DAILY BREAD: PREHISTORIC COOKING FEATURES IN THE

NORTHERN SACRAMENTO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

______

A Thesis

Presented

to the Faculty of

California State University, Chico

______

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts

in

Anthropology

______

by

Kristina M. Crawford

Spring 2011 DAILY BREAD: PREHISTORIC COOKING FEATURES IN THE

NORTHERN SACRAMENTO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

A Thesis

by

Kristina M. Crawford

Spring 2011

APPROVED BY THE DEAN OF GRADUATE STUDIES AND VICE PROVOST FOR RESEARCH:

Katie Milo, Ed.D.

APPROVED BY THE GRADUATE ADVISORY COMMITTEE:

______Antoinette M. Martinez, Ph.D., Chair

______Jesse A. Dizard, Ph.D. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank all those who have provided me support and willingly listened to my rambling discussions of hot rocks and cooking including Aislinn Race,

Miriam Roeder, Jennifer Tancredo, Lisa Bright, my cat Nijinsky (not the best listener), and my sister Laurie Crawford. I would also like to thank Dr. Alston Thoms for allowing me the use of his Working Model for Land-use Intensification: Expected Temporal

Patterns for the Use of Cook-stone and Other Heating Elements for Cooking and for his articles that prompted me to question why cooking has been overlooked in northern

California. A large thank you to Stephanie Meyers for keeping me in line.

And finally a very large thank you to my committee members, Dr. Antoinette

Martinez who always demands more and somehow get me to deliver, and Dr. Jesse

Dizard who helped me look at the world (and my writing) differently. Their support, encouragement and knowledge have been very important to me.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

PAGE

Acknowledgments ...... iii

List of Tables...... vi

List of Figures...... vii

Abstract...... viii

CHAPTER

I. Introduction...... 1

Purpose of Study...... 5 Layout of Thesis...... 5 Location and Environment of Study Area...... 7

II. Theory...... 13

Food Systems and the Preparation Phase ...... 13 Intensification...... 15 Households ...... 17 Agency and Practice...... 21

III. Ethnography ...... 24

History of Ethnographic Research in Northern California...... 24 Native Americans in the Northern Sacramento Valley at Contact 26 Ethnographically Recorded Cooking Processes...... 29 Baking-Ovens...... 33 Boiling/Steaming-Hot Stones...... 37 Roasting/Grilling-Hearths/Firepits...... 39 Ritual and Status Related to Cooking...... 41

iv CHAPTER PAGE

IV. Archaeology...... 46

History of Archaeological Research in Northern California...... 46 Prehistoric Setting of the Sacramento Valley...... 52 Archaeological Studies of Cooking Features ...... 59

V. Data...... 66

Cooking Feature Expectations...... 66 Data Collection Methods...... 69 Sites and Excavation Reports ...... 71 Data Results...... 74

VI. Discussion and Conclusion...... 88

Data Gaps ...... 91 Areas for Future Research...... 93

References Cited...... 96

Appendix

A. Cooking Features Data ...... 114

v LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

1. Cooking Techniques and Foods by Ethnographically Recorded Group... 31

2. Sites and Chronological Information...... 73

3. Feature Descriptions...... 75

4. Food Items ...... 77

5. Cooking Features with Radiocarbon Data by Site...... 78

6. Earth Oven Features...... 79

7. Rock Oven Features...... 80

8. Direct Heat for Stone Boiling Features...... 84

9. Fire Affected Rock Totals...... 87

vi LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

1. Working Model for Land-Use Intensification ...... 4

2. Location of Study Area...... 6

3. Site Occupation...... 74

4. Distribution of Radiocarbon Dates from Earth and Rock Oven Features...... 78

5. CA-SHA-266, Features 2, 2a, and 2b ...... 82

6. CA-BUT-7 Locus E ...... 83

vii ABSTRACT

DAILY BREAD: PREHISTORIC COOKING FEATURES IN THE

NORTHERN SACRAMENTO VALLEY, CALIFORNIA

by

Kristina M. Crawford

Master of Arts in Anthropology

California State University, Chico

Spring 2011

The act of cooking food leaves evidence in the archaeological record in the form of features and fire-affected rock. Cooking features and fire-affected rock have had little research and interpretation applied to them beyond basic descriptions, but they provide an important line of evidence to understand human behavior and culture. This study compiles archaeological and ethnographic evidence of cooking features of the northern Sacramento Valley. The compiled data is then used to test a model of expected temporal patterns of cooking features based on the idea that an increase in the complexity and number of cooking features and an increase in the sum total of fire- affected rock in the archaeological record of a region may reflect resource and technological intensification due to an increase in population. The results of the study

viii indicate there is an apparent increase in cooking features and total fire-affected rock in archaeological sites through time in the northern Sacramento Valley.

ix

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Humans have cooked food for an estimated minimum of 250,000 years (James

1989). Evidence of human food systems, including cooking features, is found in nearly all archaeological sites. In the northern Sacramento Valley of California (study area), cooking features and fire-affected rock have long been recorded during archaeological excavations, but have had little research and interpretation applied to them beyond basic description such as the feature was “likely to represent an earth oven for cooking or drying fish,” or the “hearth [was] not associated with structural remains, which probably means that some cooking activities took place outside during the warm seasons”

(Edwards 1966:30; Hildebrandt and Darcangelo 2008:59). Cooking features are usually not recorded as carefully or completely as individual artifacts.

In 1980, White discussed the ubiquitous rock cluster and the archaeologists dismissive attitude to this prominent and underappreciated feature. He notes the general application of the terms “firepit,” “oven” or “cluster” to features as if the term is an adequate description of the function and morphology of the feature. But as he states

if projectile points and other artifacts are composed of traits which make them significant enough to systematically type, describe, and discuss at length, why then should a site feature with every bit as much claim to functional importance be handled in such a cavalier manner? [White 1980:67]

1 2

Even after the publication of this article, archaeologists have continued to apply the catch-all terms, implying a function without providing supporting details and thereby loosing valuable data regarding human behavior and socio-cultural practices.

In the past twenty years in California, careful processing of the materials recovered from cooking features have been analyzed through various techniques such as floatation and fine mesh screening to recover the remains of food stuffs too small for the human eye to easily discern in the field. These studies are usually conducted within an ecological, economic and behavioral theoretical framework and focus on the individual floral and faunal remains and what they reveal about food procurement and not on the cooking feature or food preparation.

Traveling afield from California, studies conducted by Alston Thoms in the lower Great Plains and the Plateau region of northwestern United States have concentrated on interpreting cooking features with a similar economic and behavioral lens. The earliest known cooking feature in western North America dates to 10,500 B.P.

(before present) which is at approximately the transition from the Pleistocene to the

Holocene era (Thoms 2009). Despite the presence of this feature, Thoms has found very little in the way of archaeological evidence for this time period. He sees the broader pattern of cooking feature visibility in the archaeological record as beginning to be the most obvious starting at about 8,500 B.P., the Early Archaic Period in the study area

(Thoms 2009). At about 4,000 B.P. (the Middle Archaic Period in the study area) there is an increase and diversification of cooking features, and by 2,000 B.P. (the Late Archaic

Period in the study area) the types of features and amount of features is exponentially larger (Thoms 2009). These broad patterns of archaeological cooking features lead

3

Thoms to propose a temporal model that could be tested by “compiling and comparing…regional-scale data” (Thoms 2009:585).

Thoms proposes “intensification of cook-stone technology is a manifestation of land-use intensification triggered by population packing” (Thoms 2009:573).

Essentially, an increase in cooking stones through time in an area indicates an increase in population and a change in diet to a more broad-spectrum foraging instead of a reliance on hunting. He also provides a model for the “expected temporal patterns in the use of different kinds of hot-rock cooking features” with the technologically simplest features

(e.g., direct cooking over hot coal) placed earlier in time and technologically more complex features (e.g., earth oven with rock-heating element, stone boiling in a non- ceramic container) entering later in time (Figure 1). According to Thoms’ model, stones become more used as heating elements in cooking as land use intensification increases.

Therefore, there should be an increase through time in cooking features that include stone and/ or a bulk increase through time in FAR. He hypothesizes that with increased population packing on the landscape and related broad spectrum foraging that the use of rock as a heating element in cooking will increase.

Based on the model it is expected that there should be an increase in the occurrence of cooking features and a change from simple to more complex cooking features through time. There also should be an increase in the gross weight of fire- affected rock through time. Conversely, it is possible that there will be no change through time, and therefore the model does not apply to California. It is also possible that there will be a discernable increase in cooking features and fire-affected rock; however, this

4

Figure 1. Working model for land-use intensification. Expected temporal patterns for the use of cook-stone and other heating elements for cooking.

Source: Thoms, Alston V., 2009, Rock of Ages: Propagation of Hot-Rock Cookery in Western North America. Journal of Archaeological Science 36:573-591. Reprinted with permission.

may be due to differential preservation, excavation and data recovery techniques, and the nature of the archaeological record.

5

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, no comprehensive overview of cooking features in archaeological sites in the northern Sacramento Valley has been produced in the one hundred years of research in the area, and this study, although not completely comprehensive, is the beginning of just such a review. Second, the cooking features from archaeological sites located in the upper Sacramento Valley (Figure 2) will be used to test Thoms’ temporal model (Figure 1).

Layout of Thesis

Environmental, theoretical, ethnographic, and archaeological contexts all have bearing on the understanding of cooking features in the archaeological record. The remainder of Chapter I provides an overview of current environmental conditions including climate, hydrology, flora, fauna, soils, and geology and discusses the importance of understanding prehistoric conditions of the past 10,000 years as it effects archaeological site location and condition. Various theoretical perspectives have informed my understanding of the cooking process, the formation of cooking features, and ultimately my interpretation of the data. These theoretical perspectives and how they intersect with each other will be discussed in the Chapter II. Chapter III provides a basic ethnographic overview of the peoples who lived in the study area in the latter half of the

19th century. Discussion of cooking techniques and foods cooked by specific techniques, as well as discussion of food and cooking as part of ritual and status is included in this chapter. Chapter IV includes an overview of the history of archaeological research in the

Sacramento Valley, a generally accepted timeline of prehistory based on the

6

Figure 2. Location of study area.

archaeological research, an overview of archaeological studies of cooking features, and the expectations of cooking feature morphology in the Sacramento Valley. Chapter V includes discussion of the data collection process and the results. Chapter VI contains the

7 interpretation of the archaeological data, the test of Thoms’ temporal model, and directions for future research.

Location and Environment of Study Area

Physiography

The study area is located in the northern portion of the Great Valley geologic province (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 1998). The northern portion of this geologic province is bounded on the northwest by the Klamath Mountains, on the northeast by the Southern Cascade Mountains, on the east by the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains, and on the west by the Northern California Interior Coast Ranges geologic provinces (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 1998). The Great

Valley geologic province is characterized by a low fluviatile plain that is further divided into the following subregions of interest: North Valley Alluvium, Northern Eastside

Terraces, Butte Sink-Sutter Basin, River Alluvium, and Hardpan Terraces (U.S.

Department of Agriculture, Forest Service 1998). Each of these subregions has unique characteristics in soils, geomorphology and lithology, and vegetation regimes.

The study area encompasses an area from the City of Redding near Shasta

Dam in Shasta County on the north to the town of Colusa on the south. The topography of the project is a fairly level plain bisected from north to south by the Sacramento River and crossed by seasonal and perennial streams of varying magnitudes which feed the

Sacramento River. The elevation of the Sacramento Valley ranges from sea level to roughly 2000 feet above mean sea level (msl).

8

Climate and Paleoclimate

Average air temperatures range from July highs of 98 ºF and January lows of

34 ºF. Average annual precipitation on the valley floor is approximately 39.23 inches in the Redding area, 23 inches near Red Bluff, 25 inches in Chico, and 20 inches in Gridley; most precipitation falls as rain between the months of October and April (Western

Regional Climate Center 2010). This contrasts with the foothills on the eastern margin of the valley which receives an average of 57 inches of precipitation in Cohasset northeast of Chico, to an average of 63 inches in Round Mountain east of Redding (Western

Regional Climate Center 2010).

Flora

The vegetation in the Sacramento Valley can be characterized in four broad groups, exotic plants, grasslands, oak woodlands and riparian, within which fall many smaller series found in local environmentally appropriate areas (e.g., riparian may contain

Black willow series, Buttonbush series, California sycamore series, Fremont cottonwood series, Red willow series, White alder series, etc). Extensive replacement of native species has occurred throughout the past 200 years, and wholly native plant series are rare, although native plants do persist throughout the region. The Sacramento Valley is also an important agricultural region with much of the land used for rice, orchards, crops, and stock raising.

Prehistorically, this region supplied nut crops, seed crops, terrestrial roots, and other plant materials used as food and for other material culture purposes such as basketry. Early ethnographers and archaeologists focused on the native people’s use of acorn as the main plant staple crop, but often mentioned other plants used for food

9

(Dixon 1905; DuBois 1935; Goldschmidt 1951, 1978; Kroeber 1932, 1976[1925]; J.

Johnson 1978; P. Johnson 1978; LaPena 1978; Powers 1976; Riddell 1978; Wilson and

Towne 1978). This general indifference for the specifics of plant use contributed to the commonly held idea that the valley and lower foothills were uniformly productive for plant materials (Wohlgemuth 2010).

The lack of interest in floral resources is sharply contrasted with the extreme interest in faunal resources and the multitude of studies regarding human-prey interaction

(Broughton 1994, 2004; Grimstead 2010; Hildebrandt et al. 2002; Jones et al. 2008; Lupo

2007; Munro 2004). The field of behavioral ecology has often noted the patchy distribution of animals across the environment, and as it has recently become clear, plant resources are also found in patches (Basgall 1987; Bettinger and Ripan 1997). Recent archeobotanical studies have found distinct variation in the plant remains in archaeological sites and in plant communities throughout the Sacramento Valley

(Wohlgemuth 2010).

Native plants with prehistorically and ethnographically known economic value that are found in the study area includes blue oak (Quercus douglasii), valley oak

(Q. lobata), black oak (Q. kelloggii), tan oak (Lithocarpus densiflora), gray pine (Pinus sabiniana), sugar pine (Pinus lambertiana), buckeye (Aesculus californica), hazel

(Corylus cornuta var. californica), northern California walnut (Juglans hindsii), buck brush (Ceanothus cuneatus), California bay laurel (Umbellularia californica), common manzanita (Arctostaphylos manzanita), California blackberry (Rubus ursinus), wild grape

(Vitis californica), elderberry (Sambucus spp.), sedge (Carex spp.), cattail (Typha latifolia), poison-oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum), Mariposa lily (Calochortus spp.),

10

Brodiaea varieties (the related genera of Brodiaea, Dichelostemma, and Triteleia), soaproot (Chlorogalum pomeridianum), red maids (calandrinia ciliata), chia (Salvia columbariae), farewell-to-spring (Clarkia spp.), goosefoot (Chenopodium spp.), native barley (Hordeum spp.), tarweed varieties (Hemizonia spp., Madia spp.), Clarkia (Clarkia spp.), mule-ears (Wyethia spp.), clover varieties (Trifolium spp.), miner’s lettuce

(Claytonia perfoliata), and wild onions (Allium spp.). This list is in no way exhaustive but reflects the best known plant species recorded in the ethnographies and discussed by

Wohlgemuth (2010).

Fauna

Faunal patterns present in the Sacramento Valley today are similar to prehistoric faunal patterns of the past 10,000 years. Only four species, the grizzly bear, wolf, tule elk, and pronghorn antelope, have been extirpated from the valley since the first entrance of Euro-American explorers after A.D. 1800. Efforts to re-establish tule elk and pronghorn in the Sacramento Valley are currently on going, with differing results

(California Department of Fish and Game 2010a, 2010b). Despite massive change in the vegetation regimes in the valley, most of the animals found prehistorically still persist albeit in smaller numbers with 123 species currently listed as endangered (U.S. Fish and

Wildlife Services 2010). The valley is an important feeding and resting area for migratory birds and waterfowl and lies directly on the Pacific Flyway. In addition to the birds and mammals, both fresh water and anadromous fish are found throughout the streams and rivers.

Some of the most commonly found native animals with prehistorically and ethnographically noted economic value found in the study area includes mule deer

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(Odocoileus hemionus californicus), black-tailed deer (Odocoileus hemionus columbianus), tule elk (Cervus canadensis roosevelti), pronghorn (Antilocapra americana), bear (Ursus spp.), jackrabbits (Lepus californicus), rabbits (Sylvilagus spp.), gray squirrels (Sciurus griseus), ducks (Anas, Aythya, Bucephala, Mareca, and Mergus spp.), geese (Branta canadensis spp.), swans (Olor spp.), California quail (Lophortyx californicus), wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo), mourning dove (Zenaidura macroura), salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.), steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss), white sturgeon

(Acipenser transmontanus), green sturgeon (Acipenser medirostris), Pacific lamprey

(Entosphenus tridentatus), river lamprey (Lampetra ayresii), perch (Archoplites interruptus), trout (Salmo spp.), and suckers (Catostomus spp.).

