North America - California (Geographic Keyword)
76-100 (318 Records)
Inter-group cooperation in prehistoric California has traditionally been evaluated via the relative intensity of exchange--tracked archaeologically with shell beads and obsidian. Transported great distances (most commonly via down-the-line exchange) trade items in abundance imply amiable inter-group relations, if not actual cooperation. Violence, on the other hand, as represented in the ethnographic and bio-archaeological records, is generally assumed to represent hostile interactions between...
A Correlation Analysis of Expedient Stone Tools and Faunal Remains at the Tule Creek (CA-SNI-25), San Nicolas, California (2017)
People have utilized stone tools for food procurement, manufacture of utilitarian and non-utilitarian goods, and self-defense for thousands of years. On the California Channel Islands, both formal (curated) and informal (expedient) stone tools have been observed in the archaeological record. Tule Creek (CA-SNI-25) is a large multi-component site located on an uplifted marine terrace on the north coast of San Nicolas Island, outermost of the California Channel Islands. Humboldt State University...
Cruising Along the Coastline: Exploring the Possibilities of using LiDAR Data to predict Climate Change Affects Along the Southern Monterey Coast (2015)
This paper presents the collaborative efforts of the Society for California Archaeology, the US Forest Service and the Cabrillo College Archaeological field school to document sites along the southern Monterey coastline. During the 2012 field season, a new generation of archaeologists documented sites along a 2-mile stretch of coastline in order to study how coastal erosion is affecting these sites. Part of the purpose of this presentation is to highlight the importance of these types of...
Crystal Creek Water Ditch: from Past to Present and Future (2017)
The Crystal Creek Water Ditch, located within Whiskeytown National Recreation Area (NRA) west of Redding, California was built between 1852 and 1859 for the purposes of gold mining and conveying water to the nearby Tower House Hotel which was situated along the historic travel corridor between Shasta and Weaverville during the California Gold Rush. The ditch provided water for the hotel gardens, orchards, and for small-scale gold mining along the creeks. The ditch consists of two sections which...
Cuisine of the Overseas Chinese in the Western United States: Using Recipes to Interpret Archaeological Plant Remains (2017)
Most of the Chinese who immigrated to the United States in the mid to late 19th century came from a few districts in southern China, an area with a well-developed cuisine. They brought ingredients, cooking equipment, dining implements, and seeds for garden crops to prepare food for daily meals and festivities. However, their culinary traditions were modified by a variety of factors including the absence of some ingredients, the easy availability of Euro-American foods, and restrictions on the...
Decolonizing Archaeological Methodologies: The Making and Remaking of Research Practices with Tribal Communities (2017)
Archaeological research has traditionally been a top down scientific process of knowledge production with little involvement from the descendant communities whose cultural resources and heritage are under investigation. With the incorporation of feminist, postprocessual, postcolonial, and Indigenous theories in archaeology, the discipline has become more accessible and accountable to publics and communities outside of the specialists who conduct archaeological research. In this presentation, I...
Defining Marginality Under Shifting Baselines: Historical Transformations of California’s Channel Island Ecosystems (2015)
Spanish arrival to California’s Channel Islands in AD 1542 marked the beginning of widespread ecological changes for island land and seascapes. Over the next several centuries, the Chumash and Tongva were removed to mainland towns and missions, sea otters were extirpated from local waters, commercial fisheries and ranching operations developed, and a variety of new domesticated plants and animals were introduced. The ecological fallout was both swift and extensive, resulting in new terrestrial...
Defining the Anthropocene on California's Northern Channel Islands (2017)
California's Northern Channel Islands provide some of the most detailed and well-preserved records of human occupation of dynamic island landscapes in the world. Here, archaeological and historical ecological research over the past 20 years has produced a variety of data about human eco-dynamics in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, spanning nearly 13,000 years. We summarize current knowledge of cultural and ecological changes from Paleoindian to historic times, focusing on what...
