Analyzing an Historic-Era Refuse Deposit at Crystal Cove State Park, Orange County, California

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

During the last 100 years the coastal landscape now designated as Crystal Cove State Park has seen overlapping usage by various communities. These include the Hollywood campers of the 1920s, the Japanese and Japanese-American farming communities of the 1930s, the abrupt takeover of the Coast Guard in the 1940s, and the more recent visitors and state park campers. Through a quantitative and qualitative assessment of site CA-ORA-685H, which consists of a historic-era refuse deposit, we investigate the origins of deposited materials and shifts in composition over time based on the various recordings and updates of the site. Through a recent archaeological update, we assess the current state of this deposit through comparisons with previous recordings that occurred over 20 years ago (2002) providing information about the ongoing management and preservation of the site. This research presents a comprehensive overview of the historic-era refuse deposit and its current state, offering insights from its origins and evolution to the cultural practices of its users. The aim is to contribute to the recent history of human activity at Crystal Cove State Park.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52374