Shell Mounds and Mounded Landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Integrated Approach

Luby, Edward M.; Drescher, Clayton D.; Lightfoot, Kent G.

doi:10.1080/15564890600935365

Cited by 31 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Finstad et al (2013), for instance, revisit the questions of when and how shellmound clusters were inhabited. Revising an earlier interpretation that mound clusters represented seasonally vacant ceremonial centers (Luby et al 2006), isotopic and radiometric data collected from two shellmounds in an East Bay mound cluster-one large mound (CA-CCO-295) and a smaller mound (CA-CCO-290)-instead suggest contemporaneous, year-round, and late occupations extending into the late 1700s and up to Spanish colonization (Finstad et al 2013(Finstad et al :2654.…”

Section: San Francisco Bay Shellmoundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Envisioning Colonial Landscapes Using Mission Registers, Radiocarbon, and Stable Isotopes: An Experimental Approach from San Francisco Bay

Schneider¹

2015

Am. antiq.

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The periodization used to distinguish sites and artifacts as "prehistoric" or "historic" translates to the selection of field methods and analytical techniques. This comes at the expense of developing new approaches to track continuities and adjustments in Native American site use, technologies, and other cultural traditions, such as mobility across an artificial divide between prehistory and history. To evaluate the mobility of Coast Miwok people in colonial San Francisco Bay, California, this article presents an experimental technique that compares radiocarbon and geochemical data from a Late period Phase 2(A.D. 1500-1800) shellmound (CA-MRN-114) to baptismal records from Spanish missions (A.D.l 776-1830s). Supported by eyewitness accounts of native fugitivism, furlough, and foraging at the missions, Coast Miwok baptisms before 1817 are at their lowest during traditional times of mussel harvests. After 1817, a different pattern is examined vis-d-vis the colonial landscapes taking shape in the region. Radiocarbon, geochemical, and documentary evidence supports the conclusion that seasonally oriented Coast Miwok mobility involving the collection of shellfish continued even during missionization. With further refinement, the proposed methodological framework holds promise for documenting patterns that often go unseen in the historical record and enhancing the archaeology of colonialism in North America.

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Section: San Francisco Bay Shellmoundsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Envisioning Colonial Landscapes Using Mission Registers, Radiocarbon, and Stable Isotopes: An Experimental Approach from San Francisco Bay

Schneider¹

2015

Am. antiq.

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“…They include famous examples such as the mounds of Mesolithic Portugal and the Danish Ertebølle (Milner et al, 2007), San Francisco Bay in California (Luby et al, 2006), Jomon Japan (Habu, 2004), Australia (Hall and McNiven, 1999), and the sambaquis of Brazil (Gaspar, 1998). All these groupings include individual mounds containing thousands of tonnes of shell debris along with other evidence of human activity, including artefacts and other food remains.…”

Section: The Long-term History Of Marine Resourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Archaeology of the continental shelf: Marine resources, submerged landscapes and underwater archaeology

Bailey

Flemming

2008

Quaternary Science Reviews

313

120

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We provide a critical review of the evidence for the long-term use of marine resources and coastal environments in human evolution and later development. We emphasise the importance of the coastal archaeological record in understanding patterns of human settlement and dispersal and draw attention to the large potential biases introduced by the destructive or obscuring effects of Pleistocene sea-level change. We note that lowered sea levels have been the norm for most of the Pleistocene and that periods of high sea level have been too short-lived to provide other than a fragmentary coastal record and one that is beset with ambiguities and uncertainties. We examine the geological processes of coastal uplift and underwater preservation that may help to mitigate these biases. Coastlines elevated by isostatic and tectonic processes, or with very steep offshore drop-offs at plate boundaries, are important in providing a potential window into coastal landscapes and archaeology formed during periods of lowered sea level. However, we conclude that the opportunities afforded by these geological factors are too limited to obviate the need for underwater exploration. We review the evidence now available from submerged landscapes across the Africa-Eurasia interface from the Atlantic coastlines of Northwest Europe to the southern Red Sea. We show that geomorphological conditions for the preservation of archaeological and palaeoenvironmental data are commonly present, that much material has already been discovered, and that new techniques, technologies and projects are providing the momentum for a rapidly expanding field of investigation. The results do not simply add to what we already know from sites on land, but are likely to produce qualitatively different evidence for coastal adaptations and landscapes that have no analogue on present-day coastlines. We note the strong probability that many coastal landscapes exposed at lowered sea level provided relatively fertile and productive refugia for plants, land mammals and humans at a time when increased aridity would have reduced or deterred hinterland occupation. We conclude that underwater investigation is essential if hypotheses of early human adaptation and dispersal are to be fully tested.

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“…(Hayden, 1995: 297) archaeologists working along coastlines are rethinking this issue. in California, for instance, kroeber's long-accepted view, that the natu-ral complementary bounties of oak groves and coast made domesticates unnecessary, is being replaced by a more realistic grasp of local environmental uncertainties and a better appreciation of settlement and subsistence strategies that relied on diversification rather than specialization (Kroeber, 1925: 919-926;Raab, 1996;Glassow, 1997;Luby, Drescher, and Lightfoot, 2006;Jones et al, 2008;Parrish, 2009). builth (2006) argues for the development of social complexity along the temperate south coast of australia based on evidence of landscape management and the development of a storage economy and trade in wild foods.…”

Section: Final Thoughtsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Untitled

Reitz¹,

Quitmyer²,

Thomas³

et al. 2012

Anthropol. Pap. Am. Mus. Nat. Hist.

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Shell Mounds and Mounded Landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Integrated Approach

Cited by 31 publications

References 17 publications

Envisioning Colonial Landscapes Using Mission Registers, Radiocarbon, and Stable Isotopes: An Experimental Approach from San Francisco Bay

Envisioning Colonial Landscapes Using Mission Registers, Radiocarbon, and Stable Isotopes: An Experimental Approach from San Francisco Bay

Archaeology of the continental shelf: Marine resources, submerged landscapes and underwater archaeology

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