Jeanne’s Legacy and Indigenous Archaeology at Tlaqayam̓u (CA-SCRI-330)

Summary

This is an abstract from the "AD 1150 to the Present: Ancient Political Economy to Contemporary Materiality—Archaeological Anthropology in Honor of Jeanne E. Arnold" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Jeanne’s excavations at tlaqayam̓u (CA-SCRI-330) yielded detailed information about bead-making on limuw (Santa Cruz Island, CA) in the centuries before Spanish colonization. Two of the important classes of artifacts that underpinned the conclusions she presented about life at tlaqayam̓u include shell-bead production detritus and sea grass cordage. Today, a multi-tribal Chumash group draws on her work analyzing these materials to revitalize indigenous knowledge there, exploring craft production and the occupational history of the site. Excavation in the fall of 2022 recovered sea grass cordage and shell artifacts from a cliff-side test unit. Analysis and interpretation is ongoing at Cal State Channel Islands. This talk describes the process of incorporating Jeanne’s methods and conclusions to address community-based questions, of designing the excavation methods to recover material from a delicate location at the site while preserving its integrity, and of the rich possibility for future indigenous archaeology across limuw enabled by Jeanne’s meticulous approach and uncompromising standards for analysis.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• AD 1150 to the Present: Ancient Political Economy to Contemporary Materiality—Archaeological Anthropology in Honor of Jeanne E. Arnold   •
• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 39560.0