Central Coast California prehistory

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 presents the results of the burial and archaeological data recovery program conducted within a portion of site CA-SCL-128 [Thámien Rúmmeytak [Thámien (Guadalupe) River Site], a Late Middle Period-to-Late Period Ancestral Muwekma Ohlone Cemetery located at 282 Almaden Boulevard, City of San Jose, Santa Clara County, California. The recovered burial was inadvertently discovered on January 24, 2012 by a construction crew excavating a trench and footings for a concrete overhang canopy at the rear entrance to the newly renovated Hyatt Place Hotel. The Hyatt Place Hotel, previously known as the Holiday Inn, which was originally constructed in 1977 and was the location of a major prehistoric cemetery/residential village locality historically recorded as CA-SCL-128 (The Holiday Inn Site).

Author(s): Nims, Reno; Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane; Hylkema, Mark; Potenzone, Kara | Abstract: Excavations of the Bonny Doon site (CA-SCR-9) in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern Santa Cruz County, California by Hylkema in the late 1980s recovered a large and well-preserved faunal assemblage that spans the Early-Middle Period transition. With over 8,000 recorded specimens (from an estimated 12,000 total number of specimens [NSP]) and with demonstrated sampling to redundancy, the SCR-9 assemblage is one of the largest faunal samples in the region, and only the second published at this level of specificity. Analysis of the SCR-9 assemblage shows there were no changes in prey choice or handling in this part of the California central coast during the site’s occupation, while the presence of northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) suggests the site’s inhabitants were connected to fur seal hunting at Ano Nuevo Point. Notably, there is evidence for intensive exploitation of cervid bone nutr...

Este texto es parte de un trabajo multilocal realizado por investigadores en Canadá, México y Estados Unidos y aborda la experiencia de inmigrantes empresariales en comunidades de la Costa Central en el estado de California. Después de explorar la medida en que la mentalidad e interés empresarial se refleja en los nuevos medios de comunicación social que utilizan los miembros de las comunidades transnacionales, el ensayo se centra en la experiencia de los inmigrantes por medio de una recopilación de historias también con la intención de explorar las bases y desarrollo de la experiencia empresarial que hasta hace muy poco se encontraba fuera del radar de las diferentes disciplinas que se abocan al estudio de este fenómeno.

Abstract The Chumash Indians produced shell beads for thousands of years in the Santa Barbara Channel region, with special bead-manufacturing sites well-documented. Archaeologists specializing in this region have suggested that shell bead money was initially used about 800 years ago. Archaeological correlates are presented to help determine criteria for the identification of shell bead money versus shell beads used for other purposes, such as ornamentation and status markers. Based on multiple lines of evidence, I propose that the use of shell money started about 1,000 years earlier than previously thought in Southern and Central California, dating back to about 2,000 BP. Ethnohistoric and ethnographic sources document that currency was used to facilitate trade, extend social networks, purchase foodstuffs and objects, including ceremonial regalia, pay for services, and pay debts as part of redistribution. In Northern California, shell beads were used differently and were integral to bridewealth and debt that was incurred as part of this practice.

ABSTRACT This report summarizes the results of the burial recovery program conducted on a portion of a pre-contact Ohlone Indian cemetery discovered at sites CA-SCL-287 and CA-SMA-263 renamed collectively by the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe as the Yuki Kutsuimi Šaatoš Inūxw [Sand Hill Road] Sites in their aboriginal Chocheño Ohlone language. The Yuki Kutsuimi Šaatoš Inūxw [Sand Hill Road] Sites are located on the boundary of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties on the south side of Sand Hill Road on the Stanford University campus. The remains of 27+ ancestral Ohlone Indian burials along with associated grave regalia, tools and faunal remains were discovered within this area during a period spanning from 1987 to 2004.

Author(s): Nims, Reno; Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane; Hylkema, Mark; Potenzone, Kara | Abstract: Excavations of the Bonny Doon site (CA-SCR-9) in the Santa Cruz Mountains of northern Santa Cruz County, California by Hylkema in the late 1980s recovered a large and well-preserved faunal assemblage that spans the Early-Middle Period transition. With over 8,000 recorded specimens (from an estimated 12,000 total number of specimens [NSP]) and with demonstrated sampling to redundancy, the SCR-9 assemblage is one of the largest faunal samples in the region, and only the second published at this level of specificity. Analysis of the SCR-9 assemblage shows there were no changes in prey choice or handling in this part of the California central coast during the site’s occupation, while the presence of northern fur seals (Callorhinus ursinus) suggests the site’s inhabitants were connected to fur seal hunting at Ano Nuevo Point. Notably, there is evidence for intensive exploitation of cervid bone nutr...