Soils and Geology

In general, the geology of the Sacramento Valley is of recent origin, consisting of alluvium, and stream channel, fan and basin deposits laid down during the

Holocene Epoch (12,000 years B.P.), and Quaternary non-marine terrace and Pleistocene

Epoch (12,000 years B.P. to 2.6 mya) non-marine deposits (California Division of Mines and Geology 1962a, 1962b). The eastern margin of the valley is comprised of non-marine rocks from the Pliocene Epoch (3.6 to 5.5 million years B.P.) with some local occurrences of Oligocene Epoch basalts (28.4 to 33.9 mya) and Upper Cretaceous Epoch marine rocks (70.6 to 99.6 mya). This rock composition is typical of the Sierra Nevada foothills. The western margin of the valley is comprised of Pliocene non-marine and

Upper Cretaceous marine rocks with one small intrusion of Tertiary Period (1.8 to 65 mya) basalts at the Orland Buttes. The northern end of the Sacramento Valley from Red

Bluff to Redding contains a much smaller amount of alluvium, stream channel, fan, and

12 basin deposits, and more of the Pleistocene and Upper Pliocene non-marine deposits.

These deposits abruptly end to the north of Redding where the valley meets the Klamath

Mountain geological province Mesozoic Era (70.6 to 251.0 mya) and Devonian Period

(374.5 to 416.0 mya) rocks.

In general, the soils in the upper northern Sacramento valley consist of clays and gravelly to sandy loams (United States Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources

Conservation Service 2010a, 2010b, 2010c). The loams are common along the many stream channels and in a wide band along the course of the Sacramento River. These areas are the soils and geological formations laid down during the Holocene era. The clays tend to be in the older landforms such as Pleistocene terrace landforms located further from the Sacramento River, although some clay deposits are found immediately adjacent to the active river channel. These deposits are resistant to fluvial processes and are more likely to contain evidence of human occupation. Present along the Sacramento

River are natural levees created by the deposition of sediments (Rosenthal and Meyer

2009). These levees, raised above the surrounding landscape, provided protection from floods during normal weather years and are more likely to contain evidence of human occupation.

CHAPTER II

THEORY

Food: a small word that encompasses complex biological processes, economic considerations, and social relationships. Food is the sum total of all items considered by a group to be appropriate for human consumption. But food is not only what we eat to survive, it is what we eat to live. Food defines, creates, and communicates identities, and studies of food illuminate relationships of ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic class

(Anderson 2005; Counihan and Van Esterik 2008). Finally, food is transformative, and embedded in food systems are transformative processes (Anderson 2005; Levi-Strauss

1969). Food items transform from inedible or “raw” to edible through the actions of individuals and the intersection of nature and culture (Beardsworth and Keil 1997).

Food Systems and the Preparation Phase

Anthropologists and other researchers have discussed food and food systems in nutritional, medical, ecological, evolutionary, symbolic, and cognitive terms

(Counihan and Van Esterik 2008; Goody 1982; Leach et al 2005; Samuel 1996;

Wandsnider 1997; Wrangham et al 1999). A food system is made up of technological and socio-cultural processes and infrastructure that are the results of and influenced by the complex interaction of biology, ecology, social and natural environment, human agency, and the process of time and history (Anderson 2005; Beardsworth and Keil 1997; Goody

13 14

1982). This complexity makes studying a complete food system an almost impossible task as the researcher must account for not only the tangible components such as the technology used to procure raw food items (e.g., snares and slings to hunt and capture waterfowl), but must also include the intangible cognitive and social meanings behind the technology and the choice of food item. However, examining a portion of the food system, for example the types of cooking features used through time or the location of cooking features in an archaeological site, may yield useful insights and be more manageable study.

Goody (1982) proposed five phases of food provision to understand food systems: procurement, storage, preparation, consumption, and disposal. Of the five, procurement, the collection of raw ingredients (potential food) with some limited interest in processing as it is related to the efficiency of procurement, is the focus of most archaeological research in California (Basgall 1987; Bettinger and Malhi 1997;

Broughton 1994; Jackson 1991). This is particularly true of researchers working with a

Human Behavioral Ecological (HBE) approach. In an archaeological context, all the phases; procurement through consumption, are deduced from the disposal phase, since the archaeological record is most commonly made up of detritus of past peoples, their actions and activities.

The preparation phase contains all activities, symbolism and thought of a food system that transforms raw ingredients into food (de Certeau and Giard 2008; Goody

1982). Cooking is a transformative process. It is the point at which raw resources become food. Through preparation and transformation items that are considered “not edible” become “good to eat.” (Beardsworth and Keil 1997; de Certeau and Giard 2008:75;

15

Goody 1982). This can be as simple as picking an apple and washing it, the action and the thought behind action transforming the raw resource to the clean and thereby edible food. The more complex a process used to create food, the more likely the process will appear in the archaeological record. So a complex process to render raw resources into edible food such as grinding, leaching, and baking acorn flour to create acorn bread will leave behind tangible archaeological evidence of milling equipment, stones used for boiling the leaching water, and ovens used to bake the bread. This idea of technological complexity has been posited as a form of intensification and will be discussed further below (Thoms 2008, 2009).

Intensification

A large and productive theoretical paradigm that is heavily influenced by economic and biological approaches is Human Behavioral Ecology (HBE). This paradigm looks at changes in human behavior through an evolutionary lens with the

“basic premise…that organisms are defined by natural selection to optimize lifetime reproductive success and are capable of rapid adaptive shifts in behavior to contemporary environmental conditions, which can be broadly defined to include ecological, social, and political dimensions” (Lupo 2007:146). This means that individuals will change their behaviors such as cooking techniques, to ensure their continued survival in response to changes in the natural and socio-cultural environment around them. A response to a reduction in animal protein resources in the natural environment may prompt a change in cooking from roasting over an open spit to stewing and breaking the bones to access and extract the marrow, or to put it another way, changes in food processing may occur

16 before changes in subsistence strategies (Vehik 1977; Wandsnider 1997). By increasing the “processing intensity”, such as stewing a resource, more of the energy, nutrients, and calories, the “energetic yield per animal,” are retained in the food versus roasting in which these elements may be lost (Munro 2004:S8).

Processing intensification, which would take place during the preparation phase of a food system, is part of the concept of resources intensification which is one thread in the large tapestry of HBE. Resource intensification has been defined as the

“process by which the total productivity per areal unit of land is increased at the expense of an overall decrease in foraging efficiency” (Broughton 1994:501). Put another way, more resources are removed from the landscape even though it causes a decrease in the overall resources making future attempts to acquire the same resources more costly through energy expenditure on the part of the individual. Intensification can occur when a resource, for example deer, are over hunted causing a declining return rate of capture. As the deer decline, lower ranked by caloric return animals like rabbits would become more heavily used. This is a simple explanation of a concept that can be used in more a complex manner.

Recent arguments have suggested the archaeological remains of cooking technology, may be used as a measurement of resource use intensification (Lepofsky and

Peacock 2004; Thoms 2008, 2009). The basic premise stating an increase or change in cooking technology from a simple, low energy input form to that which requires more labor and energy input indicates an intensive use of marginal or lower ranked foods, in particular plant foods, as a result of population packing on the landscape (Thoms 2008,

2009). Researchers interested in North American prehistory, and in particular California,

17 have often noted an apparent increase in population in the late Holocene based in large part on archaeological evidence of more substantial structure remains and larger villages indicating a semi-sedentary lifestyle (Jones et al. 2007; Rosenthal et al. 2007; Sutton et al

2007). This idea of population increase with decreased mobility due to a curtailing of territory is population packing. As the population grows, they use more resources from a limited area and need to compensate for using up the resources by selecting other food sources (resource intensification), by changing technology (processing intensification), or by a combination strategy (land use intensification) (Munro 2004; Thoms 2009). It has also been suggested the indirect evidence of food processing technologies, including but not limited to tools such as mortar and pestle and cooking tools such as boiling stones, may be used as a measurement of resource intensification (Lepofsky and Peacock 2004;

Samuel 1996). These arguments are focused mainly on cooking technology evidence as a means of explaining the resource intensification, and do not necessarily view cooking technology as part of the processing intensity.

Households

It is difficult to see the individual in the archaeological record. With the exception of burial, the individual and their daily actions are subsumed into the larger whole of the archaeological record. Because of this, the concept of the household becomes important for understanding daily lived practices. In the past, household studies in archaeology looked mainly at the structures associated with residences and families, but by the 1980s, this approach was found to be flawed. Households are more than a residential structure. Households include the built environment created and daily lived in

18 by individuals involved in them (Lightfoot et al 1998; Robin and Rothschild 2002).

Households also include the labor required to maintain the individuals associated with the household, the daily social reproductive labors that are “embedded in complex and shifting patterns of social relations” (Coltrane 2000:1209).

Households have been defined in a variety of ways, as “culturally defined, task-oriented residence units” (Arnould and Netting 1982:572), as a social unit, as a co- habiting group of individuals, as the “smallest group with the maximum corporate function” (Hammel 1980:251 as quoted in Pluckhahn 2010:332), and as a “sort of mid- level theory between artifacts and grand narratives, or between people and process (Wilk and Rathje 1982:617). The household can also be viewed as a way to discuss more closely the daily lived experiences of people (Pluckhahn 2010). These views of the household are distinct from the concept of family defined as kinship units (Arnould and

Netting 1982). By studying the household, researchers can see the larger economic and social organization and relationships of the individuals (Meyers 2003).

Wilk and Rathje (1982) see households as composed of three elements, social, behavioral, and material. They also classify household activities into “four categories of function; production, distribution, transmission, and reproduction” (Wilk and Rathje

1982:621). The elements are intertwined with the functions, but are at times distinguishable enough to allow a clearer understanding of the household.

The social element is defined as the demographic unit, which is the number of individuals and their relationship to one another (Wilk and Rathje 1982). For example, in a 19th century California large ranch context, the demographic unit would likely consist of the ranch owner and family, cook (usually Chinese), plus additional ranch hands

19

(including Euro-American, and Native Americans) (Gillis and Magliari 2003; Street

2004). The relationship is that of the owner and employees, but the function is similar to a simpler household relationship with all members contributing work and energy to the whole of the household. In contrast, a modern household in Chico may consist of several unrelated (non-kin) individuals living together and contributing resources (e.g. rent and utilities money) for a specific life-stage, that of attending college.

The behavioral element includes all activities the household performs (Wilk and Rathje 1982). Since the household is composed of individuals, the archaeological record holds the sum of the individuals’ daily activities. It is in the household or “living space” that the actions and “intentional and unintentional meanings contingent on the timing, organization and interaction of the various human inhabitants” takes place (Robin and Rothschild 2002:161). For example, a kitchen table may be the location of food consumption in the morning for the household, the location of animal butchering in the afternoon by an adult male, and a study location in the evening for the sub-adults. This also illustrates the overlapping use of a space by different individuals possessing different socio-gender rolls. It is in this behavioral element that the concepts of daily practice, agency, and strategy come into play.

The material element includes the “dwelling area, activity areas, and possessions” of the individuals as part of the larger whole of the household (Wilk and

Rathje 1982:618). This is the element most easily seen in the archaeological record, and it is from this element that the social and behavioral elements may be deduced. The material element in the archaeological record is the sum total of all aspects of lived life

(e.g., structures, activity residues, etc.) of all individuals of the household (Hester et al.

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2009; Lightfoot et al. 1998). It is in this material element that Goody’s (1982) preparation phase of a food system would be visible in the archaeological record.

Turning to the functions as laid out by Wilk and Rathje, it is the production function of the household that leaves the most visible mark on the archaeological record.

Production includes all activities that “procure resources or increases their value”

(Coltrane 2000; Wilk and Rathje 1982:622). This means all the daily social reproductive labors including food preparation, tool manufacture, structure construction, child care and so on are in this functional category as well as belonging to other functions (distribution, transmission, and reproduction) and the three previously discussed elements (social, behavioral, material) (Coltrane 2000; Wilk and Rathje 1982). This function is where

Goody’s (1982) preparation phase of a food system would come into play, where the material element mentioned above is situated, and it is this function that creates the material element that is left behind in the archaeological record.

The distribution function moves the produced goods, be it food or tools, from the producers to the consumers (Wilk and Rathje 1982). Distribution is socially mediated.

For instance, among the Wintu, the first kill of a young hunter is forbidden to him to eat.

It is, instead, distributed among his kin and household according to specific rules of who is entitled to or permitted to which cut of meat (DuBois 1935). Distribution is an important part of the food system of a people; however it is less visible in the archaeological record, with the exception total dietary macronutrients (proteins, carbohydrates and lipids) of a food system like in isotopic analysis on human skeletal material (personal communication Dr. Bartelink 3-11-2011). Transmission, the distribution of property which is dependent upon the social definition of property, is also

21 difficult to see in the archaeological record (Wilk and Rathje 1982). When discussing foraging groups, by way of the archaeological record, this function is not as important in large part because there is usually little in the way of transferable material property

(songs, stories, and other intellectual property do not usually appear in the archaeological record).

Reproduction is narrowly defined as “the rearing and socializing of children”

(Wilk and Rathje 1982:630). Under this definition, female labor is organized to provide constant child care, although there is a hint towards social reproduction. However, the reproductive function can be expanded to include the production and reproduction of cultural norms and boundaries as enacted daily by individuals. Or put another way, “the household is a strategy, participating in and utilizing material culture, to meet the productive and reproductive needs of humans” (Meyers 2003:426 emphasis in original).

Agency and Practice

The archaeological record possesses a unique capability of addressing questions regarding cultural change at a rough-grained scale in a long time span. The time depth affords the researcher an opportunity to see structuration or “the material expression of the intentional actions of past agents working within the structures they inhabited, along with the unintended consequences of those actions that were incorporated in the structural matrix of later actors” (Joyce and Lopiparo 2005:368).

Within the structure there are two main forces at work, strategy and tactics.

Strategies are the social institutions and power structures created by the larger group by unconscious and conscious consensus. de Certeau (1984) uses a city for an

22 example of strategy. The city is created by institutional organizations such as governments, and taken as a whole entity. A city has blocks and street grids and rules about where to walk. A person walking in the city at street level does not navigate around a city in a grid pattern, adhering closely to the laid out sidewalks and crosswalks. Instead the individual crosses streets in random places and takes short-cuts through vacant lots.

These short-cuts are what de Certeau terms tactics, the ways the individual navigates through the socially and physically imposed spaces (de Certeau 1984).

Tactics are the “intentional actions of past agents” of social maintenance

(tradition), improvisation and renegotiation (de Certeau 1984; Joyce and Lopiparo

2005:368). Tactics, over time, can affect strategy. An example of this can be seen in a large square grass filled space surrounded on four sides by concrete sidewalks and located between two buildings at opposite corners. People will cross the grassy area diagonally from corner to corner eventually wearing a path in the grass. The groundskeepers may eventually decide it is in their best interest to stop replanting grass and instead install a concrete sidewalk on the path from corner to corner diagonally across the grass. Strategy built a square, tactics took a short cut, strategy built a diagonal path across the square; a feedback loop.

Intensification can be viewed as a tactic. Social practices (e.g. dietary habits) are dependent upon the context (e.g., social structure, environmental regime) within which individuals reside, and tactics are the means by which individuals invent, change, and manipulate the system (de Certeau 1984; Silliman 2001). All tactics have the potential to intersect politics (strategies) and give the individual agency. Changes in cooking practices, the household production function as seen through the material

23 element and the production phase of a food system, through time can indicate tactics of social maintenance (tradition) or social renegotiation (de Certeau 1984). A change of cooking technology may be misconstrued as intensification. The change may be the result of cultural practice (e.g., acorn bread cooking techniques are more labor intensive than acorn mush boiling for the same caloric returns).

CHAPTER III

ETHNOGRAPHY

History of Ethnographic Research in Northern California

The history of ethnographic and archaeological research in California is inextricably intertwined. Early travelers often mentioned Native Californians in their journals or in short articles for publication in magazines (Elsasser 1960). The first systematic ethnographic work was undertaken in the 1870s by Stephen Powers, a journalist who traveled extensively in northern California and gathered information from the Indians about how they lived (Elsasser 1960; Heizer 1975; Powers 1976). It was not until the 20th century that more systematic ethnographies were undertaken.

When Alfred Kroeber founded the Anthropology Department at Berkeley, he was dismayed at what he perceived to be a rapidly dying people (Jones and Raab 2004).

He initiated a program of salvage ethnography which lasted until 1940, in which researchers talked to the oldest members of culture groups who could remember a time before contact in an effort to document these cultures (Heizer 1975). Groups that the

Berkeley ethnographers considered the least contaminated by contact were the focus of ethnographic, work although the Kashaya Pomo and Native Californians from the two most southernmost missions were also included in the program (Lightfoot 2005).

