey within the broader context of the Spanish colonial experience of the Provincias Internas, and Alta California in particular.

The archaeology of empire is permeated by sexual narratives. This has been especially true of archaeological research on the Spanish Americas, where the material remains of colonial settlements have often been interpreted as products of a literal and figurative marriage between two cultures. However, investigating colonization as a consensual domestic arrangement has masked the ways in which imperial projects relied on the exercise of power, including sexual regulations and sexual coercion. Recent archaeological
and ethnohistoric research at the Spanish-colonial military settlement of El Presidio de San Francisco affords a different perspective, one in which the public and institutional exercise of sexual control was central to the imperial project. [Keywords: archaeology, imperialism, sexuality, North America, Spanish-colonial]

This chapter in the Hoberg's Resort Archaeological Project focuses on the rifle and gun cartridges recovered from Feature 1.  Feature 1 was a time-capsule of cultural material representing activities at the Hoberg Resort between 1890 and 1936. Fire Arms material included spent ammunition cartridges, bullets, and clips.

The purpose of the this paper is to highlight key findings from the author's seven year investigation of the archaeology and architectural history of the California mission of Nuestra Señora de la Soledad.  Findings include the archaeological discovery and recovery of the Neophyte Plaza, Soldiers' Quarters, Sacristy, Narthex, Women's Quarters, and the aqueduct or zanja identified to date by the author at Mission Soledad.

Several researchers have suggested that prehistoric site locations, rock art panels, rock alignments, cairns, or milling features in the California deserts were used to mark the vernal and/or autumnal equinoxes. To assess these suggestions, consideration is given to ethnographic evidence concerning native groups’ recognition of the equinoxes, the physical characteristics of the equinoxes, and the archaeological evidence proposed as being linked to them. It appears unlikely that the equinoxes were significant calendrical milestones for the late prehistoric people of this region. The reported archaeological evidence is not persuasive that the alignment of site features with equinoctial orientations was anything more than random coincidence. Some suggestions are offered for more rigorously validating archaeoastronomical claims.

Conventional accounts of missionary and settler colonialism in California have overemphasized the loss experienced by Native Americans. For indigenous Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people of the San Francisco Bay Area, a story of loss contrasts sharply with their casino—a symbol of prosperity—established in 2013. Each narrative is anchored to highly visible places that commemorate either loss or success. These places, examined here using two case studies, also conceal an important “heritage in-between”—that is, the critical time period, spaces, and things that reflect native resilience and transformation—that might serve to better contextualize both narrative projects.

Autobiography - During his circumnavigation in 1579, Francis Drake recorded a survey on Neahkahnie Mountain, Oregon by building cairns and then placing atop them incised rock markers which became known as the Treasure Rocks of Neahkahnie Mountain.  Letting all who pass know that a European Christian was here and claimed these lands.  This report was compiled from meetings conveyed to the author over a period of years by Wayne Jensen’s steps leading up to how he and Donald Viles made their discovery; the survey’s subsequent verification by Robert J. Schultz, A.S.C.E. and Phil Costaggini’s Oregon State University Master’s thesis Survey of Artifacts at Neahkahnie Mountain Oregon, and how symbols incised on the survey markers was ultimately deciphered.

An archaeology of resistance and endurance in the face of colonialism The Archaeology of Refuge and Recourse explores the dual practices of refuge and recourse among Indigenous peoples of California. From the eighteenth to the twentieth century, Indigenous Coast Miwok communities in California persisted throughout multiple waves of colonial intrusion. But to what ends?

Applying theories of place and landscape, social memory, and mobility to the analysis of six archaeological sites, Tsim D. Schneider argues for a new direction in the archaeology of colonialism. This book offers insight about the critical and ongoing relationships Indigenous people maintained to their homelands despite colonization and systematic destruction of their cultural sites.

Schneider is a citizen of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, the sovereign and federally recognized tribe of Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo people whose ancestral homelands and homewaters are the central focus of The Archaeology of Refuge and Recourse. Viewing this colonial narrative from an Indigenous perspective, Schneider focuses on the nearly one quarter of Coast Miwok people who survived the missions and created outlets within and beyond colonial settlements to resist and endure colonialism.

Fleeing these colonial missions and other establishments and taking refuge around the San Francisco Bay Area, Coast Miwok people sought to protect their identities by remaining connected to culturally and historically significant places. Mobility and a sense of place further enabled Coast Miwok people to find recourse and make decisions about their future through selective participation in colonial projects. In this book, Tsim D. Schneider argues that these distancing and familiarizing efforts contribute to the resilience of Coast Miwok communities and a sense of relevance and belonging to stolen lands and waters. Facing death, violence, and the pervading uncertainty of change, Indigenous people of the Marin Peninsula balanced the pull and persistence of place against the unknown possibilities of a dynamic colonial landscape and the forward-thinking required to survive. History, change, and the future can be read in the story of Coast Miwok people.