Demographic Collapse and Deintensification in Protohistoric Alta California (2017)
Decreased human population densities associated with European exploration and colonialism in western North America may explain the historic observations of bountiful game that contrasts so drastically with the archaeological record on resource intensification. At Kathy’s Rockshelter in the northern Sierra Nevada foothills, California, there is a clear prehistoric trend towards resource depression of artiodactyls and increased dependence on small mammals, freshwater mussels, geophytes, and other...
Despotism and Territorial Behavior: Low Population Density Foragers and Territorial Maintenance (2017)
Habitat distribution theory has been applied to a variety of archaeological research programs. The success of the framework has been largely demonstrated through the use of the ideal free distribution (IFD) model to elucidate the nature of colonization and settlement of insular environments. However, territorial maintenance, especially in the face of resource competition, may require the occupation of less suitable habitats as a means of controlling access to resources and land. This paper...
Diachronic Changes in the Shell Mounds of the San Francisco Bay: A Case Study of Ellis Landing (CA-CCO-295) (2015)
The purpose of this paper is to examine diachronic changes in the long-term use of the Ellis Landing site (CA-CCO-295), a large shell mound on the San Francisco Bay whose chronology spans more than 3000 years. Originally excavated in 1906-1908 by Nels Nelson, recent investigations of museum materials housed in the Hearst Museum of Anthropology at UC Berkeley are providing new insights into the harvesting practices, mortuary patterns, and community dynamics of the people who resided at Ellis...
Did Increased Landscape Management through Pyrodiversity Lead to a Rise in Deer Procurement in the San Francisco Bay Area? (2017)
Some of the earliest archaeological applications of human behavioral ecology were Central California studies of faunal resource depression by Jack Broughton including a detailed study of the massive Emeryville Shellmound, located on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. An intriguing pattern identified by Broughton was a significant increase in the relative abundance of deer in the later occupational strata at Emeryville. Broughton attributed this shift to the initiation of distant-patch hunting...
Diet, Sex, and Fitness: The Nutritional Potential of the Fish Slough Cave Diet Revisited (2015)
Archaeological investigations conducted in the late 1980s at Fish Slough Cave, Owens Valley, California recovered over 300 well-preserved human coprolites. When the nutritional profile of the diet inferred from coprolite analysis was compared against optimal foraging model predictions, based on energetic returns, the diet was considered to be deficient. However, when the same data were considered from a nutritional ecological perspective using macronutrients (e.g., water, protein, fat and...
Dietary Ethnogenesis? An Examination of Dietary Patterns at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Potter’s Field, California (2017)
Previous research into 19th century dietary variation within the United States has found significant variation based on social class, ancestry, and region. However, research to date has not systematically examined the specific social, cultural, and economic factors that contribute to dietary variation found throughout the United States during the 19th century. This study examines stable isotopes of carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen to examine the relationship between ethnic preferences, regional...
A Different Kind of Poor: A Multi-Method Demographic Analysis of the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center Historic Cemetery (2017)
From 2012-2014 excavations at the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center (SCVMC) Historic cemetery (circa 1875-1935) resulted in the exhumation of 1,004 individuals. The cemetery, which served as one of several county burial grounds for the indigent and unknown individuals of the area, provides a glimpse into the growth and development of Santa Clara County, California. To date no cemetery records have been located, leaving the identity of these individuals a mystery. To better understand this...
Digging into the Supernatural World. Cinema's Intrinsically Religious Depiction of Archaeology. (2017)
Over the last half century film makers have created hundreds of movies about archaeologists. Many of these films present narratives that are located in supernatural worlds and explicitly religious in character. Within these supernatural and extraterrestrial stories, archaeologists are positioned as mage or priest, the individuals with the knowledge to release magic into the world or to prevent release. These fictional representations of archaeologists as active participants in supernatural...
The Distribution and Chronology of Abalone Middens on the California Channel Islands (2015)
The California Channel Islands contain one of the most productive coastlines in the world. Despite the perceived marginality of available resources on the islands, they encompass approximately 428 linear kilometers of rocky and sandy bottom habitats that have abundant shellfish beds. Thousands of shell middens dated to the past 12,000 years attest to the importance of these resources to native islanders. In this paper, we define the ecology and biogeography of intertidal shellfish communities...
