Odyssey Marine Exploration is engaged in the archaeologically-sensitive exploration and recovery of deep water shipwrecks throughout the world. Among other vessels they have explored the SS Republic, a sidewheel steamer, which went down in deep water in 1865. This ship served in both the Confederate and Union navies in the Civil War.A New Article about findings at the site of an 1860's Nevada saloon!Memphis Archaeological and Geological Society - Archaeological, Geologic, Speleologic and Lapidary Links for you.Jamestown RediscoveryAnother Chumash Site Found--------- "RE: Chumash Site Found" ---------
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 1998 09:21:24 -0800
From: "Save Ward Valley"
Subj: Chumash Site Found
UUCP email
The following article came from the local mainstream newspaper.
These types of findings are nothing new to the people of the Coastal Band
of the Chumash Nation. The Chumash people have inhabited this area from
time immemorial. The coastal cities of Pismo Beach, Shell Beach, Oceano,
Grover City, Avila Beach, many others are built on top of sites like the
one mentioned below. Unocal built their oil storage tanks on top of a major
Chumash city on the hill overlooking Avila Beach. A "grand" hotel sits upon
a village site and, most likely, a burial site. Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power
Plant was built in an area once inhabited by the Chumash.
Please send your prayers up that the artifacts and remains found at this
site at properly taken care of.
For Environmental Justice,
Molly
Chumash tribe, developers at odds over archaeological treasure trove
Teresa Mariani -Telegram-Tribune
Pismo Beach--A vacant lot at the heart of a dispute between developers
and the local Chumash Indian tribe has turned out to be a near gold mine of
ancient artifacts.
Local Chumash representatives, the city of Pismo Beach, and developers
Gary Grossman and Karl Stahl -- a former city councilman ousted in a recall
election in 1996 -- are still wrangling over how to proceed at the lot.
Grossman and Stahl want to build condominiums on about a third of an acre
located at the corner of Price and Pomeroy streets.
The disagreement was enough to bring a representative of the state Native
American Heritage Commission to Pismo Beach on Monday to meet with the city,
the developers, the Chumash -- and everyone's attorneys.
Both Heritage Commission representative Gail McNulty and Chumash attorney
Tarren Collins said this week that the Monday meeting ended with an
agreement.
The agreement says the city of Pismo Beach will hire another archaeologist
to review archaeologist Clay Singer's plans for the site, and that an
environmental law specialist will also review archaeological plans for the
site.
Cambria archaeologist Clay Singer -- hired by the developers -- has found
evidence that the lot was the site of a major annual spring campsite for the
Chumash as far back as 5,000 years ago.
"It was a fishing village," said Singer. The Chumash occupied the site
from about February through May every year, hunting, clamming, and fishing,
Singer believes.
The village was populated heavily about 5,000 years ago; then fell out of
use, and was reoccupied around 3,000 years ago, Singer said.
"What's important about the site is that it's the last of its kind" in
Pismo Beach, Singer said. "There hasn't been anything ( found ) like it in
the past 40 years."
Thousands of years ago, as many as 60 people in several families lived
there during the spring season for decades -- or more -- at a stretch.
Singer said he hasn't discovered yet why the spring village fell out of
use for some 2,000 years between occupations.
But the lot has yielded plenty of things to study. "There are some fine
tools there; some really unusual stuff," Singer said. The finds include
rocks blackened from use in cooking, stone tools and knives, grinding
stones, and a wealth of shells and marine and mammal bones that show what
the villagers were catching and eating.
Developers hope to donate the Chumash artifacts to a museum, or preserve
them somehow in a display at the site.
Human bones, believed to date from the Chumash village occupations, have
also been found. Singer believes they may be part of a Chumash burial ground
located mostly uphill from the site, "underneath Price Street."
Developers Stahl and Grossman want to put 24 condominiums on the lot. The
project was approved in 1990 -- four years before Stahl was elected to the
City Council.
Grossman and Stahl -- who ran unsuccessfully for council again this year
-- sought building permits in April. They broke ground on the condominium
project in October. But the city of Pismo Beach issued a month-long
stop-work order after Chumash representatives complained almost immediately
that the developers had no archaeology plan.
The Chumash charged that the city neglected to require Stahl and Grossman
to hire an archaeologist and come up with a plan to handle Chumash artifacts
at the site.
The city's chief planner, Carolyn Johnson, said the city did require
Grossman and Stahl to hire an archaeologist, but the developers failed to do
so.
Grossman and Stahl contend the city didn't originally require the
archaeologist or the archaeological plan as part of their building permits,
but they stopped and hired one as soon as construction turned up what
appeared to be human bones -- Chumash remains -- there.
The conflict turned into a shouting match last week, when the tractors got
going again after Pismo Beach lifted the stop-work order after Grossman and
Stahl brought in Singer.
Chumash representatives want construction halted for more archaeological
work on the site -- a goal they have temporarily achieved.
Grossman wants to continue working under the supervision of Singer.
While the tribe was happy with the agreement to hire another archaeologist
and environmental law specialist, members still don't trust Stahl and
Grossman or Singer, Collins said. "They feel he ( Singer ) has a history of
merely doing what the developer wants," Collins said.
If Chumash members feel the site is being mishandled, they will sue,
Collins said. "We are prepared to seek an injunction," she stressed.
Singer said he realizes some of the Chumash in the county aren't happy
with him. But, he said, "I know what I have to do. I have to document what's
going on" at the site.
Grossman, meanwhile, is still chalking the flap up to Chumash politics and
poor communication all around. "A lot of people don't understand what we're
doing, so we're going to provide everyone with explicit details on what
we're doing," during each phase of construction, he said. "I'm trying to be
really cooperative."
While the Chumash, the developers, and the city negotiate what to do next at
the lot, Singer and his workers are looking for more Chumash evidence -- and
the remains of a third occupation, which began in 1860.
"That," Singer said, "was us."
More additions to these links:
Meadowcroft Rockshelter (Adovasio, et al. 1977; Carlisle and Adovasio 1982) is one of the few sites in North America that has produce artifacts in levels predating Clovis. Pre-Clovis sites have to have artifacts dating older than 12,500 years ago.
North American Archaeology Sites Link List at Archaeology.org
Center For American Archaeology - pursues a mission of archeological discovery, educational outreach,and cultural stewardship from headquarters located in one of the world's richest archaeological regions.
Archaeological Sites in Minnesota; Minnesota Prehistoric Archaeological Sites and Geology.
Radiocarbon Dating; introduction, products, programs.
Southwestern Archaelogy, an "old saw" suggests that the region runs from Durango Colorado to Durango Mexico, and from Las Vegas Nevada to Las Vegas New Mexico.
Crow Canyon Archaeological Center, Colorado
ArchNet - Archaeology - University of Connecticut
Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump in Alberta, Canada, where the foothills of the Rocky Mountains meet the great plains, the world's oldest, largest and best preserved buffalo jump.
Return to the AmericanWest Home Page.