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This program focused on recovering language lists, technology lists and culture traits from elders of the many linguistic groups considered to be relatively untouched by Euro-American contact (Lightfoot 2005). By the late 1930s, Kroeber realized that most of the informants used to create the ethnographies were all born well after the Contact Period (approximately 1840 in northern California although various explorers and fur-trapping parties had moved through the area) and that their cultures had undergone considerable change from before contact (Heizer 1978; Mackie 1997; Wilson and Towne 1978).

In an effort to quickly capture the perceived dwindling pre-contact information, the “Culture Element Survey” was put into practice (Heizer 1978). Culture traits (a distinguishing characteristic or quality shared by a group, for example using baked clay sling stones to hunt waterfowl on ponds) soon became a check list of items ticked off during interviews (Heizer 1978; Loeb 1926). Researchers took a pre-prepared list of traits or “elements” into the field and asked their informants about the presence or absence of the trait. Some researchers were able to use these lists as a means to start conversations (see Voegelin 1942:47), while others appear to have been satisfied with a simple unelaborated yes or no. Under this model, the more geographically and culturally wide spread a trait, the older the trait, but the model did not allow for convergence or independent invention. Although serious critique of the concept was leveled by Julian

Steward, the culture trait idea was never fully abandoned and was instead adopted in a more biological incarnation (Trigger 2006).

Because of this focus on “untouched” people, many researchers visited reservations and Indian settlements throughout northern California conducting interviews

26 with elders. These interviews, sometimes a few hours, sometimes several weeks long, focused on questions regarding the “original” life ways of the people. There are definite problems with this form of salvage ethnography. Conducting ethnography in this manner effectively erases all the historical processes that influenced the native peoples, it also acts as a fuzzy lens through which memory is used to recall life ways that are filtered through layers of intervening cultural change (Heizer 1975). With this caveat, the ethnographies do supply clues as to the early life ways of many groups, act as historical records of the interaction of academics and informants, and provide some guidance for archaeologists concerned with the most recent prehistoric past.

Native Americans in the Northern Sacramento Valley at Contact

The area of interest lies within a region historically occupied by six Native

American groups (Goldschmidt 1978; J. Johnson 1978; P. Johnson 1978; Kroeber 1925;

LaPena 1978; Riddell 1978; Wilson and Towne 1978). These groups include the Wintu who occupied the northern reaches of the Sacramento River from Cottonwood Creek north to near Mount Shasta, as well as the McCloud River and lower portions of the Pit

River (LaPena 1978); the Yahi, a subgroup of the Yana, who occupied the foothills east of the Sacramento River; in particular the watersheds of Mill Creek, Deer Creek, and the upper reaches of Pine and Rock Creeks (J. Johnson 1978); the River Nomlaki who occupied both banks of the Sacramento River from Cottonwood Creek in present-day

Tehama County south to Toomes Creek (Goldschmidt 1978); The Konkow Maidu who occupied a territory along the Sacramento River from just above modern-day Princeton on the south to Toomes Creek on the north, and east from the river to the Sierra Nevada

27

Mountains (Riddell 1978); the River Patwin who occupied the lower western half of the

Sacramento Valley west of the Sacramento River from Princeton in the north to near the confluence of the Sacramento and Feather Rivers on the south (Kroeber 1932); and the

Nisenan Maidu (Southern Maidu) who occupied a territory along the lower Feather

River, the eastern bank of the Sacramento River between Sacramento and Marysville, and east along the American and Cosumnes Rivers (Wilson and Towne 1978). A seven mile by five mile land area from just below Ord Bend in the north to just above Princeton on the south was likely occupied concurrently by the Maidu and the Patwin (Riddell 1978).

The Wintu occupied permanent villages near rivers and streams (Du Bois

1935). Yahi villages were usually placed near the canyon mouths near the sharp demarcation between the valley and foothills along the major tributary streams such as

Deer Creek that feed into the Sacramento River (J. Johnson 1978). The Nomlaki generally placed their villages on ridges and high spots near major waterways including major tributaries to the Sacramento River whereas River Patwin villages were generally established along the natural levee of the Sacramento River (Goldschmidt 1978; P.

Johnson 1978). The Konkow and valley Nisenan generally established semi-permanent settlements or winter villages on low, natural rises along streams and rivers including the

American, Feather, and Sacramento Rivers (Riddell 1978; Wilson and Towne 1978).

All six groups used a wide variety of tools, implements, and enclosures to hunt, collect, and process natural resources, including bows and arrows, spears, traps, slings, blinds, bone harpoons, hooks, nets, and weirs. Woven tools—seed beaters, burden baskets, rope, and carrying nets—and sharpened digging sticks were used to collect plant resources. For processing food a variety of tools were used including bedrock mortars,

28 portable mortars (predominantly basket hopper mortars), pestles, stone knives, mussel shell knives, stone scrapers, and a variety of bone tools.

The diet of the six groups included deer, pronghorn, elk, bear, rabbits, and other small mammals; quail, ducks and other birds; fish including salmon, steelhead,

Sacramento sucker, freshwater shellfish, and lamprey; grasshoppers, salmon flies, and other insects; acorns, pine nuts, wild nutmeg, and buckeye; manzanita berries, grapes, elderberries, chokecherries, blackberries wild plums and other berries; honey; Brodiaea sp., camas, lily, wild onion, and other bulbs; various mushrooms; clovers, miner’s lettuce, wild mint, and other greens; and various grass seeds (Dixon 1905; DuBois 1935;

Goldschmidt 1951; Kroeber 1925; Riddell 1978). Sturgeon, dog, bird eggs, and angleworms were generally not consumed by the Wintu (Du Bois 1935). Beaver, fisher, otter, mole, snakes, toads, and lizards were not eaten by the Nomlaki (Goldschmidt

1951). Dog, coyote, wolf, vultures, reptiles and amphibians were considered taboo and not eaten by the Konkow or Nisenan (Kroeber 1925).

Minerals important in food preparation were red clay used by the Nomlaki and

Wintu, acquired from an unspecified location, and mixed into acorn flour to create a sweet tasting bread, and salt gathered from various sources including plants and salt springs and seeps (DuBois 1935; Goldschmidt 1951). Many of the raw food resources required some processing, for example, acorn.

Acorns from a variety of oak species were a staple food of nearly all native northern Californian groups (Kroeber 1925). Due to the tannins present in all species of acorn, an extensive leaching process was required to make the acorn meat edible.

Leaching was accomplished by using water to remove the soluble tannins. Most often,

29 acorns were pounded into flour and warm water was repeatedly poured over it until the bitterness was removed. Although this is the most common method of processing, other methods have been recorded in the ethnographic record. For example, the Nomlaki processed acorns from the Valley Oak (Quercus lobata) by placing them in a large excavated hole in or near a spring (Goldschmidt 1951). They then covered the hole with mud and left the acorns there to slowly leach in the seeping water until they were needed in winter. These acorns were never ground for flour, but were roasted in ashes and eaten whole (Goldschmidt 1951). Buckeyes for winter use are noted to have been leached in this manner as well (Goldschmidt 1951).

Another leaching technique that may have been used, but not noted in any of the ethnographies, uses wet clay and hot coals. The wet clay technique was proposed as a possible method of leaching after the excavation of acorn meat impressions in fired clay fragments in several sites adjacent to the Sacramento River in Colusa County. A pilot experiment using clay from the Ord Bend area and blue oak (Quercus douglasii) and valley oak (Quercus lobata) acorns was conducted to test the feasibility of this idea. The author placed whole acorns in a ball of wet clay and placed the mass in hot coals. No attempt to control temperature was made, cooking time was controlled. The results indicate valley oak acorns leached fully in less time whereas blue oak acorns took longer to leach and often became burnt or carbonized.

Ethnographically Recorded Cooking Processes

The ethnographic literature regarding the six groups discussed above contained descriptions of varying detail of cooking techniques in regards to specific food

30 stuffs. Many of the ethnographies listed a specific food, for example acorn mush, and stated that it was boiled in baskets with hot stones. No description regarding how the stones were heated was supplied. No information specific to the Yahi regarding cooking techniques has been recorded. Five charts listing food types and corresponding cooking techniques were generated from the ethnographies (Table 1). These tables are based on table created by Pierce (1983) which was a general overview of cooking techniques as practiced by several different native Californian groups. His table noted the frequency a technique was reported to have been used as Exclusively (E), Commonly (C), and

Occasionally (O) (Pierce 1983).

I have kept this notation in my tables as it allows for a better understanding of cooking techniques and illustrates the variety of preparation styles for the same food products. The ethnographies I reviewed contain a wide variety of terms used to describe how food was prepared including bake, roast, steam, boil, parch, broil, steep, spit roast, and stew. These terms can be ascribed to three broad categories of Baked/Roasted,

Broiled/Roasted/Grilled, and Boiled/Steamed. The following sections include a definition of the cooking technique followed by a group by group discussion of ethnographically noted uses of the cooking technique for foods.

The following sections include a definition of the cooking technique followed by a group by group discussion of ethnographically noted uses of the cooking technique for foods.

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Table 1. Cooking Techniques and Foods by Ethnographically Recorded Group. E-Exclusively, C-Commonly, O-Occasionally (after Pierce 1983)

Technique Group Broiled/Roasted/ Boiled/Steamed Grilled by Direct Baked/Roasted with Stones Heat in Oven Wintu Soup E - - Mush - - - Greens E - - Fungi - - - Bulbs, Roots, etc. - - C Large Fish - - C Small Fish C C - Shellfish C C - Large Mammal O C - Small Mammal - C - Birds - - - Insects and worms C - - Nuts - - E Bread - - E Seeds - - - Fruits and Berries - - - Maidu Soup E - - Mush E - - Greens - - - Fungi - - - Bulbs, Roots, etc. C C C Large Fish - C - Small Fish C - Shellfish - - Large Mammal O C C Small Mammal O C C Birds - - Insects and Worms C C - Nuts - O - Bread - - E Seeds C - C Fruits and Berries - - C Bone - - C Water E - - Cakes - - E

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Table 1 (Continued)

Technique Group Broiled/Roasted/ Boiled/Steamed Grilled by Direct Baked/Roasted with Stones Heat in Oven Nisenan Food Soup E - - Mush C - C Greens - - C Fungi C - - Bulbs, Roots, etc. C C - Large Fish C C C Small Fish O C - Shellfish - - - Large Mammal - C - Small Mammal - C - Birds - C - Insects and Worms C - C Nuts - - - Bread - - - Seeds C - - Fruits and Berries - - - Nomlaki Soup E - - Mush E - - Greens - - - Fungi C C - Bulbs, Roots, etc. C - C Large Fish - C C Small Fish - C C Shellfish - - - Large Mammal O C C Small Mammal - C - Birds - C - Insects and worms C C - Nuts C C C Bread - - E Seeds C - C Fruits and Berries C - -

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Table 1 (Continued)

Technique Group Broiled/Roasted/ Boiled/Steamed Grilled by Direct Baked/Roasted with Stones Heat in Oven Patwin Soup E - - Mush E - - Greens - - - Fungi - - - Bulbs, Roots, etc. C C C Large Fish - - - Small Fish - - - Shellfish - - - Large Mammal - - - Small Mammal - - - Birds - - - Insects and Worms - - - Nuts - C Bread - - E Seeds - - - Fruits and Berries C - C

Baking-Ovens

The process of baking uses dry heat surrounding the food package; this is usually achieved in an enclosed feature or oven. Breads are the most commonly mentioned food type cooked using the baking method.

Subterranean ovens were used by the Wintu to cook many different types of food from large mammal to roots and bulbs (DuBois 1935). Deer ham slices were pounded, wrapped around a hot rock, and covered in hot coals (and eaten with acorn soup) (DuBois 1935:10). Spring-run salmon were prepared in a pit lined with stones built by two or three families. The stones were heated, the fish spread in rows, and more rocks

34 placed on top and baked for a few hours (DuBois 1935:15). Buckeyes and tiger lily bulbs were mentioned as being roasted in a pit (DuBois 1935:19, 20).

A great amount of detail was used to describe the processing and cooking of acorns. Several types of acorn bread were cooked by the Wintu. The common bread was baked in a rock lined pit that had been heated for nearly one day. The rocks were then covered in maple leaves, the acorn flour (dough) was placed in the oven, covered in more leaves, followed by layers of rocks and dirt, and fire was built on top. This bread was left in the oven to bake overnight. When the oven was opened, the bread was distributed to all members of local group. Dubois noted that the frequency of this cooking technique “was considered necessary every week or two” (DuBois 1935:19). This would indicate that in an archaeological context, a researcher would expect to find features exhibiting intense use, or a wide spread of features used once.

Another form of acorn bread was the black bread made with valley oak acorns and an earth mineral-water solution (DuBois 1935:19). The valley oak acorns were allowed to mold, “the moldier, the more tasty the bread,” then were pounded into a flour

(DuBois 1935:19). An unspecified soil noted as ‘red earth collected from gopher holes” was obtained from the Stillwater area was soaked in water and after the soil was allowed to settle, the resulting solution was mixed with the flour (Dubois 1935:19). The combination of the molding process on whole acorns and the addition of the red earth solution to the acorn flour meant that no leaching of the flour was necessary. The dough was baked overnight in large pit surrounded by a series of smaller pits.

One woman was appointed to remove the black bread (sau). A “successful cook [of this type of bread] was requested to bake at dances or meets, a mark of

35 distinction in which women took pride” (DuBois 1935:19). This type of bread turned black likely from the addition of the red earth solution. Similar types of black acorn bread treated with clays and soils have been recognized in many regions of California and on

Sardinia in the Mediterranean Ocean (Johns and Duquette 1991). These other accounts

(see also below-Nomlaki) all refer to “red clay” or “red earth” as the addition to the acorn flour that aids detoxification and turns the bread black (Johns and Duquette 1991).

The Nomlaki made several types of bread, including acorn bread and breads made from seeds. Acorn bread (sau) was the most common type of bread. Non-leached acorn flour was placed in basket, a red clay water solution was added, and flour kneaded into “stiff, brown dough” (Goldschmidt 1851:416). The dough was placed in an oven

lined with rocks, covered with grape leaves, alder, or poison oak, and sprinkled with water. The dough was spread over the leaves in a flat cake as large as two feet in diameter. This was covered with leaves, sprinkled, covered in stones, and a fire built on top. The baking started in the evening, and in the morning the large loaf of thirty-five to forty pounds was lifted onto a basket and left to cool. [Goldschmidt 1951:416]

Another type of bread was made of wild oats and perhaps roots. It was baked like the acorn bread but without the use of clay. Pine nuts were usually parched, but sometimes were roasted in ashes or baked pit ovens overnight.

The Nomlaki also baked fish in pit ovens, usually near the “water’s edge”

(Goldschmidt 1951:141).

Large, flat stones were heated on a fire built in a saucer-shaped pit. After the blaze died down, the pit was lined with stones, covered with dampened grape leaves, and uncleaned fish laid on them, the whole covered with more leaves and heated stones, and a fire built on top. [Goldschmidt 1951:414]

Ethnographies for the Konkow and valley Maidu discuss cakes made of various plant and animal foods as well as acorn bread that were baked (Dixon 1905;

36

Bibby 2005). Salmon bones and deer vertebrae were pounded into a powder, formed into little cakes, and baked.

Grass seeds were mashed, various roots were “pounded fine, mixed with berries, and baked into small flat cakes,” and berries were mixed with seeds and pounded roots into little cakes (Dixon 1905:189). All these cakes were noted to be baked. Bay laurel (Umbellularia californica) nuts were cooked in an earth oven, then hulled and pounded into an oily pasty dough (Bibby 2005:28).

Dixon reports that acorn flour dough was

made into a lump or loaf perhaps fifteen centimetres in diameter. This loaf is then flattened, a hot rock rolled in oak-leaves placed in the centre, and then the dough folded over and pressed down all around it. The whole mass is then wrapped in oak- leaves, and placed in the ashes or under a pile of hot stones to bake. The resulting bread is very solid and heavy, resembling almost a lump of putty, and is, like the soup and mush, almost tasteless. [Dixon 1905:187]

The Maidu baked meat by digging a hole in which rocks were placed and a fire started on the rocks.

When the earth and rocks were thoroughly heated, the fire was raked out; the meat, wrapped in leaves, was placed in the hole, and the hot rocks piled over it. Earth and leaves were then heaped over the whole, and after an hour or two the meat was nicely baked. [Dixon 1905:191]

The Patwin are reported to have baked acorn bread in earth ovens. A basin

“about a foot across,” although a two foot pit was reported for the Hill Patwin, was dug out, a fire was built in it, and when it had died down, the pit was lined with sycamore or grape leaves (Kroeber 1932:276). The dough in one large loaf, was laid on the leaves, and then covered with more leaves, a layer of earth, and a fire built on top. Often this was left overnight. It was removed from the pit and placed on a basket tray (Kroeber 1932:276).

