LINKING PASTS and PARKS: ARCHAEOLOGY of the PETALUMA ADOBE STATE HISTORIC PARK Stephen Silliman Department of Anthropology
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LINKING PASTS AND PARKS: ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE PETALUMA ADOBE STATE HISTORIC PARK Stephen Silliman Department of Anthropology University of California Berkeley, CA 94720 INTRODUCTION HISTORICAL CONTEXT FOR THE RANCHO PETALUMA This paper summarizes the last three years of work at the Petaluma Adobe State Historic Park Today, the Petaluma Adobe State Historic conducted by the University of California, Park, located just northeast of Petaluma in Berkeley. The project is tackling many issues on Sonoma County, preserves 41 acres of the once numerous data fronts, including theoretical vast 66,600+ acres of the Rancho Petaluma. The considerations of labor, practice theory, and Rancho Petaluma was an extensive land grant colonialism in the context of 19th-century culture owned and operated by Mariano G. Vallejo, a contact between Califomia Indians and Mexican prominent Mexican-Californian political and military Californians in northern Califomia. Though most of figure of the 19th century. Vallejo obtained the the archaeological data-collecting has focused on rancho in 1834, and he maintained the operation native living and working areas at the park, recent until at least 1848 and perhaps into the early work has also investigated the nature of non 1850s (Hoopes 1965; Tays 1937, 1938). Though native life inside the Petaluma Adobe itself. In this Vallejo supervised the Rancho Petaluma property, light, this paper addresses three topics: (1) new he actually lived with his family in the nearby information on the construction and use of the settlement of Sonoma. Petaluma Adobe building, (2) the nature of culture contact between California Indians and Mexican The namesake for the park is the extant Californians, and (3) a brief comparison of this Petaluma Adobe structure that served as the culture contact situation with the nearby Russian center of rancho activity. The Petaluma Adobe colony at Fort Ross. was one of the largest of its type in Alta California, standing two stories tall with an enclosed quadrangle (Treganza 1958; Gebhardt 1962), redwood shakes on the roof, and at least three associated out-buildings, two of which may have 88 been corrals (Clemmer 1961; Gebhardt 1962). the now-deteriorated eastern half (Gebhardt 1962; This quadrangle suffered the ravages of time, and Treganza 1958). only haH of the building currently stands. The Petaluma Adobe served multiple purposes, Because the artifacts are currently undergoing including residential quarters for Vallejo and his analysis, discussion here must be brief and family on their seasonal or special occasion visits to preliminary. The temporal span of artifacts ranged the Rancho Petaluma; housing for the labor from the mid-1900s with insulated wire, candy overseer and artisans; work rooms for weaving, wrappers, and a Lincoln Head penny to the most grinding, leather-working, and other economic ancient with chert and obsidian lithics of some pursuits; and storage rooms for grain, hides, and antiquity. The lithic materials derived more from a other materials (Hoopes 1965). prehistoric site on which the Adobe was constructed than from the production or use of Ranchos across California varied in their lithics by native workers inside the Adobe. composition and form, ranging from small family Obsidian hydration confirmed this with periods of affairs with some livestock and crops to large Napa obsidian used from 4.1-4.9 microns and from operations covering many thousands of acres of 3.1-3.5 microns. Around 1.4-1.7 microns, extensive production of livestock and agricultural Annadel obsidian joined the assemblage. goods to supply local residents and to trade with British, American, and Russian vessels and As for historical materials, relatively few beads settlements (see Greenwood 1989 for a good and ceramics were recovered, but significant summary). Vallejo's Rancho Petaluma was the quantities of glass (both vessel and windowpane) epitome of the latter. Like many other ranchos, and metal items were found. Approximately 220 the Rancho Petaluma rode on the heels of mission nails were discovered, including examples of both secularization in Califomia, an event that meant the iron and steel and of machine-cut and wire dissolution of the primary center of culture contact manufacture. Wood and charcoal dominated. and the dissipation of many native residents to old Faunal remains were well represented, though tribal lands or to nearby secular establishments many of these belonged to rodents whose such as pueblos and private ranchos. burrowing lives ended inside these Adobe rooms. However, elements of cattle, deer, pig, and horse have been identified thus far in the subfloor room CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF THE J depOSits. PETALUMA ADOBE ~" In addition to the material culture itself, j The first issue to be discussed is the stratigraphic analysis of the excavated trenches j archaeological study of the Petaluma Adobe provided a clearer picture of the development of interior. In the summer of 1998, a Berkeley