PCAS General Meetings

Monthly lecture meetings feature noted archaeologists and anthropologists who provide insight into a variety of topics. Lecture meetings are held at the Irvine Ranch Water District, 15600 Sand Canyon Avenue (between the I-5 and I-405, next to the Post Office) in Irvine, on the second Thursday of each month, at 7:30 pm. Meetings are free and open to the public. See site map of the Irvine Ranch Water District and general vicinity map. For additional directions, please call Scott Findlay, 714-342-2534.

You are invited to join the speaker and PCAS members for dinner before the general meeting. It's an informal opportunity to visit with an acknowledged expert. We meet at 6:00 pm at a local restaurant. Please check the newsletter (left menu) for location.

Schedule and Speakers

Please note that last minute changes may occur.

February 9, 2012

Dr. Nancy Anastasia Wiley

Bolsa Chica Archaeology

Part V: Features and Functions

This talk is the fifth in a series on Bolsa Chica Archaeology which have been presented at Pacific Coast Archaeological Society meetings since 2010. In a tribute to Dr. Hal Eberhart, Parts One and Two presented a history of investigations on the Mesa sites (including a detailed bibliography) and a Californian-Chilean Cogged Stone review and comparison. Parts Three and Four highlighted other artifacts. Shell beads were thoroughly explored, and a taxonomic hierarchy presented. Manufacturing industries were described including the process for making shell beads. Hammerstone production for bipolar lithic reduction, bead drill manufacture, and for cogged stone shaping and notching was also presented. The next three talks will concentrate on other aspects of the archaeological sites. Numerous features were located during the various exploration programs at CA-ORA-83, CA-ORA-85, and CA-ORA-86 including natural geological phenomena and the results of cultural activities. Soil undulations and inclusions, such as natural pigments, characterize the unusual geological deposits. Prehistoric features that were documented on the Mesa include cultural depressions and rock, shell, and bone concentrations. In addition, historic activities in and around the sites are reflected in remnants of structural remains—wooden, ceramic, metal and plastic pipelines, and other mechanical parts related to military activities, and agriculture and oil industries throughout the 1900s. This presentation briefly describes Bolsa Chica features and their probable functions.

Dr. Nancy Anastasia Wiley is the Principal Investigator and Research Director for Scientific Resource Surveys, Inc., which has a corporate office in Orange, California, ethnographic branch in Warner Springs, California, and an Alaskan branch in Haines, Alaska. Dr. Wiley has been in charge of the Californian offices since 1982 and the Alaskan branch since 2005. Most recently she was adjunct professor in the Anthropology Department, University of Alaska, Juneau campus, where she ran a summer field school which incorporated three lower and upper level courses as part of a Native Archaeological Training Program. The students were also certified as archaeological grading monitors. She is the series editor and an author for an 11-volume final report on the Bolsa Bay Archaeological Project, which is under peer review and will be distributed during 2012 and publicly available through Coyote Press mid-year. Dr. Wiley has contributed numerous articles on this work to the Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly, Journal of Great Basin and California Anthropology and Proceedings of the Society of California Archaeology.

March 8, 2012

Matthew Wetherbee

Bolsa Chica Archaeology

Part VI: Foodstuff

A Comprehensive Zooarchaeological Investigation of the Bolsa Chica Mesa

Several zooarchaeological studies have been conducted on vertebrate remains from the Bolsa Chica area since the 1980s. The current study incorporates all the previous studies along with analyses of additional vertebrate remains over the last three years from the Bolsa Chica Mesa. These analyses provide evidence regarding subsistence strategies and past environmental conditions of the landscape. The results suggest that hunting strategies emphasized predation on fish, small mammals, sea mammals, and a variety of rodents supplemented by large game and birds. The larger presence of sea mammals in the later periods of occupation may reflect a shift in subsistence strategies to a marine focused economy due to an increase in fishing technology.

Bone tools and other culturally modified bone artifacts from CA-ORA-83 and ORA-85 represent ten different general classes, with awls the most prominent. Other non-utilitarian objects, such as ornaments, pendants, beads, tubes, and possible gaming pieces for the ring-and-pin game, were also recovered.

The presence of midden deposits may suggest long-term campsites, as opposed to seasonal campsites. The taxa identified correspond with findings at other Milling Stone, Intermediate, and Late Prehistoric sites in the broader region with exploitation of a marine and marsh environment, along with woodland and grassland in the Tustin Plain and Newport Bay area.

Mr. Matthew Wetherbee is an archaeologist with 10 years experience in archaeological practice throughout southern California and Egypt, as well as in cultural resources management (CRM), including prehistoric and historic archaeology and Native American consultation. He earned a Master’s of Science degree in the Paleoecology of Human Societies from the Institute of Archaeology, University College, London, where he focused his studies on archaeology and zooarchaeology. He has planned and directed cultural resources literature searches, archaeological field surveys, testing and evaluation and data recovery programs, site recordation and mapping, Native American consultation, and construction monitoring for small and large-scale projects. In addition, Mr. Wetherbee has been conducting faunal analysis throughout California for the past eight years. His vast experience includes the analysis of faunal assemblages from excavations throughout southern California and Egypt. His studies in California have contributed to the knowledge of the use of vertebrate remains to study subsistence strategies of prehistoric peoples in the Coachella Valley as well as hunter-gatherer societies in the Bolsa Chica Mesa and Tomato Springs area, and paleoecological studies.

April 12, 2012

Dr. Jill Gardner

May 10, 2012

Dr. Nancy Anastasia Wiley

Bolsa Chica Archaeology

Part VII: Culture and Chronology

This, the final talk in a seven-part series on Bolsa Chica Archaeology, provides a summary of all aspects of the integrated Bolsa Bay Archaeological Program in a comprehensive prehistoric cultural and chronological presentation. An 11-volume series of final reports has been completed and is under peer review for the California Coastal Commission; aspects of seven of these have been presented at previous PCAS presentations (*) by Dr. Nancy Anastasia Wiley, Dr. Hank Koerper, Andrew Garrison and Connie Destiny Colocho, and Matthew Wetherbee. The report series includes: Prehistoric Research Design, Ethnographic Overview, Historic Bolsa Chica, The Sites*, Food Acquisition and Modified Debris*, Shell Beads*, Technological Analysis of Stone Tools*, Cogged Stones*, Extraordinary Items*, Features and Functions*, and Culture and Chronology. Part seven will provide a synopsis of the final volume highlighting the contributions of the Bolsa Bay Archaeological Project in compiling a prehistoric chronological framework for northern Orange County using close to 450 radiocarbon dates from five sites encircling Bolsa Bay. The framework includes an artifact and feature sequence from approximately 9,000 to 1,500 years ago. The presentation also provides an artist’s rendition of a site reconstruction for the Cogged Stone site, CA-ORA-83.