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Pine nuts were baked, and manzanita berries were dried, ground into flour, and baked into bread (Kroeber 1932:296).

Among the Nisenan the earth oven “was used to cook la’ka and perhaps other plants, also dried powdered salmon” (Kroeber 1929:261). Clover was gathered in the spring and cooked in ovens.

A pit was dug, and a large fire was built and left to burn to a very hot bed of coals. A layer of rocks was put on this fire, and the clover, well wetted, was placed on these hot stones, then covered with more hot rocks and left to cook all afternoon. When the clover had dried and cooled, it was eaten or stored. It was saved for the winter and at times pounded into meal and cooked into mush. [Wilson 1972:38]

Grasshoppers, after gathering, were placed in a sack in water to soak while earth oven was made.

The oven was constructed by laying a group of rocks on the ground and building a fire on them. When the fire had burned to white coals, a layer of grape leaves was put on the coals, and a hot rock was pulled out of the fire and placed in the middle. The grasshoppers would be poured wet from the sack onto the leaves and covered with more hot steam rising from the oven. The grasshoppers would be allowed to cook all afternoon. [Wilson 1972:36]

Boiling/Steaming-Hot Stones

The process of boiling and steaming uses heated liquids to cook food. The most common method of heating or cooking a liquid to semi-liquid is by placing heated rocks in the container holding the liquid. Hot rocks placed in water to create steam were used on various food types. Soups and mush are the most commonly mentioned food type cooked using the boiling or steaming process.

Wintu groups daily prepared an acorn soup. The soup was boiled with hot rocks in a basket with “hot smooth round rocks about the size of tennis balls” that were

“saved from one occasion to another” (DuBois 1935:10). DuBois noted that Wintu

38 women were always on the lookout for suitable stones (DuBois 1935:19). Clover was steamed with hot rocks in a basket. The clover was placed on top of the rocks and water was sprinkled over.

Deer meat was steamed with a little water and hot rocks in a basket; the meat strips were laid on the hot rocks and a basketry tray was used as a cover for steaming

(DuBois 1935:10). Grasshoppers (after semi-roasting by fire as means of capture) were boiled (DuBois 1935:14). Small fish leftovers were dried and stored in baskets and in winter boiled before eating (DuBois 1935:18). Mussels and Clams: roasted or boiled

(DuBois 1935:18).

The Nomlaki boiled acorn mush using hot stones. The “stones were kept from one time to the next and heated carefully to prevent breakage” (Goldschmidt 1951:415).

Fresh seeds were often too damp to grind into flour, so they were pounded and made into soup cooked by boiling stones (Goldschmidt 1951). An unidentified root was mashed into a dough-like consistency, buckeyes were mashed, and worms washed and all were boiled using hot rocks (Goldschmidt 1951).

Ethnographies for the Konkow and valley Maidu note that the water for leaching acorn meal was heated with hot stones, and acorn mush was boiled in baskets using hot stones (Dixon 1905:186, 187). Buckeyes were steamed and boiled to remove

“the bitter principle” (Dixon 1905:187). Grass seeds were mashed and made into soup that was boiled with hot rocks (Dixon 1905:189). Various roots were boiled to cook them

(189). Angleworms were cooked into a thick soup, and eels were cut into small pieces and stewed (Dixon 1905:191).

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According to Kroeber (1932), the Patwin had a complex method of boiling acorn soup or gruel. He states that it “required three baskets to cook well” (Kroeber

1932:276). The first basket held water into which the hot rocks were quickly dunked to remove the ash; the second basket held the acorn mush and it was into this basket that the hot rocks after washing were placed to heat the soup. The hot soup was then poured carefully into the third basket so that fragments of rock that had become detached during the cooking would be left behind in the second basket (Kroeber 1932:276). It was also noted that elderberries, roots and bulbs were boiled (Kroeber 1932).

Acorn soup and mush were prepared by the Nisenan using hot stones (Wilson

1972). Wilson noted that amongst the Foothill Nisenan that “the same stone was not used twice in the cooking process, and plenty of stones were at hand” (Wilson 1972:37). Grass seeds were, after grinding, made into soup using hot rocks (Wilson 1972:37). The valley

Nisenan were reported to have used the root of a flat tule, sa’ule, which was boiled or roasted under a fire, then dried, and pounded into a meal (Kroeber 1929:261). Large fish fresh were dried or pounded and made into soup, and “small fish might also be steamed with plant leaves and grasses in the steam oven” (Wilson 1972:35).

Roasting/Grilling-Hearths/Firepits

The process of roasting and grilling involves cooking the food package over a heat source, for example cooking on a modern-day barbeque. Hearths and firepits are the suggested means of roasting. Meats from large mammals are the most commonly mentioned food type cooked using the roasting/ grilling process.

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Different portions of a deer were prepared in different fashions by the Wintu

(DuBois 1935). According to DuBois the techniques from common to less common include the following: the “paunch” was roasted in hot ashes; meat strips were roasted on hot coals; ham slices were pounded, wrapped around a hot rock, and covered in hot coals and then consumed with acorn soup; and finally, when men were away from the village they would roast a chunk over an open fire with the result that it was often only partly cooked and described by “feminine informant with considerable disdain for lack of culinary nicety as a ‘hunter’s way of cooking’” (DuBois 1935:10). Small game including rabbits had their entrails removed, the tails and paws removed, and the hair singed off.

The animals were then pounded and laid on hot coals to roast, in essence creating a sausage (DuBois 1935:11). Small fish were laid on hot rocks, preferably slate slabs, then salted and covered with more hot rocks (DuBois 1935:18). Mussels and Clams were noted as being roasted or boiled (DuBois 1935:18).

For the Nomlaki meat was usually broiled over coals. Small game was singed and roasted in ashes, deer paunch was roasted, birds were roasted on coals, turtles were cooked in their shell on coals, grasshoppers were parched on coals, and rodents

(including squirrels) were singed and roasted in ashes (Goldschmidt 1951). Also cooked in this manner were rabbits which were “opened, cleaned, and laid flat over hot coals,” and when cooked, large bones were removed and the rest pounded into a pulp and formed into balls like sausage (Goldschmidt 1951:414).

Ethnographies for the Konkow and valley Maidu note that various roots, grasshoppers, and wild nutmeg seeds, after extensive processing to make edible

41

(leaching, buried in ground for months) were roasted in ashes (Dixon 1905). Meat, when roasted, was “generally thrown on the coals, rarely put on a stick (Dixon 1905:191).

The only mention of the roasting or grilling technique for the Patwin was in regards to roots and bulbs which were reported to be roasted (Kroeber 1932:296).

The only mention of Nisenan roasting or grilling over coals or a fire referred to meat foods (Wilson 1972). Deer legs were opened out and laid directly on hot coals, rabbits and waterfowl were covered in mud and placed on the fire or coals, and fish at the fishing site thrown directly on coals (Wilson 1972:35, 36).

Ritual and Status Related to Cooking

In all the ethnographic literature reviewed only two groups, the Wintu and the

Maidu, have discussions regarding status and/or ritual in relationship with food. Nearly all ethnographies for native peoples in northern California stress the importance of acorn as the major staple and storable floral food stuff, and all describe in differing levels of detail the processing of acorns, usually by women, to make them edible (Baumhoff 1958;

Barrett and Gifford 1933; Bibby 2005; Dixon 1905; DuBois 1935; Goldschmidt 1951,

1978; Kniffen 1928; Kroeber 1929, 1932, 1976; LaPena 1978; J. Johnson 1978; P.

Johnson 1978; Riddell 1978; Roberts 1980; Wilson 1972; Wilson and Towne 1978). It is not too surprising that the only ethnographies that discuss status or ritual related to acorn based foods are written by female and male researchers interested specifically in ritual.

As discussed above in the Baking-Ovens section, DuBois (1935) reported on black bread made with valley oak acorns and an earth mineral-water solution and

42 considered a specialty of the Stillwater sub-area. The bread was baked overnight in large pit srrounded by a series of smaller pits.

One woman was appointed to remove the black bread (sau) in the morning. All [the people] gathered then with much merrymaking and hilarity except on the part of the baker. A successful cook [of this type of bread] was requested to bake at dances or meets, a mark of distinction in which women took pride. Black bread was a specialty of Stillwater sub-area where red earth was plentiful [but it was] made in other regions also. [DuBois 1935:19]

Baking this type of black acorn bread appears to be a more labor intensive endeavor compared with the common type of acorn bread. Both breads were baked in subterranean ovens for a 24-hour period; however, the description of the black bread baking process notes the addition of smaller heat sources placed around the main oven.

The black bread is also the only food that is mentioned in reference to status. She clearly notes the successful cook was asked to bake this type of bread for important occasions such as dances, and that this was considered a “mark of distinction in which women took pride” (Dubois 1935:19). A possible analog to this in present-day American culture would be the preparation of the main course at Thanksgiving dinner by the matron figure of the extended family.

The Maidu people ethnographically spanned a large territory from Honey

Lake in the northwest to near the Yuba River on the south and west to the Sacramento

River. With such a large territory, a comprehensive ethnography would be impossible. As a result, the early ethnographies relied upon informants from a specific area such as the foothills around Oroville, whose accounts were then applied to the culture group as a whole with very little to no mention of ritual or status in relationship to food. However, shorter monographs focused either on a small group of people (Roberts 1980) or on ritual

43

(Loeb 1933) have recorded many instances of food, specifically acorn, playing an important role in ritual.

An interesting series of Konkow Maidu songs recorded on wax cylinders and accompanying researcher notes was recorded in 1926 at the Round Valley reservation in

Mendocino County (Roberts 1980). The materials were curated at the Music Division of

Folk Song, Library of Congress until 1980 when Dorothy Hill retrieved the notes, compiled and published them in a small volume entitled Concow-Maidu Indians of

Round Valley- 1926 (Roberts 1980). Most of the recorded songs played important parts in the yearly cycle of ritual dances. In April, a two night dance and feast, the Feather Dance

(kaminehaitsen), was celebrated. As part of the ritual cycle “acorn soup was plastered on the house” to prevent bad luck (Roberts 1980:2). Using the acorn mush, various good luck symbols (k!imshu) in many combinations were painted on the door of the residence

(Roberts 1980:3). A sample of the symbols include a fawn, mushrooms, one man carrying three salmon, potatoes, man hunting a deer with a bow and arrow, men hunting yellowjackets, etc. (Roberts 1980). As one informant stated,

If you don’t put that mark on and go outside and make baskets it will be bad luck. It is against the rule. The devil will come along and take one along with him and that’s death. It is best to put it outside and then you can do whatever you want, but not before those marks are put on…Those are the good luck signs and all of them are food. [Roberts 1980:2]

These acorn mush symbols were also painted on the main post of the dance house “at the time of the soup dinner in the spring, when they were looking for the spring coming and watching for the blossoms” (Roberts 1980:5). This spring ritual signals the end of winter and the coming seasons of a wider variety of food and life.

44

Finely ground acorn was also used in rituals involving the yeponi, a secret society of exclusively male membership (Loeb 1933). Membership in the yeponi was not extended to all males. Non-members experienced an increased degree of social ostracism and were referred to as hudesi maidu (fighting man) (Loeb 1933:168). As part of the initiation into the yeponi, acorn powder was sprinkled on the heads of boys in training and reapplied for up to sixteen days (168). The society had a head man, the Yukbe who directed the rituals and would act as a channel for the supernatural (Loeb 1933:149).

Another important role was that of the Peheipe, the ceremonial clown.

The Peheipe was the translator for the Yukbe during his ritual possession, was the village watchman, dance house firetender, a teacher for young male initiates, and most importantly, the clown, acting in performing acts that were often outside normal social constraints thereby reinforcing them and defining the society’s sense of order

(Bibby 2005:32; Brightman 1999; Loeb 1933:149, 173). A village would have several clowns. One of the most obvious acts outside the normative order was the extreme gluttony of the clown.

The peheipe was constantly eating and tasting food or begging for it (Loeb

1933:192). At ceremonial gatherings, the clown enters eating and carrying acorn bread

(Bibby 2005; Brightman 1999). The clown did not allow anyone to eat any food until they themselves first tested it (Loeb 1933:169). During the young male initiation ceremony, the clowns acted as jesters performing silly acts like falling into a basket of water and requiring rescue (Loeb 1933:169). He comes off as absurd and rude, but his role is more a sign of plenty to come, and abundance of things (Bibby 2005:32). A peheipe remained on the top of the dance house both day and night calling out orders and

45 talking constantly but in a manner that was humorous or subversive (Loeb 1933:149).

Conspicuously situated on the dance house, the clown could simultaneously to tend the dance house fire and keep watch.

In each village, four or five older women (aged 30 to 40) were instructed in the secret society dances so as to be dance leaders for the women during ceremonies

(Loeb 1933:169). The leaders were not members of the yeponi, but they were important for certain rituals. They were also the preparers of walaka, the acorn soup used on ceremonial occasions, and although not specifically mentioned in the ethnographies, they were likely also the bakers of the acorn bread consumed by the peheipe (Loeb 1933:169).

CHAPTER IV

ARCHAEOLOGY

History of Archaeological Research in Northern California

Archaeological research in California before 1900 was often aimed at retrieving artifacts for museums (Chartkoff and Chartkoff 1984; Heizer 1978). Many of the archaeological sites from which these museum specimens were recovered were located in the Delta, Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, and lower Sacramento Valley (Heizer

1978; Meredith 1900). These artifacts were curios, often displayed in natural history context (Conn 2004; Wolfe 1982). It was not until the 20th century that a consistent program of research into recent California prehistory was begun by Alfred Kroeber at

University of California, Berkeley. Alarmed by the loss of native languages and cultures in California at the turn of the century, he initiated a program of salvage ethnography

(Jones and Raab 2004). As noted in the ethnography chapter, this cultural trait and salvage ethnography focus left little room for archaeological investigations into the longer prehistory.

Two of the best examples of early systematic and scientific archaeological excavation occurred at shellmounds in the San Francisco Bay area, undertaken by Max

Uhle at Emeryville and Nels C. Nelson at Ellis Landing. These investigations noted differences in artifact assemblages in the stratigraphic layers in the mounds including

46 47 artifact forms and soil constituents (Trigger 2006; Uhle 1907). Uhle saw a gradual change in artifact types, not the big changes that were assumed to exist by researchers at the time

(Trigger 2006). Kroeber was unimpressed with what was known at the time of California prehistory even when faced with the shellmound excavations. He proclaimed in 1909 that, unlike the Southwest and the Mississippi Valley, California showed no cultural change, its peoples remaining undifferentiated and static as hunter-gatherers throughout prehistory (Jones and Raab 2004:1; Kroeber 1936:108). He and several other researchers were prominent in maintaining this view of a static past and continued following the culture trait recording approach even when confronted with time depth issues. In part because of Kroeber’s influence, archaeological investigations in the Bay Area and

Central Valley were sporadic.

By the 1920s, archaeological interest in the mounds located around Stockton and Sacramento began in earnest. In 1929, Schenck and Dawson published a tentative chronology for the northern San Joaquin Valley. Later, in 1936, Lillard and Purves published their investigations into archaeological mound sites located near Sacramento along the Cosumnes River in the Delta (Ca-Sac-107, -126, and -127). They reported a gradual change in artifacts and material culture that they broke into three phases, the

Early, Intermediate, and Recent culture levels (Lillard and Purves 1936). This system was later elaborated on and refined by Heizer and Fenenga, providing the classifications of

Early, Middle or Transitional, Late and Post-Contact Period covering roughly 4,000 years

(1939). Much of these classifications are based on burial goods and large visible artifacts.

From the work conducted under the auspices of Sacramento Junior College

(later California State University, Sacramento) came the Central California Taxonomic

48

System (Beardsley 1948; Breschini 1983). Beardsley, using data collected from sites located from Marin County to the San Francisco Bay Area and into the Central Valley from Colusa County to the Stockton area, expanded upon the three periods laid out by earlier researchers. He created a nestled box scheme in which he changed the Periods to

Horizons, and added Zones and Provinces, geographically discrete zones within the

Horizons, and Facies, culturally discrete units usually of related sites or components

(Beardsley 1948; Elsasser 1978). This scheme was and is still in some ways used in

California. It had the unfortunate consequence of researchers forcing site assemblages into the boxes creating an artificial delineation of culture and time.

These chronological sequences were a relative dating system using superimposition of artifacts to indicate which types were older and which were younger

(Trigger 2006). The sequences were rooted to the ethnographic present, and this is where the ethnographic work conducted throughout the state comes into full force in archaeology. Using the recorded culture traits and recollections of the native peoples, the archaeologists extrapolated what the most recent artifacts in prehistory should be and used the ethnographies to interpret the recent archaeological record (Chartkoff and

Chartkoff 1984). This “direct-historical approach” was used as early as 1918 by L.L.