the Adobe (Silliman 1999c). In Trenches 1 and 4, archaeological team had the opportunity to the floor rested on a compact clay-rich deposit the excavate inside the historic Petaluma Adobe origin of which appears to have little to do with the ! structure (SON-363/H). As part of the California historic period. Though historical artifacts were State Building Seismic Program, the Petaluma found on and within part of this deposit, the layers Adobe was slated to undergo structural pre-dated the Adobe by many years. On the other stabilization with the placement of steel I-beams hand, the floor in Trenches 2 and 3 sat on 1 approximately 70 cm of fil~ a fill whose composition and concrete footings at four locations inside the historic structure (Figure 1). Though the seismic resembled the yellow-gray clay substrate found at retrofit plans dictated the trench locations and the base of Trenches 1 and 4. This fill, which dimensions, the trenches have provided new contained numerous historical artifacts, then 1 -./> archaeological inSights into the Petaluma Adobe's rested on an actual buried soil rather than on a structural and cultural history (Silliman 1999c).No compact substrate. one had ever conducted systematic excavation beneath the extant Adobe's floor, though This information indicated that the upper J archaeologists in the 1950s and 1960s excavated portion of the promontory on which the Petaluma 1 t 89 j y r t \ Adobe sits was shaved off to create a flattened, were no censuses, no records of laborer wide area for construction in the 1830s. The provisions, and no indications of worker removed hilltop soil was probably used for the geographical or cultural origins nor living areas on f adobe brick manufacture. The middle of the the rancho (Silliman 1999b). The lack of t Adobe was placed on this "prepared" surface, documents foregrounds archaeology, and this I while the western face was built up on the sloping potential has been explored through three ground surface of the existing hill. This pOinted to seasons of archaeological fieldwork. Using a 1 not only considerable planning and labor combination of geophysical survey, shovel test investment but also the intent, even at the very survey, surface testing units, and test pit , outset, to construct a building of enormous excavations, an area was discovered that held proportions. This would account for why the significant clues to native work and residential life l hilltop was leveled just to build one wing of the on the rancho (Figure 2). This area was quadrangle on a slope since that option required investigated in 1997 and 1998 through trench and stone retaining walls and fill to bring the room to block excavations, covering 48 square meters. floor grade. The midden area contained high densities of refuse materials, relatively homogenous CULTURE CONTACT AT THE RANCHO distributions of those materials, fragmented nature PETALUMA of all assemblages, and no discrete features. Artifacts included traditional historical material such The second issue is the culture contact as glass bottle shards, ceramic sherds, and metal archaeology ofthe Petaluma Adobe State Historic objects, but it also contained glass trade beads, Park. Beginning in 1996, a multi~year obsidian and chert artifacts, incised bird bone, archaeological project began in the Petaluma ground stone fragments, and shellfish remains. Adobe park to study the culture contact Glass beads and lithics numbered over 600 each, experience of Native Americans with Mexican derived from surface testing units and from only 6 Californians in the 19th century. The importance 1-x-1-m units. Glass numbered around 3,000 of the ranchos for culture contact studies stems pieces, but historical ceramics only about 300. from the presence of large numbers of Native Over 400 nails were located, in addition to ( American laborers (Silliman 1998, 1999b). For the numerous other metal objects. The midden also I• larger ranchos such as the Rancho Petaluma, the produced large numbers of faunal remains, many :. land owners and labor overseers supervised and highly fragmented. Over 47,000 bones and bone controlled the agriculture, livestock, and fragments were retrieved, but <2% will be f 1 manufactured goods, but the daily labors were identifiable to species. > provided almost solely by the indigenous !t population. These individuals worked in the The location of the major block and trench f rancho regime for a number of reasons, including excavations produced several discrete features 1 f voluntary participation for access to food and including .shallow pits of heavily burned and , material items, coercion through loss of land and fragmented faunal remains, fire-cracked rock , resources, and forced labor as prisoners of military spal/s, and other unburned artifacts. In addition to r raids. these small features, two large ones were uncovered. One involved a large processing or Although this culture contact experience cooking feature composed of numerous stream occurred rather late in colonial North America, the cobbles overlaying a band of charcoal and fire r· number of historical documents on the specifics of cracked rock slivers, and another was a large colonial-native interactions is small.