Downpours, Storm Surges and Wildfires, Oh My! A Look at how Climate Change will Affect the Archaeological Record of San Diego County (2015)
The effects of climate change on the physical environment are just recently beginning to be understood by scientists and local planning agencies. Climate Action Plans and Future Proofing studies are being conducted to help planners implement policies and plans to protect communities from the various effects of rising temperatures, fluctuating weather patterns, more intense storm and flood events, sea level rise, and ocean acidification. However, one area of research that has not received much...
Droning on a Budget: UAVs, Aerial Imagery, and Photogrammetry for the Archaeologist (2017)
Recent changes to the FAA regulations covering the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) or "drones" have clarified their use in both research and commercial operations. This paper is intended to provide an overview of low-cost entry into the use of UAVs for archaeological projects and considerations for applications in aerial imagery, videography, and photogrammetry. Using drones for documentation and interpretation is no longer uncommon, but it has been cost-prohibitive since the previous...
Eccleston’s Pictograph: The Great Medicine Rock (2016)
During 1851 the Mariposa Battalion was formed to quell conflict between a number of Central California tribes and settlers during the California Gold Rush. The battalion’s pursuit of the Chowchilla and Chukchansi tribes led to several important discoveries including a Chukchansi curing shrine and Yosemite Valley. Diarist Robert Eccleston named the shrine “The Great Medicine Rock” and provided a brief description of its use. This is the earliest account of any rock art in California and one of...
Ecological Baselines, Long-Term Population Histories, and the Zooarchaeological Record (2015)
The potential for zooarchaeological data to inform modern conservation issues is unquestioned by archaeologists; however, with a few notable exceptions, such an approach has been underutilized. Zooarchaeological data are uniquely positioned to provide a long-term view on the population history and variation in foraging ecology of a species. Such information is paramount to conservation efforts for threatened taxa, particularly in addressing what has been called by conservation ecologists the...
Effect of Past Ecological and Oceanographic Variability on Shellfish Harvesting and Suitability of Coastal Locations. A Case Study from two Late Holocene (2200-500 cal B.P.) Sites on Santa Cruz Island, California. (2015)
The islands off California have long been recognized for their predictable and abundant shellfish resources, which provided a wealth of food for ancient people. Although fluctuations in the marine environment through time affected resource availability periodically (for example El Nino Southern Oscillation ), the effects were variable on a local scale, resulting in local marine microclimates. California mussel (M. californianus) is the most abundant shellfish species in the archaeological sites...
Elevation, What's the Point?: A Preliminary Study of Selected Obsidian Projectile Points Collected From Varying Elevations at Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (2015)
Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks (SEKI) has evidence of a well-established trade network for raw lithic material, specifically obsidian. Obsidian was widely traded throughout the central and southern Sierra, since local material was unsuitable for tool manufacture. High elevation archaeological sites, such as those observed at Taboose Pass (11,400 feet in elevation), consist of high density obsidian lithic scatters with tools, blanks, and diagnostic projectile points. Low density...
Engaged Research, Management and Planning at Tolay Lake Regional Park (2015)
Archaeology has a long history of extracting knowledge and physical resources from Indigenous communities without redistributing resources or benefits to these communities. The ideas of giving back or "paying in our own currency" are well-meant, albeit simple, attempts to atone for our discipline’s history. However, the historical traumas in Indigenous communities from political, economic and scholarly colonialism are complex, and cannot be remedied with simple fixes. Research that seeks to...
Engaging the History of the San Fernando Valley: Collections and "Synergy" at CSUN (2017)
Perceptions of southern California’s San Fernando Valley have long pertained to its relationship to adjacent Los Angeles, with the region over time characterized as either agricultural hinterland or faceless suburbia. Such stereotypes overlook the numerous historical associations and resources of the region, in the process subverting the identities and "communitas" of valley residents. In 2016 courses taught in the Department of Anthropology at California State University-Northridge (CSUN) have...