Loud, but was not fully formed until the 1940s with the publication by Heizer laying out the use of the approach (Chartkoff and Chartkoff 1984; Heizer 1941). Many of the archaeological studies produced under this paradigm viewed the visible culture change in the archaeological record as occurring because of outside forces in particular diffusion, ideas spreading from one culture to another through contact, and migration, movement or full replacement of people from one geographical region to another (Trigger 2006). For

49 example, Heizer’s study of baked clay artifacts in the lower Sacramento Valley attributed this early form of pottery to a transfer of the technology from the Southwest region where a rich pottery tradition existed to central California (Heizer 1937). Hence the Direct-

Historical approach did not allow for local born manifestations of technology or internally spurred culture change. This approach of using ethnographic material to help explain archaeological deposits is still used today although most archaeologists are aware of the issues regarding how and when the ethnographies were written, the possibility of local invention and innovation without outside influence and are aware that the people who supplied the information were living in the modern world and just as influenced by the events of their time as anyone else (Hastrup 1990; Heizer 1975).

Cultural chronologies based on specific sites and artifact series from one region were often transferred whole to a new and neighboring region and the artifacts and sites of that region were forced into the chronology. For example, the Central California

Taxonomic System is based on a few sites, and specifically the artifacts associated with burials, located in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta region (Breschini 1983). The culture chronology proposed for the sites in this specific geographic area, separated into early, middle, and late “horizons” has been used as the basic chronology for nearby regions including the northern Sacramento Valley as far north as Redding. Researchers began adding subdivisions such as “province,” “facies” and “component” to the system to account for the range of artifact variety. Sometimes these subdivisions also received a name based on a specific site such as “Windmiller” or “Augustine.” Refinement of, diversification of and challenge to the proposed chronologies for the Sacramento Valley began during this era, but many researchers maintained the culture-historical approach

50 first created before WWII. Even the challengers who were recognizing the flaws in the underlying assumptions about the age of mortuary practices used for the chronologies still used the cultural sequences as a short-hand that was mostly understood by other archaeologists (Hughes and Milliken 2007).

After WWII, large reservoir and water projects associated with the Central

Valley Water Project threatened to inundate large amounts of land and archaeological sites. Faced with the destruction of archaeological sites by past and proposed federally funded projects, the Reservoir Salvage Act of 1960 was passed in an effort to gather as many artifacts and data as possible before construction obliterated the sites from the landscape (National Parks Service 2010; Neumann and Sanford 2002). This created the need for a program of salvage archaeology which was taken up in part by universities, and by the California Department of Parks and Beaches after the creation of the position of State Archaeologist in 1960 (Dillon 2002; Riddell 2005). Throughout the 1950s and

1960s, extensive surveys and excavations occurred in the proposed reservoirs throughout the state.

In the 1960s, archaeology experienced a paradigm shift from the culture- historical approach to one that considered the environmental factors and processes of culture. In the 1950s several anthropologists including Leslie White and Julian Steward, began to wed the concept of evolution to archaeological thought (Trigger 2006). Also at this time there was a movement towards a more anthropological archaeology or as Willey and Phillips stated in 1958, “American archaeology is anthropology or it is nothing”

(Binford 1962:217). Processual archaeology advocated the use of scientific method as a means of better understanding past life ways and the processes and environment that

51 created the archaeological record (Hester et al. 2009). This new paradigm was about turning the theoretical focus of archaeology to explaining cultural processes and human behavior instead of cataloguing artifacts and placing them in chronologies that may or may not have meaning (Binford 1962; Trigger 2006). Also during the 1950s and 1960s new absolute dating techniques such as radiocarbon dating and new relative dating techniques such as obsidian hydration were developed and put to use (Hester et al. 2009).

In California, processualism manifested itself in an interest in ecological models to explain cultural change, and the old chronologies were retained, adjusted, and refined the new scientific dating techniques.

An example of this refinement and retention of the basic chronological scheme informed by environmental factors and processes of culture is work that was conducted in the Lake Oroville area which yielded a new culture chronology divided into four phases covering the past 3,000 years. These phases, termed the Mesilla (3,000 and

2,000 B.P.), Bidwell (2,000 to 1,200 B.P.), Sweetwater (1,200 to 500 B.P.), and Oroville

(500 B.P. to present) complexes, were based on material culture but informed by environmental and processual concerns (Ritter 1970). Also at this time, Fredrickson presented his refined chronology for the general Central California area based on his work in the North Coast Range particularly around the Clear Lake area (Fredrickson

1974). His chronology extended further into prehistory than other chronologies, spanning around 10,000 years beginning with the Paleo-Indian Period (Fredrickson 1973). In general, his chronology became the dominant accepted chronology although researchers continue to adjust it based on new radiocarbon data, other dating techniques, and paleo- environmental data.

52

The 1960s and 1970s were also an era of social change in the United States marked by a rising interest in protecting the environment including historical and archaeological resources. Between 1960 and 1980, several important pieces of legislation designed to protect the environment were passed by the Federal government and by the

California Legislature. The passing of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA), the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA), and the California Environmental

Quality Act (CEQA) ushered in the era of Cultural Resources Management (CRM)

(National Parks Service 2010; Neumann and Sanford 2002). Under the aegis of resource protection, many archaeological sites in the path of development and construction have received, at best, minor archaeological testing in an effort to reduce impacts to below acceptable levels. In many cases, this means limited subsurface data collection to characterize and classify a deposit into one of the taxonomic chronological boxes of the early chronologies, followed by the destruction of the site by construction. This era of test-and-go resource management is a mixed bag of academic outcomes and research results, good, bad, and in-between. On one hand, the testing conducted is better than never having known what lay beneath the surface, on the other hand, the testing is often limited in scope and area and is likely to have missed important site structure, features and other data.

Prehistoric Setting of the Sacramento Valley

Knowing the history of the development of chronological schemes for the

Sacramento Valley, and tying it into paleo-environmental changes, the following chronology is what shall be used for this study. This chronology is based on studies

53 conducted in the Redding area (Sundahl 1982), northeastern California and the eastern

Sierran front (McGuire 2007; Meyer and Rosenthal 2010); the Sierra Nevada foothills near Oroville (Ritter 1970), and Colusa County (Rosenthal et al. 2007; White 2003).

At some point during the Pleistocene Era (before 10,000 B.P.), humans entered North America. Most researchers agree that humans were occupying the New

World by 12,000 B.P., although there is some tentative evidence of older occupation at several sites (Faught 2008). The climate during the earliest entrance of humans to the

New World was a warm and moist period, the Bølling/Allerød interstadial (14,700 to

12,800 B.P.) which was followed by the Younger Dryas stadial (12,900 to 11,500 B.P.), a colder climatic period of global glaciation (Broecker 2006; Kennett et al. 2010). There are several theories as to why there was a sudden reversal from warmer to colder climate including the reduction or cessation of the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation (the large-scale ocean circulation dependent upon warm and cold water interaction), or an impact event in North America (Broecker 2006; Kennett et al. 2010). The end of the

Younger Dryas marks the beginning of the transition to the Holocene (recent) Era.

In California, including the Sacramento Valley, the Paleolithic Period (11500 to 8000 B.P.) occupation pattern is known for a few artifact types including a Clovis-like fluted concave-base projectile point most likely used in conjunction with an atlatl, and chipped stone crescents (Moratto 1984). These projectile point types are part of the larger

Big-Game Hunting Tradition evidenced across North America during this period

(Moratto 1984). The most firm evidence of occupation during this time period comes from the Borax Lake site located near Clear Lake, Lake County, in the lower San Joaquin

Valley around the Tulare Lake Basin (Chartkoff and Chartkoff 1984; Rosenthal et al.

54

2007; Wallace 1978). Some evidence of this period, usually isolated fluted projectile points, has been recovered from various contexts in the northern Sacramento Valley, with the best known deposit found at Samwel Cave in Shasta County, as well as an isolated point found along Thomes Creek in Tehama County (Chartkoff and Chartkoff 1984;

Mills et al. 2005; Rondeau 2009). At the Borax Lake site, fifteen fluted points were discovered on the surface and five were recovered during excavation. This site and the fluted projectile points on the surface were initially located by an avocational archaeologist, Chester Post, who in turn contacted M. R. Harrington. Subsurface investigations also revealed stone crescents, square-stemmed and leaf shaped projectile points, manos, milling slabs, and single edged blades (Fredrickson 1974; Wallace 1978).

This site became the exemplar of the Post Pattern and the Borax Lake Pattern.

The beginning of the Holocene Era is marked by climate change from the ice ages of the Pleistocene to a climate regime similar trending towards the present-day pattern. The Early Holocene Period (10,000 to 8,000 B.P.) is a period of global deglaciation in the northern hemisphere with a warmer and drier climate than the late

Pleistocene. Projectile point sequences are dominated by large stemmed projectile points subsumed under the Great Basin Stemmed series, in the area spanning the Southern

Cascade Mountains, and the Northern Sierra Nevada Mountains and into central

California (Hildebrandt and King 2002). In addition to projectile points, bifaces, scrapers, large cores, and crescent forms are often found in deposits from this period, with very few manos, milling stones, and other food processing tools in association (McGuire

2002). Obsidian sources for many of these tools and projectile points are found over 100 miles away suggesting a highly mobile population (McGuire and Nelson 2002).

55

The Middle Holocene (8,000-5,000 B.P.), archaeologically speaking is delineated as the Early Archaic Period (8000-5000 B.P.), has long been noted in archaeological circles as being remarkably thin in evidence of human occupation throughout the American West and in California (McBrinn 2010; Meyer and Rosenthal

2011). This lack of evidence has been explained through climate and geomorphological processes (McBrinn 2010). An early climate model for the Holocene Period created by

Antevs and based upon lake varves (alternating layers of finer and coarser sediments deposited as part of the annual cycle) suggested that the Middle Holocene was a long period of hotter and dryer climate than the pre and proceeding eras (Antevs 1955).

Although in general he was correct about the larger climate trend, regionally specific differences are now known to be common (McBrinn 2010). Recent geomorphological studies in the Central Valley of California have found that alternating periods of landscape instability and deposition are the norm for the Middle Holocene (Meyer and

Rosenthal 2011). Much of the archaeological deposits dating to this time are located on lower land forms that have subsequently become covered by more recent sediments

(Meyer and Rosenthal 2011). According to Meyer and Rosenthal (2011), 95 percent of

Middle Holocene (7,000-4,000 B.P.) sites were located in buried contexts. This is a startling contrast to the roughly 50 percent of late Holocene (2,000 B.P. to present) sites and 67 percent of late Pleistocene (15,000-11,500 B.P.) sites occurring in buried contexts

(Meyer and Rosenthal 2011). In Central California, an archaeologist is more likely to find really old and really young archaeological sites on the ground surface

The Early Archaic Period (8000-5000 B.P.) sees a shift in use of the land and a change in subsistence by prehistoric populations. The cultural remains of this period are

56 often discussed as the Borax Lake Pattern, and is typified by large lanceolate, corner- notched, and wide-stemmed projectile points and unifacial flaked stone tools, are typically manufactured from obsidian, local cherts and basalts (Moratto 1984; White

2005). It is likely that these points were hafted onto large darts or spears used in conjunction with and atlatl. Manos (handstones) and milling slabs are the most common form of milling equipment suggesting a diversified diet of animals, seeds and nuts

(Moratto 1984; White 2005).

The Late Holocene (5,000 B.P. to present) climate regime contains the archaeological periods of the Middle Archaic, Late Archaic and Historic Periods. During the Middle Archaic Period (5000 to 3000 B.P.), California began to experience more rainfall and a reestablishment of glaciers at the upper elevations in the Sierra Nevada

(Minnich 2007). The cultural patterns in the Sacramento Valley begin to diversify, and a hypothesized migration of Penutian speaking peoples into the region took place

(Eshleman and Smith 2007). In the Redding/Upper Sacramento Valley area the cultural pattern has been named Squaw Creek Pattern and the the Lower Sacramento Valley/

Upper San Joaquin Valley area has the Windmiller Pattern. Both patterns exhibit continued use of manos (handstones) and metates (milling slabs), and the introduction of the mortar and pestle.

Stone tool forms include contracting-stem (Squaw Creek Series), concave- based, and leaf-shaped projectile points, unifacial flake tools (McKee Uniface), awls, and wedges from a wider variety of obsidian sources. Atlatl weights and bone and antler hooks imply use of the atlatl as the primary hunting weapon (Basgall and Hildebrandt

1989). Olivella and Haliotis beads and ornaments, and a highly developed bone tool

57 industry, become common (Moratto 1984; White 2002). In the lower Sacramento Valley, the Windmiller Pattern also exhibits net weights, fish hooks, and a unique form of trident fish spear impling an increased reliance on fishing (Moratto 1984). Many baked clay objects including cooking stones and pear-shaped “sinkers” are commonly found in the matrix of Windmiller sites. Nearly all burials associated with this pattern are found extended with the head oriented towards the west, and are found in large cemeteries separate from the villages (Moratto 1984; Wallace 1978).

By approximately 2,200 B.P. the modern vegetation and forest regimes had developed, and although there is evidence of extended droughts throughout the last 2,000 years, the vegetation remained fairly stable in the present locations (Anderson et al.

2008). Several periods of extended drought or generally dry conditions prevailed in

California, punctuated with decades or centuries of wetter conditions. It is during this period of stable vegetation and generally drier conditions that the flourishing and diversification of material culture so prominently seen by early researchers that is classified as the Late Archaic Period (3000 to 150 B.P). The diversification is recognized as regionally distinct cultural patterns in the archaeological record, and often specific regions such as the Redding area (Whiskeytown Pattern-3,000 to 1,000 B.P., Shasta

Aspect- 1,200 to 150 B.P.) or the Oroville area (discussed above) are noted in regional pattern terms.

The Late Archaic Period is characterized by increased sedentism and population growth; increased social organization complexity including specialization of technological patterns indicating adaptation to specific regions and an amplified cultural diversity; and an increase in trade (Moratto 1984). This period evinces two distinct

58 patterns and is marked by one major technological change: the introduction of the bow and arrow.

The Berkeley Pattern (3000 to 1300 B.P.), at times referred to as the

Whiskeytown Pattern in the upper Sacramento Valley, exhibits the beginnings of highly developed social organizations, food storage and redistribution systems, ceremonial and funerary complexes, and a strong sense of territoriality. The atlatl is still in use as the primary hunting weapon with small to large side-notched and corner-notched darts as the most common forms of projectile point. Manos and metates remain in use, and there is an even greater presence of shaped mortar and pestle technology (Basgall and Hildebrandt

1989). There is an increased focus on acorn and river resources (Fredrickson 1973).

Olivella saucer and saddle beads and Haliotis ornaments are the dominant ornamentation

(White 2002). Baked clay artifacts including figurines, paint applicators, beads, clay loaves, egg-shaped items and fragments with tule and basketry impressions become common (White 2002; White and Crawford 2002). Mortuary practice is often manifest in tightly flexed burials with very few associated grave goods.

The Augustine Pattern (1700-150 B.P), at times referred to as the Shasta

Aspect for the Redding/Upper Sacramento Valley area, is marked by the introduction of the bow and arrow and the adoption of the hopper mortar and pestle (Johnson and

Theodoratus 1984; Sundahl 1982). Small projectile points (Gunther series, Desert Side-

Notch series) suitable for arrow tips are found with increasing frequency in archaeological contexts. Hopper mortars, indicative of intensive use of acorn, become the dominant milling equipment. Manos and milling stones are used infrequently (Basgall

59 and Hildebrandt 1989). The reliance on acorn and river resources such as salmon leads to the development of food preservation and storage (e.g., granaries).

Well-established trade networks are in use as evidenced by obsidian from distant sources as well as coastal shell beads (Moratto 1984). Bone tools including awls for basketry work become common; and fishing equipment including bone hooks and gorge hooks becomes more prevalent (Fredrickson 1973; White 2002). Other bone artifacts found in the archaeological record include small, tubular beads, incised bird- bone tubes/whistles, and gaming bones. A baked-clay industry including clay vessels, figurines with punctuate designs, ear spools, net sinkers, clay balls used like cooking stones, and beads becomes prevalent (Moratto 1984; White and Crawford 2002). Ear tubes, clam shell disc beads, spire lopped Olivella beads, and Haliotis ornaments and pendants, and magnesite cylinders are common forms of ornamentation (White 2005).

Archaeological Studies of Cooking Features

Previous archaeological studies of cooking features in California have been limited or undertaken under the auspices of CRM archaeology. As such, most of the information on features is found in the grey literature or in limited publications, and is of a descriptive nature with some interpretation regarding land use, subsistence patterns, and the concept of intensification. Two regions of California have received the majority of publication discussing cooking features; the Sierra Nevada/Cascade Mountains in eastern

California and western Nevada and the Transverse Ranges and desert areas of Southern

California.

60

A recent study conducted by the USDA Forest Service, Angeles National

Forest in southern California, reviewed one hundred and sixty archaeological sites with cooking features located in the San Gabriel Mountains, Castaic Mountians, and the Baldy

Mesa area (Milburn et al. 2009). The authors complied a database of all features that have radiocarbon data (n = 60), and found that the features date from the Early Archaic to the

Late Archaic/ Protohistoric eras. Roughly one-half of the features date to the Late

Archaic Period (the authors discuss this period as the Post Archaic 2,300 to 800 cal B.P.).

Some of the features contained carbonized plant remains of both the fuel and the food stuffs. Overwhelmingly the food stuffs were plant remains, in particular yucca, with a few animal bones occasionally included in the matrix (Milburn et al. 2009). In an effort to understand the temporal patterns found in their data, this study used an earlier (2003) version of the temporal/technological model proposed by Thoms (2008; 2009) used in this paper.

In northern California, an in-depth study of cooking features discovered during CRM work along the alignment of Highway 70 in Sierra Valley, Plumas County was produced by Waechter and Andolina in 2004. This excavation at CA-PLU-1485 uncovered 57 features, most related to food processing. Twenty three small rock lined basins (ranging from 50 centimeters to 100 centimeters in diameters) and 3 large rock lined basins (ranging from 1 to 3 meters in diameter) were determined to be cooking ovens used mostly to cook camus and other roots and bulbs (Waechter and Andolina

2004). The basin shaped features contained a lining of rock, some of it fire-affected, oxidized soil under the rock layer, charcoal rich midden in the depression, and floral and faunal remains. The smaller features were similar to features found elsewhere along the

61 eastern Sierran front, specifically Truckee Meadows (Wa1697), Hungry Valley

(Wa6872), Thomas Creek (Wa99), and Sierra Valley (CA-PLU-1487) Waechter and

Andolina 2004). According to the authors “the construction, morphology, and size [as well as,] their radiocarbon date” range all resemble the range of the 23 features from CA-

PLU-1485. Nineteen radiocarbon results were obtained from the 23 features, with all but one falling in a range of 1,080 to 320 B.P. (Waechter and Andolina 2004). The authors note this tight age range falls within the Late Pre-Numic Period (1000 to 500 B.P.) just before a hypothesized movement of Numic speaking peoples into the area, and falls during the hypothesized Medieval Climatic Anomaly, a period of drought and severe climate across much of the American West. They suggest this period of climate and cultural change created a change in diet which required a technologically intensive means of processing (Waechter and Andolina 2004).

Located to the east of Sierra Valley, several sites in Lassen County and one site in Washoe County, containing cooking features were discovered during an archaeological survey in 1979 conducted in advance of the widening of Highway 395

(Elston 1979). The features in the seventeen Highway 395 sites were similar in structure to those found along Highway 70, and were discussed as rock piles that were disassembled hearths, charcoal and rock features, or rock rings with charcoal, but no dimensions or chronological information was supplied (Elston 1979). Located to the south of Sierra Valley, excavations at a site in Squaw Valley revealed two small cooking features referred to as “hot plates,” and two large oven features with associated rock piles

(Bloomer et al. 2002). The features were constructed of granite slabs and blocks common to the area surrounding the site. The structure of the small features was a ring of blocks

62 set on a slab base. It is hypothesized that a fire was built on the slab in the ring of blocks, and that after firing, the charcoal and ash was swept clean and the food cooked directly on the hot slab like a griddle (Bloomer et al 2002). This study benefited from input from

Washoe elders who remembered using similarly constructed large ovens for steaming greens. Radiocarbon results for the large ovens ranged from 2,860 B.P. to 440 B.P., and the two small features returned a much tighter date range of 2,320 and 2,000 B.P.

(Bloomer et al 2002).

Located to the north of Sierra Valley about 50 miles, and north of Honey Lake approximately 16 miles lies Secret Valley. Archaeological work conducted in the 1990s along the proposed Tuscarora pipeline from Oregon to Nevada revealed a rich record dating from the early Holocene to the historic era. This investigation discovered three sites containing nine cooking related features divided into three general groups: oven (n =

3), hearth (n = 3), and amorphous rock/ groundstone feature (n = 3) (McGuire 1997). The oven features were all rock lined basins measuring 80 to 100 centimeters in diameter, containing some charred seed remains from grasses, and other seeds. Radiocarbon dates of the oven features were the oldest of all three types, with the oldest date of 4,430 B.P. and the youngest at 1,260 B.P. (McGuire 1997). The hearth features measuring between

70 and 100 centimeters in diameter, were defined by an abundance of charcoal and ash, but little rock content, with an abundance of seed remains including cattails, sunflowers, grasses, saltbrush, and goosefoot (McGuire1997). The hearths were radiocarbon dated between 1,360 and 500 B.P. (McGuire 1997). The amorphous features, measuring between 50 and 200 centimeters, consisted of rock debris and milling stones and some seeds. The radiocarbon dates for the amorphous features all date within the last 600 years

63 which falls into what is known as the Terminal Prehistoric or Numic Pattern (McGuire

1997). It is interesting to note that the larger more complex oven features are older than the hearth and amorphous features.

Turning to a larger geographic and temporal area, a study of stone-boiling technology in an Upper Paleolithic (17,000 to 13,000 B.P.) archaeological deposit in El

Mirón Cave, Cantabria, Spain, examined the spatial patterning of artifacts, faunal material, and fire-affected rock around a shallow-basin hearth (Nakazawa et al. 2008).

The authors suggest the large number of thermally altered and fire affected rocks (FAR) found in association with extremely fragmented ungulate bones located in this site and the same pattern of FAR and fragmented bones found at an open-air site, Vale Boi in southwestern Portugal (25,000B.P.), indicate a specific type of food processing using stone boiling to extract grease and fat from bones (Nakazawa et al. 2008). This indicates humans have been using sophisticated methods of hot rock cooking since at least the middle Pleistocene.

A Mesolithic Era (late Preboreal period-8,900 B.C. to the beginning of the

Atlantic period-6,500 B.C.) hazelnut processing site containing well-preserved features was found in the Duvensee bog, northern Germany (Holst 2010). This bog, which during the period of interest was a lake, provided for good preservation of organic materials including a wooden paddle, arrow shafts, and other artifacts usually removed from the archaeological record by natural processes. The study focused on two excavated features that have been interpreted as hazelnut roasting pits containing pine and birch bark mats or planks used to contain a layer of white sand on which a fire was created. When the fire had burned down, the coals were mixed into the now heated sand and hazelnuts were

64 placed on the sand and roasted by the radiating heat. The features contained no rock heating elements, however ample milling stones and other nut processing stone tools were found all around the features. Radiocarbon dates acquired from the features, as well as several other features and the wooden paddle all fell into an age range from 9,500 to

8,200 years B.P. (Holst 2010).

Fire affected rock (FAR) is common in archaeological sites throughout the world as rocks have long been used as heat retaining features for cooking or warmth. As

Cook and Treganza (1947, 1948) noted in their discussion of two sites in the Delta area, the bulk of an archaeological site consists of rock and burned clay fragments.

Furthermore, many cooking features, due to site formation processes such as sanitation or construction practices while the site is occupied, or bioturbation after site abandonment many have substantially altered or moved the components of cooking features creating the spread of FAR in site matrices.

Unfortunately very few researchers have done much research on FAR, and most of the studies are focused on the geochemistry or thermal alteration process (see for example Gose 2000; Rapp et al 1999). Another major thread of research involving FAR is focused on the transition to pottery. Stone boiling in baskets, hides, and wooden vessels is seen as a precurser cooking form to direct boiling in pottery and later metal vessels and is usually discussed in brief before the researcher turns to the in-depth study of pottery (see for example Skibo and Feinman 1999; Linton 1944; Crown and Wills

1995). However, one study located at the Talepop (CA-LAN-229), a Late Archaic

Chumash site located focused on the possibility that the distribution of FAR in the archaeological site by material type could be an indicator of social status (Pierce 1983).

65

The author conducted informal experiments with rocks of the same material types found in the site to better understand their usefulness in cooking. He found a significant difference in the material types, their heat retention, and their susceptibility to fracturing.

From this understanding, he suggested that certain rock material types may have been used differently by people from different socio-economic status. The most striking part of this study, as the author notes, is the manner in which he treats the FAR “as tools which can be divided into functionally meaningful categories” (Pierce 1983:6).

CHAPTER V

DATA

Cooking Feature Expectations

Twelve variables; depth, dimensions, configuration or shape, concentration or density, number of rocks, rock size, ratio or percentage of thermally cracked rocks, description of rock types, constituents or rock fill, placement of different or different sized rocks, associations, and location within the site; are considered to be important for discussion of use, function, site type, temporal or cultural difference, and resource availability or preferential collection (White 1980). Of all the variables noted above, the most commonly recorded, when recorded at all, is the dimension followed by depth and shape. Thoms postulates that, based on ethnographic and archaeological data from the western United States, primarily the Great Plains and the Plateau regions, rock oven features that are smaller than one meter diameter were heated and used for one day and features that are larger than two meters diameter were heated and used for two to three days (Thoms 2009:588).

Following Thoms (2008, 2009), White (1980), and ethnographic descriptions of cooking techniques (Chapter III), I have extrapolated the following expectations of what a cooking feature will look like in the archaeological record.

66 67

Earth Oven

Earth ovens are depressions dug below the ground surface in which a fire is built and after an appropriate amount of firing time the coals and ash are removed and the food packages are put in place. The depression is then covered with a layer of earth, and sometimes a secondary fire may be started on top to heat the top layer.

An earth oven would leave an ash lens and baked earth layer (discolored grey to red). The oven would be round to oval in shape, and a deposit of ash may be located next to the main feature from removal of fire/coals before placing of food into heated oven. The feature from the side would be basin shaped.

Rock Oven

Rock ovens are often built in depressions dug below the ground surface and lined with rock. A fire is built on the rock and after an appropriate amount of firing time the coals and ash are removed and the food packages are put in place. The rock and food layers are then covered with a layer of heated rock and/or earth, and sometimes a secondary fire may be started on top to heat the top layer. In the ethnographies, as noted in Chapter 3, rock ovens were used most commonly to bake acorn bread and assorted cakes. Only one ethnography, the Patwin, mentions the dimensions of the constructed oven as a measuring 1 to 2 feet in diameter (Kroeber 1932). One ethnography, the

Nomlaki, mentions the size of the acorn bread as being up to 2-foot in diameter

(Goldschmidt 1951). This indicates that ovens used to cook acorn bread would have a minimum diameter of approximately 40 centimeters. Archaeologically, these features would likely measure 50 to over 100 centimeters in diameter which would allow for the rock lining as well as the interior space for the food, and additional space for other foods.

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As Thoms noted (2009), features of approximately 1-meter diameter were likely used for a 24-hour period. Ethnographic accounts of the baking time for certain acorn breads agrees with this assumption.

A rock oven would leave baked earth layer, rock layer, ash intermixed in rock layer, ash lens, possibly a top rock layer, and a possibly rock and ash disposal area next to oven. The feature shape would be round to oval, with possible figure 8 shape when including the rock/ ash disposal area.

Stone Boiling

Stone boiling would leave FAR, ash, and a firepit. Stone boiling would leave behind a FAR disposal area after the rocks are no longer useable, cached new stones, and a firepit indiscernible from firepit for heat. FAR stones are often rounded in shape in part to prevent the rock from catching on the basket or other material holding the food to be boiled. Broken FAR will retain some of the rounding on the original surface, and often exhibit cracking and sharp angles on the portions effected by the fire.

Cook-stone Grill

A cook-stone grill would be a large flat stone, or a series of flattish stones, sometimes found in a hearth sometimes found in a depression similar to an earth oven. A grill would leave behind FAR, specifically flat stones broken up by the fire, as well as ash and firepits.

Direct Heat Cooking

Direct cooking and cooking on coals would leave behind a firepit and ash.

This category also contains direct heat cooking features with rock heat-retaining elements, for example a fire area with a large rock at the back that radiates heat back into

69 the area (e.g., a fireplace), or a ring of stones to contain the fire and retain some heat after the fire has turned to coals.

Fire Affected Rock

In addition to the above features, the individual rocks involved in cooking that may not necessarily be associated with a feature due to site formation processes, such as bioturbation or cultural sanitation and disposal practices, offer another avenue of interpretation. Fire affected rock (FAR), any rock that has been thermally altered including rocks that are cracked or spalled due to the application of heat, and rocks that have had their chemical properties altered by heat, is one of the most common artifact types found in archaeological sites in California. Thoms notes that increase resource intensification, including using plants that require longer cooking times and more effort spent processing animal matter (e.g. grease rendering through stone boiling), should lead to “an increase in the quantity of FCR (fire-affected rock) on a given landscape” (Thoms

2009: 586).

So archaeologically there should be more FAR in sites occupied more recently than in sites that were occupied earlier. A bulk total of FAR recovered compared with the total volume excavated in a site would give a percentage that may indicate an increase in the use of rocks for stone boiling or other cooking or heating purposes. If a site has two temporal components, attempts to separate the components is crucial for comparisons.

Data Collection Methods

Data was retrieved from previously published excavation reports (grey literature) housed at the Northeast Information Center (NEIC) located at California State

70

University, Chico (CSUC). Grey literature is reports created by contractors and agencies to fulfill the requirements laid out by regulations and legislation related to cultural resources, but the reports do not receive formal publication or wide distribution. Reports of this type are usually curated with the reviewing agency (the agency responsible for making sure everyone follows the laws and regulations), with the Office of Historic

Preservation (if it is an excavation), and also with the California Historical Resources

Information System at one of the 11 Information Centers.

Using the available database program at the NEIC, I searched for all reports cataloged as excavation or testing for Butte, Glenn, Shasta, and Tehama Counties. The database results showed the United States Geologic Survey (USGS) quadrangle map location of the reports, and I was able to exclude any excavations that occurred outside my study area based on the map name information. I also was able to exclude all reports that occurred above the elevation of 1,000 foot msl (mean sea level). The database returned a list of forty-five grey literature reports of excavations and limited testing for the four counties in my criteria (n = 45). I retrieved all the hard copy reports from the filing cabinets for review for any features or other information that referred to cooking.

This eliminated all but 11 reports. The eliminated reports did not contain cooking features, were done as limited testing for eligibility for the National Register, or were excavated for burials and to answer chronological research questions. The 11 reports that contained data on cooking features covered the following 12 archaeological sites: Ca-

But-1 and -12; Ca-Sha-222, -237, -266, -571, and -961; Ca-Teh-45, -256, -261, -847, and

-1262.

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I acquired four grey literature reports (n = 4) and two MA thesis reports (n =

2) of archaeological excavations from other locations including CSUC Meriam Library;

CSUC Department of Anthropology; and my personal library. These reports and theses discuss the following sites: Ca-But-288; CA-Sha-222, -266, -484, -1556, 1738, and -

1991; Ca-Teh-1523, and -1526. I also gained access to the field notes for two sites curated at the CSUC Archaeological Research Program curation facility: Ca-But-7 and -

12.

In total, I had nineteen different avenues of information for twenty archaeological sites. For seventeen sites, there was only one report, for three sites there were two sources. For Ca-But-12 I had field notes from a salvage excavation conducted in 1983 by CSUC in an effort to stabilize the site from eroding further, but I also found the crew chief notes for the 1967 excavation curated at the NEIC. Ca-Sha-222, and Ca-

Sha-266 were the subject of an MA thesis in 1982, but they both also had excavation reports dated 1969 and 1981 respectively, curated at the NEIC.

Sites and Excavation Reports

The sites all lie below 1,000-foot mean sea level elevation. The vegetation in the area around the sites includes valley oak-riparian in corridors along the major rivers and creeks that transitions into blue oak-grasslands in the flatter plains east and west of the Sacramento River. In the northern part of the study area the Sacramento Valley narrows and transitions from one vegetation regime to another occurs in a much smaller geographic area. This region also has a foothill pine-chaparral component.

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The sites all have a midden component reported. Midden is the catch-all phrase to indicate a prominent anthrosol, usually dark brown to black in color with a greasy consistency indicating a high content of organic material including charcoal

(Hester et al. 2009). Sites were excavated between 1964 and 2005. The earliest excavations, pre-1985, were often conducted by universities or other academic institutions. After 1985, many excavations were carried out as Cultural Resource

Management (CRM) projects designed to gather data from portions of sites that were to be impacted by construction and other activities.

The excavations carried out by academic institutions often excavated large areas of a site allowing for a better understanding of the spatial layout of features in relationship to one another. CRM excavations are often only small test units of 1 meter square designed to gather chronological information and determine the depth and integrity of a site. This type of test excavation rarely discovers features, and when encountered, the time pressures and lack of funds often prevents further exposure of features preventing a better understanding. This creates a bias in the archaeological record when comparing sites that were excavated in different years by different institutions, agencies, and private contractors.

Another time dependant bias is apparent in the types of dating techniques used to understand chronology. The earliest excavations did not conduct radiocarbon dating

(C14) or obsidian hydration as these techniques were relatively new and cost prohibitive at the time. In the 1990s, these techniques became commonplace and as such the excavations conducted since have a much clearer and precise date range. That is not to say that relative dating techniques such as artifact typologies and site stratigraphy are not

73 useful, merely less precise. With this in mind, Table 2 lists the archaeological sites used in this study with the approximate earliest and latest occupation dates. The chronological data source is supplied to show if a site has relative (projectile point (PP) typology) or absolute dates (e.g., C14).

Table 2. Sites and Chronological Information.

Site Number Earliest Latest Chronological data source Notes CA-BUT-1 1,500 B.P. 150 B.P. Chartkoff and Chartkoff CA-BUT-7 1,500 B.P. 150 B.P. Kowta, Johnson CA-BUT-12 1700 B.P. 150 B.P. PP Types, Shell Beads CA-BUT-288 2450 B.P. 350 B.P. PP types, Olivella beads, Two occupation phases CSDB split at c. 1250 B.P. CA-TEH-45 1500 B.P. 600 B.P. C14 on feature, PP types, obsidian hydration, Olivella beads CA-TEH-256 Uncertain Uncertain CA-TEH-261 3000 B.P. 500 B.P. PP types 3000 B.P. 150 BP. C14 on site, PP types, 1500 to 500 B.P. main CA-TEH-847 obsidian hydration, CSDB occupation, brief occupation c. 3000 and 500-150 B.P. CA-TEH-1262 1250 B.P. 100 B.P. C14 on features, PP types, obsidian hydration CA-TEH-1523 1500 B.P. 150 B.P. C14 in site, PP types, obsidian 700+-80 and 780+-80 hydration, Olivella bead CA-TEH-1526 800 B.P. 150 B.P. C14 on feature, PP types, 600+-80 obsidian hydration CA-SHA-222 2330 B.P. 1080 B.P. C14 on features, PP types, 1080+-100, 2330+-170 obsidian hydration CA-SHA-237 500 B.P. 150 B.P PP types, CSDB, Olivella beads CA-SHA-266 900 B.P. 600 B.P. C14on feature, PP types, 730+-110 obsidian hydration, CSDB CA-SHA-484 600 B.P. A.D. 1890 C14on feature 570+-80, 1380 B.P. CA-SHA-571 2290, 300 1300, 200 C14 on features, PP types, 2 components, later is B.P. B.P. obsidian hydration main occupation CA-SHA-961 350 B.P. 100 B.P. 4-C14 dates in site, CA-SHA-1556 630 B.P. 200 B.P. C14 on features, obsidian hydration, PP types CA-SHA-1738 1700 B.P. 640 B.P. Obsidian hydration, PP types CA-SHA-1991 3000 B.P. 250 B.P. C14 on feature, PP types, 2 components, 3000- obsidian hydration 1500 and 600-250 B.P.

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Figure 3 supplies a visual representation of the length and intensity of occupation of the sites. The wider bars indicate more evidence of occupation; thinner bars indicate a less intensive occupation.

Figure 3. Site Occupation.

Data Results

Information on a total of 103 cooking features was retrieved from the excavation reports, theses, and field records (Appendix A). Nineteen of the sites were reported to contain cooking features, and of these nineteen, five sites also had data on the bulk weight of recovered fire-affected rock. One site (CA-TEH-1738) did not have reported cooking features, but had information regarding the bulk weight of recovered

75 fire-affected rock. This site was included in the study because of the quality of the data regarding bulk FAR is useful in comparing it with the other five sites with bulk FAR data.

Cooking features in the 19 sites were variously noted as hearth (n = 30); firepit (n

= 19); oven, baking oven, earth oven, or salmon bake oven (n = 19); ash lens, ash deposit, ash area (n = 15); cobble, FAR, rock feature, or rock concentration (n = 14); red earth, burned area, ash with clay (n = 5); and shellfish concentration (n = 1) (Table 3). These

Table 3. Feature Descriptions.

Feature Description Total Hearth 30 Fire Pit 19 Oven 19 Ash Lens 15 FAR/ Rock Concentration 14 Red/ Burned Earth 5 Shellfish Concentration 1

designations often obscure or inadequately describe the feature, or are considered enough description that no additional information, such as dimension of the feature, was recorded. After careful consideration of each feature and all associated data, these terms were discarded and the extrapolated feature designations (earth oven, rock oven, stone boiling, cook-stone grill, direct heat) mentioned at the beginning of this chapter were applied to all 103 features. A tally and more complete discussion of each feature type is located below.

Of the 103 features, 85 had diameter or north-south/ east-west feature measurements, and 41 had depth of feature measurements. The diameter of the features

76 ranged from a minimum of 20 centimeters to 152 centimeters with an average size of the features at approximately 83 centimeters. The average depth was 16 centimeters.

Of the 103 features, only 100 features had descriptions discussing the contents and constituents of the feature (ash, charcoal, rock, FAR, food or floral/faunal remains, fire-affected clay/ oxidized earth/ baked or red soil).

Seventy four of the features (n = 74) were noted as containing ash, and 36 of those contained charcoal. Although it is likely that ash and charcoal were terms used interchangeably, several accounts of ash described it as white or whitish-grey, and charcoal was described as black flecks or chunks of burnt woody materials.

Forty eight of the features (n = 48) were noted to contain rock either as inclusions or as part of the feature such as a rock pavement overlain with ash and charcoal. Twenty six of the features contained FAR. Rock and FAR may be terms used interchangeably.

Forty five of the features (n = 45) were noted to have discolored earth in association. The discolored earth was noted as lenses above or below rock concentrations, and most often below ash and charcoal concentrations.

Thirty two of the features (n = 32) were noted to contain food remains.

Preservation of food items is biased towards hard and durable items (e.g., bone, nut shells, carbonized plant remains). The food that would most likely be recovered from cooking features and from archaeological sites in general, is the discarded or lost remains of a meal (e.g., table scraps, inedible portions, items missed in the opening of an oven).

Most of the features were not subject to flotation or fine mesh screening, and so plant and animal remains that were recovered were larger fragments easily discerned in the

77 excavation unit or screen. This bias towards larger and more durable food remains is evident in the types of food stuffs recovered (Table 4).

Table 4. Food Items.

Food Item Total Acorn 11 Bird 1 Buckeye 1 Faunal Remains 15 Fish 2 Fruits 5 Grass Seeds 4 Other Seeds 6 Pine Nut 7 Roots/ Bulbs 1 Shell Fish 25

Only twelve of the features have been subjected to radiocarbon dating. All of the features dated fall into the Late Archaic Period, with the majority (n = 11) dating to the Augustine Pattern (1,700 to 150 B.P.) and one feature dating to the Berkeley Pattern

(3,000 to 1,300 B.P.). Table 5 shows the features from youngest to oldest and supplies the dimensions and the general date ascribed to the sites, and Figure 4 provides a visual representation of the temporal distribution of radiocarbon dates.

Information on a total of 103 cooking features was retrieved from the excavation reports, theses, and field records. After examining the reported data for each feature, they were placed into the categories that were extrapolated from Thoms (2008,

2009), White (1980), and the ethnographic materials. The tally and further descriptions of each feature type follows.

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Table 5. Cooking Features with Radiocarbon Data by Site.

Date of Site Feature type Feature dimensions cm feature Date of Site n-s e-w depth C14 CA-SHA-1556 Rock oven 100.00 200.00 15.00 0200+- 80 630 to 200 B.P. 2290 to 1300 B.P., CA-SHA-571 Uncertain 46.00 46.00 40.00 0220+-70 300 to 200 B.P. CA-TEH-1262 Earth oven 50.00 61.00 6.00 0240+-50 1250 to 100 B.P. 2290 to 1300 B.P., CA-SHA-571 Earth oven 50.00 50.00 5.00 0250+-70 300 to 200 B.P. CA-TEH-1262 Earth oven 90.00 130.00 10.00 0360+-40 1250 to 100 B.P. CA-SHA-484 Rock oven 106.00 106.00 16.00 0570+-80 600 to 50 B.P. CA-TEH-1526 Earth oven 50.00 60.00 10.00 0600+-80 800 to 150 B.P. CA-SHA-1556 Rock oven   17.00 0630+-80 630 to 200 B.P. CA-SHA-266 Rock oven 70.00 70.00  0730+-110 900 to 600 B.P. CA-TEH-45 Earth oven 100.00 100.00 10.00 1010+-100 1500 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-222 Rock oven 61.00 61.00  1080+-100 2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222 Earth oven 98.00 61.00 9.00 2330+-170 2330 to 1080 B.P.

SHA-1556 SHA-571 TEH-1262 SHA-571 TEH-1262 SHA-484 TEH-1526 SHA-1556 SHA-266 TEH-45 SHA-222 SHA-222 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500

Figure 4. Distribution of Radiocarbon Dates from Earth and Rock Oven Features.

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Earth Oven

Ten of the 103 features appear to be earth ovens (Table 6). These features were reported to have large areas of discolored or fire-altered soils as well as ash and/or

Table 6. Earth Oven Features.

Site Feature Diameter C14 date of Age of Site (averaged) Feature CA-SHA-484 5 Not reported - 600 to 50 B.P. CA-TEH-1526 2 55 cm 600+-80 B.P. 800 to 150 B.P. CA-TEH-1262 2 55 cm 240+-50 B.P. 1250 to 100 B.P. CA-TEH-1262 1 110 cm 360+-40 B.P. 1250 to 100 B.P. CA-TEH-45 2 100 cm 1010+-100 1500 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-571 1 50 cm 250+-70 2290 to 200 B.P. CA-SHA-222 14 80 cm 2330+-70 2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-BUT-288 14 50 cm - 2450 to 350 B.P. CA-BUT-288 15 70 cm - 2450 to 350 B.P. CA-BUT-288 10 Not reported - 2450 to 350 B.P.

charcoal. Six of them were noted to have food remains including seeds, acorns, bone, shell, and manzanita. Six of the features had material submitted for radiocarbon dating.

The oldest C14 date for any of the 103 features is found in this category. Most of the earth oven features have a limited description mostly as “ash lenses,” however, Feature 2 at CA-Teh-45 provides an exemplary case study of an earth oven.

CA-Teh-45 is located next to Antelope Creek and Highway 99. The site measures

575 meters north-south, 275 meters east-west, and contains two dense artifact concentrations and one discernable mound. The site has a house, barn, outbuildings, and a walnut orchard covering it. Units excavated in the mound revealed two features, one of which was a large cooking feature of red and white ashy soil which measured about 1 meter in diameter. No formal artifacts and no fire-affected rock were found in association. Soil chemistry tests

80 revealed a soil pH of ±8.5 (alkali soil which can be achieved by the inclusion of wood ash).

Radiocarbon tests on charcoal returned a date of 1010±100 RCYBP or 1,155 to 715 B.P.

Floatation analysis revealed charred seeds including manzanita, goosefoot, various grasses and acorn shell fragments, and oak, ash, sycamore, and willow charcoal pieces.

Rock Oven

Thirty-one of the 103 features appear to be earth ovens (Table 7). These features were reported to have large areas of discolored or fire-altered soils as well as ash and/or charcoal. Nine of them were noted to have food remains including acorn (n = 2), bone (n = 5), and shell (n = 6). Five of the features had material submitted for radiocarbon dating. The oldest C14 date for this category is approximately 1,000 years

B.P. Rock ovens were often better described than any of the other features likely due in large part to the easily discernable and confined nature. Some of the features were initially noted as ash lenses, but when further description was offered, rock was a major component. The rock was noted as a scatter or pile near the ash lens, or as a moderately dense lining under the ash and charcoal.

A perfect example of a rock oven constructed in the manner described by

DuBois (1935) was encountered at CA-SHA-266 (Figure 5). Features 2, 2A, and 2B were found in close association with one another and were interpreted by the excavators as an acorn bread oven. Feature 2 is comprised of cobbles with a regular spacing “arranged in a dished fashion approximately 80 centimeters across with the outer cobbles sloping upward, A deposit of red, hard-baked clay some 80 cm across, more than 50 cm wide, and greater than 20 cm in thickness, underlay the western edge of the cobble layer. The cobbles were overlain by an ash layer, and in one place the ash was overlain in turn by a

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Table 7. Rock Oven Features.

Diameter C14 date of Site Feature (averaged) Feature Age of Site CA-SHA-237 14 65 cm  500 to 150 B.P. CA-SHA-237 9B 80 cm  500 to 150 B.P. CA-SHA-237 6 95 cm  500 to 150 B.P. CA-SHA-237 25 75 cm  500 to150 B.P. CA-SHA-237 15 75 cm  500 to150 B.P. CA-SHA-484 10 106 cm 570+-80 600 to 50 B.P. CA-SHA-1556 1 150 cm 200+- 80 630 to 200 B.P. CA-SHA-1556 8 Not reported 630+-80 630 to 200 B.P. CA-SHA-1556 2 80 cm  630 to 200 B.P. CA-SHA-266 17 70 cm 730+-110 900 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-266 12 111 cm  900 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-266 2 85 cm  900 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-266 12A 75 cm  900 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-266 3 100 cm  900 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-266 2B 50 cm  900 to 600 B.P. CA-SHA-266 2A 60 cm  900 to 600 B.P. CA-BUT-7 Locus E 100 cm  1500 to 150 B.P. CA-BUT-7 Locus E 150 cm  1500 to 150 B.P. CA-BUT-7 Locus E 90 cm  1500 to 150 B.P. CA-BUT-7 Locus E 90 cm  1500 to 150 B.P. CA-BUT-7 Locus E 91 cm  1500 to 150 B.P. CA-TEH-1523 5 Not reported  1500 to 150 B.P. CA-SHA-222 11 61 cm 1080+-100 2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222 9 91 cm  2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222 2 105 cm  2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222  50 cm  2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222  105 cm  2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222 100 cm  2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-SHA-222 7 Not reported  2330 to 1080 B.P. CA-TEH-261 1 Not reported  3000 to 150 B.P. CA-TEH-256 1 Not reported  Uncertain

sandy layer” (Clewett and Sundahl 1981: 19). Two smaller features (Features 2A and

2B), measuring 80 by 40 centimeters, were located near Feature 2 (Sundahl 1982).

Figure 4 is a reconstruction of Features 2, 2a, and 2b based on descriptive information and a sketch map of Feature 2 provided in the excavation report, Sundahl’s MA thesis, and personal communication with one of the original excavators of the units

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Figure 5. CA-SHA-266, Features 2, 2a, and 2b.

during the 1980 (Clewett and Sundahl 1981, Sundahl 1982, personal communication with

Eric Wohlgemuth, Oct. 16, 2010). Feature 3, also located at CA-SHA-266, was similar in construction to Feature 2, and, when first discovered, still had an upper layer of rock.

Both the upper and lower layers of rock were “stained a very dark color by ash” on the interior oven side of the cobbles (Clewett and Sundahl 1981: 19).

The site CA-BUT-7, known as the Richardson Springs site, was excavated in

1969-1970. Units in this Locus were 5 by 5 feet and levels were 0.5 foot deep. A total of

12 units were excavated in Locus E (Figure 6). A total of ten ash lenses and three rock concentrations were noted in the field notes. Oxidized or heat affected soil was noted in association with most of the ash lenses, and charcoal, ash, and FAR were noted spread

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Figure 6. CA-BUT-7 Locus E.

throughout the excavated units. The ash lenses had a size range from approximately 0.03 meters to up to 1 meter in diameter. It appears that several of the ash lenses overlap, occupying the same horizontal space, but at different vertical depths.

The largest of the rock concentrations covered almost 1.5 meters in diameter, and appeared to have a circular shape in general. This rock concentration was found in association with at least two ash lenses, and is likely the spoils of opening a rock oven.

The other rock concentrations are also found in association with ash lenses and are likely the remains of the rock oven lids after the oven was opened. Several to-scale illustrations

84 of individual units mapped the location of individual rocks in two of the noted concentrations, and one sketch map of eight of the units showed the placement of several of the ash lenses. Using these illustrations as a guide, and extrapolating location data of ash lenses and rock concentrations from the field notes I complied Figure 6. It appears as if Locus E was used repeatedly as a cooking area.

Stone Boiling

Seven of the 103 features fit the description of a stone boiling activity area

(Table 8). These features are often described as rock or cobble concentrations, and

Table 8. Direct Heat for Stone Boiling Features.

Site Feature Diameter (averaged) Age of Site CA-SHA-266 6 170 cm 900 to 600 B.P CA-SHA-266 13 75 cm 900 to 600 B.P. CA-BUT-1 50 122 cm 1500 to 150 B.P. CA-SHA-571 west side - 2290 to 200 B.P. CA-BUT-288 9 30 cm 2450 to 350 B.P. CA-BUT-288 11 115 cm 2450 to 350 B.P. CA-TEH-847 2 - 3000 to 150 B.P.

sometimes an ash lens is noted in the vicinity. Two sites, CA-SHA-266 and CA-BUT-

288, had similar descriptions of rock concentrations that were easily ascribable as features associated with stone boiling. At CA-SHA-266 the rocks were a

“conglomeration of cobbles…spaced throughout the 1 by 2 meter area [with] no particular organization,” and “a 50-cm diameter deposit of white ash was located in the southwest corner of the rocky area’ (Clewett and Sundahl 1981: 21). At CA-BUT-288 the rock concentration was described as a “cache of cooking stones situated next to a hearth,” with “30 rocks in a tight mass one foot in diameter with the ash concentrated one foot

85 southwest of the rocks” (Deal 1987: 62). Also of interest was a brief note in the excavation report of CA-TEH-1523 (Sundahl 1993). Unit N0-E8, Level 10-20cm yielded

36.3 kg of FAR, and was surmised to be a disposal area of used and cracked boiling stones (personal communication with Elaine Sundahl 1991).

Cook-stone Grill

Only one grill feature was recorded at the nineteen sites containing cooking features. It is possible that features of this sort are easily overlooked. At CA-TEH-1526, a feature that fits the general description of a grill was discovered. The feature is described as “several large water-smoothed cobbles overlying a small deposit of white ash measuring approximately 20 cm in diameter. The ash in turn was underlain by three large water smoothed rocks” (Sundahl 1993: 119). This feature measured 20 centimeters in diameter, and had a depth of 15 centimeters. The site, CA-TEH-1526 has a date range of

800 to 150 B.P., and lies immediately adjacent to the Sacramento River (Sundahl 1993).

DuBois (1935) reported the Wintu would cook small fish on flat hot rocks, preferably slate slabs, and this feature would certainly fit the description.

Direct Heat

Direct heat is in many ways the catch-all category for features that are not easily ascribed to a cooking function. A lack of detail in the original descriptions of the features makes interpreting them nearly impossible. Some features, while described in detail, were too disturbed to make interpretations as to function. And some features were described well, however there was not much there to describe beyond ash and rock. As such, this category has been separated into two sub-categories: direct heat with rock heat retaining element and direct heat.

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Thirty two of the features had “rock” listed as a component of the feature.

These features were described variously as “tightly concentrated” fire-affected rocks usually with ash or charcoal in association, a “conglomerate of ash, fire-cracked rock, shell and bits of charcoal,” or as fire hearths with rocks “grouped into an encircling pattern or an unpatterned scattering” (Ruwet 1967: 8; Deal 1987: 60; Dotta 1964: 56).

These features range in size from 50 to 110 centimeters in diameter, and none had C14 dates. Rocks (n = 20) and fire-affected rocks (n = 12) were mentioned in association, but not usually described as to position, number, size, etc. Ash (n = 26), charcoal (n = 11), and fire-affected earth (n = 17) were at time mentioned, but never fully described. Food items including acorns, bulb fragments, pine nuts, sunflower family seeds, elderberry, grass seeds, buckeye, mussel and snail shells, turtle, and animal and fish bone were found in twelve of the features.

Twenty one of the features had little to no description beyond the label hearth or firepit. These features range in size from 40 to 150 centimeters in diameter, and none had C14 dates. Three of these features contained food items, specifically pine nuts, acorn, mussel shells, and mammal bone. Ash (n = 8), charcoal (n = 2), and fire-affected earth (n

= 2) were at time mentioned, but never fully described. What is most striking about these features is the lack of information.

Fire Affected Rock

As noted in the above section regarding fire-affected rock in archaeological sites, an increase through time of the bulk totals may indicate intensification. White

(1980) also calls for a better recording of rock clusters including fire-affected rocks including size of rocks, material, and so on. Most excavation reports from the study area

87 did not include tallies of the FAR. Six sites did contain lists of the amount of FAR found per level in each excavated unit, and one site noted the bulk total of FAR excavated from one 10-centimeter level in one unit (Table 9). Site CA-SHA-1991 appears to be an

Table 9. Fire Affected Rock Totals.

Percentage of FAR in FAR Bulk Total Excavated Total Excavated Site Date (B.P.) Weight (kg) Volume (m3) Volume CA-SHA-1556 630 to 200 1774.64 15.6 11.5 CA-TEH-1523 1500 to 150 36.3 0.01 363 CA-TEH-45 1500 to 600 36.29 15.35 2.4 CA-BUT-12 1700 to 150 2750.28 58.6 4.7 CA-SHA-1738 1700 to 640 246.59 3.8 6.5 CA-TEH-847 3000 to 150 1040.4 11 9.5 CA-SHA-1991 3000 to 250 5073.5 34.7 14.6

anomaly at over 14 percent FAR in the excavated volume; however, the majority bulk of the FAR was excavated from the top 50 cm of the site. The upper component dating from

600 to 250 B.P. is located in the upper 40-50 cm of the site, and the total percentage of

FAR in the upper component is approximately 13 percent. Compare this total with CA-

SHA-1556, with 11.5 percent in roughly the same time period. The percentage total for

CA-TEH-1523 is another anomaly, however this is the one level in one excavated unit for which a weight of FAR was reported.

CHAPTER VI

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The purpose of this study was to bring to light an important part of everyday human existence, cooking, that is often overlooked during archaeological studies, particularly studies conducted in northern California. By compiling ethnographic accounts of cooking technology in the northern Sacramento Valley of California (Chapter

III) and data on cooking features from excavated archaeological sites situated below

1,000 foot mean sea level elevation from the Redding area on the north to the northern

Glenn County line on the south, part of this purpose was fulfilled. Appendix A contains the data for 103 features that can be ascribed to the function of cooking found in the reports, field notes, and MA theses for twenty excavated sites in the study area, and

Chapter V discusses the contents and materials of the features, and the specific feature types.

A second goal of this study was to test Thoms’ (2009) Working Model for

Land-use Intensification: Expected Temporal Patterns for the Use of Cook-stone and

Other Heating Elements for Cooking (Figure 1). This model is based on observations of broad patterns of archaeological cooking features found in the Plateau and Great Plains regions of North America and has been applied to the Transverse Ranges of southern

California (Milburn et al. 2009; Thoms 2008, 2009). Following Thoms’ model, rocks become more and more used as heating elements for cooking as land use intensification

88 89 increases, therefore, there should be an increase through time in cooking features that include stone and/ or a bulk increase through time in FAR. Land use intensification may be a product of an increase in population and a curtailing of territory (population packing).

In central California, a hypothesized migration of Penutian speaking peoples into the region took place during the Middle Archaic Period (5,000 to 3,000 B.P.)

(Eshleman and Smith 2007). This migration pushed the Hokan speaking groups out of the valley and into the surrounding foothills. A period of settling in during the first half of the

Late Archaic Period (3,000 to 1,300 B.P.) is followed by a shift in climate, the formation of modern plant regimes and technological changes including the introduction of the bow and arrow in the second half of the Late Archaic Period (1,300 to 150 B.P.) (Anderson et al. 2008; Rosenthal et al. 2007). The second half of the Late Archaic is often characterized as a period of population growth, decreased mobility and territory size, creation of specialized technologies, and increase in diet breadth to include previously under-utilized foods (Rosenthal et al. 2007).

If there is a change culturally between 1,700 and 1,300 B.P. (this age varies dependent upon researcher and regional chronology), we can assume that by 1,000 B.P. the cultural pattern that culminated in the ethnographically known tribal groups in the

Sacramento Valley was fully in place. As noted above, there is a marked increase in population on the landscape, what Thoms (2009) terms population packing. This would lead to considerable resource stress on the environment and the people. This is where the idea of intensification comes into play and Thoms’ model may be tested.

90

Reviewing the archaeological data, earth ovens have an even spread before and after 1,000 B.P. According to Thoms’ model, earth ovens should enter the cooking technology system early, and persist throughout time. Of the ten earth ovens, six have had C14 assays performed. Four C14 dates are post 1,000 B.P., one falls around 1,000

B.P., and one is firmly pre-1,000 B.P. Three of the ovens with recovered food remains had shell, and four of the ovens had acorn. It is possible that this type of oven was used for bulk processing of freshwater mussel and roasting certain acorn varieties which may explain their persistence through time. The low number of identified earth ovens may be due to the ease of destruction of such features through bioturbation and other site formation processes, the non-recognition of such a feature during excavation (See

Shapiro et al. 2000 for a good example of how such a feature may not be recognized in the field, but proper excavation and testing plans revealed the ash lens to be an earth oven), or the assignment of terms such as ash lens or firepit with no further description.

Turning to features containing rock elements, rock oven features are more numerous from sites occupied after 1,000 B.P. than from before. Four of the five reported

C14 dates on specific features fall after 1,000 B.P., and one C14 date falls around 1,000

B.P. with a margin of error of one hundred years. Locus E at CA-BUT-7 likely dates to post 1,000 B.P. however no C14 dating has been done. If CA-BUT-7 is considered in the post 1,000 B.P. group, then a full 68 percent of the known rock ovens in the study area fall into this time period.

Seven features were recognized as part of the stone boiling process. Often noted as cobble concentrations near ash lenses, these features were found mostly in post

1,000 B.P. deposits. The main occupation of CA-TEH-847 occurred between 1500 and

91

500 B.P., and CA-BUT-288 had two temporal components separated at 1250 B.P., and the features were located in the later main occupation components. All but one of the stone boiling features date to post-1,000 B.P. with the result that 86 percent of the features dates to the second half of the Late Archaic period.

There is an increase in bulk FAR percentages in sites occupied later in time

(post 1,000 B.P.) over sites occupied earlier. But keep in mind that there are only six sites with bulk percentages and one site with an anomalous excavated unit that was likely a refuse pile for rock used in stone boiling. The majority bulk (13 percent) of the total FAR

(14.6 percent) excavated from CA-SHA-1991 was from the top 50 centimeters of the site.

This upper component dates between 600 to 250 B.P. and reflects the trend towards a greater use of rock for cooking in the site and compared with the other five sites.

Data Gaps

The two feature types containing rocks as heating elements, rock ovens and stone boiling, and the bulk measurement of FAR appear to increase in occurrence through time just as predicted by Thoms’ model. In general all the data supports Thoms’ model, however there are issues with this particular data set. First, only twelve of the features have direct radiocarbon dates, the other features are assigned to a much broader age range according to C14 dates from outside the features, artifact typologies and stratigraphic dating techniques. More C14 testing needs to be done on features when encountered and old collections should be revisited. Some of the early excavations (especially the Butte

County sites) saved charcoal from the features for future study, and these collections offer a good opportunity for further dating that was outside the scope of this study.

92

Another problem is all the sites date to the Late Archaic Period (3,000 to 150

B.P.). Five of the sites have occupations during the first half of the Late Archaic (3,000 to

1,700 B.P.), eighteen of the sites have components that date to the second half of the Late

Archaic (1,700 to 150 B.P.), and one site was of an undetermined age during the Late

Archaic. This narrow temporal window may not be adequate to test the model properly.

In part this may be due to the lack of visibility of sites that date to the Middle Archaic period that was addressed in Chapter IV.

Finally, there is the issue of site excavation. Sites excavated before 1980 were usually conducted by academic institutions. The research questions were geared towards answer questions of chronology and general cultural changes and trends. To answer these questions, large portions of the sites were excavated, usually with large units of up to 5 feet square providing a window into the site structure that allowed the researchers to discuss spatial trends. This wide area excavation often found features that might otherwise be missed, but often the descriptions are limited.

Sites excavated after 1980 tend to be done under the aegis of the legislation and regulations regarding cultural resources, Cultural Resource Management. Most excavations conducted under CRM are limited in scope, limited by time and money, and aimed at answering one big question: is the site eligible for the National Register of

Historic Places. Other questions that are brought into play include the question of chronology, and, if the researcher has time, questions of procurement of resources. To answer the main question of eligibility, only a few small units of 1 meter square are spaced through out the site in an effort to recover enough data to determine the integrity and chronological placement of a site. This limited manner of excavation is opportunistic

93 in that if a feature is discovered it may be fully described and tested (see Shapiro et al.

2000 for a perfect example). Although the number of sites in the northern Sacramento

Valley that have had reported test excavations after 1980 is much larger than all the reported site excavations before 1980 only four of the sites included in this study were excavated during CRM.

Areas for Future Research

Although outside the scope of this study, there are several questions and avenues of research that may benefit from cooking feature data. Spatial analysis of features in and between archaeologically defined sites can bring to light use areas, and in some cases possibly illuminate the social element and the production and reproduction functions of households (see Jackson 2004 for an example of spatial analysis of acorn processing areas). For example, CA-BUT-7 was recorded as containing 5 loci, two of which contained house pits, one rockshelter, and one area that appeared to be a repeatedly used cooking area (Locus E).

All the material recovered at Locus E was cooking related (ash, charcoal, fire- affected rocks, fire-affected soils, etc.). Ash lenses were noted in the house pit loci, usually in the house floor, and FAR was noted through out the site, but not in the quantity that it was found in Locus E. The simple explanation is Locus E was a cooking area, with the kitchen removed from the sleeping areas to prevent accidental fires and prevent overheating. But there can be more to it than that. There may be socially prescribed reasons to cook in one area and not in another, and these reasons may be culturally determined.

94

Food is ritual and food is social. There are important contemporary rituals like the Thanksgiving meal that take place once a year, and small social rituals like a shared cup of coffee with friends. Food is prepared daily, and feasts are prepared on occasion, but all meals have secular and/or sacred ritual meanings. As noted in Chapter III, food items, in particular acorn derived foods, were an integral part of some Maidu rituals.

Acorn mush was applied to the doors of houses in spring to ward against bad luck and

“the devil” during the coming year. Acorn flour was sprinkled on the heads of initiates into the all-male yeponi society during their training. And acorn bread was an important prop for the Peheipe, a prominent figure in the yeponi society and a reminder to the people to behave in socially acceptable ways. Rituals and traditions are a reflection of a peoples’ social history, and changes in both can possibly leave behind evidence in the archaeological record.

It could be that the ritual aspects of food preparation and consumption are part of the cultural responses to environmental changes and also that environmental changes are a response to peoples’ changing food systems. There is no first and last, only a cycle of change begetting change through time. Perhaps the rise in the use of rock ovens over earth ovens has a ritual meaning that did not survive into the ethnographic record. Or perhaps the simplest explanation is that different foods are cooked in different ways.

Cooking features and changes in complexity of cooking technology may reflect status changes of the individuals involved in the processing phase of the food system. As discussed in Chapter III, Wintu women who were accomplished bakers of the sweet black acorn bread were afforded a higher status which was acknowledge in the form of requests to bake the bread for special events. This is similar to the traditional role

95 of the matriarch figure of the American family preparing and cooking the main course of the Thanksgiving dinner. So the larger oven features in the archaeological record could reflect a higher status. Conversely, as cooking becomes more labor intensive, a lower status may be conferred upon those who perform most of the preliminary work such as constructing the ovens and tending the fire. Spatial issues mentioned in the paragraphs above may help shed light on status in the archaeological record.

Finally, the energetics of procurement have been studied in various forms for several decades (see Lupo 2007 for an overview of diet breadth and prey choice research), however, the energetics of cooking has not. In an effort to understand the technology and the archaeological patterns of cooking features, Thoms (2008) has constructed large rock and earth ovens and recorded the temperatures and cooking times of various food items. While this is important for understanding the archaeological record, the studies were not conducted to understand the energy input from the individual actors, the cooks and cooking feature builders. Processing and cooking food items requires energy input to gain an energy output, and therefore the preparation phase of the food system is just as important as the procurement phase when discussing models of energy and behavioral choices.

Food systems involve so much more than raw ingredients. The cognitive processes that accompany food choice and food distribution, the technological processes needed to render food edible, the socio-cultural processes that transform the inedible to the “good to eat” all intertwine and are difficult to address. Examining cooking features and fire-affected rock can illuminate some behavioral and economic choices of people, but in the end does not fully explain change in food systems.

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APPENDIX A

COOKING FEATURES DATA

Site Feature Feature type Feature type Occupation of Site Feature dimensions Feature components # (as noted in excavation earliest latest C14 of n-s e-w depth ash charcoal rock fire FAR food reports) feature cm cm affected clay/ oxidized earth CA-BUT-1 50 hearth (in ramada) DH for stone boiling 1500.0 150.0  122.00 122.00  yes      CA-BUT-1 44 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  76.20 76.20        CA-BUT-1 1 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  91.50 91.50        CA-BUT-1 49 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  91.50 91.50 15.00       CA-BUT-1 50 hearth (in ramada) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  91.50 91.50  yes      CA-BUT-1 45 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  106.70 106.70        CA-BUT-1 47 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  106.70 106.70        CA-BUT-1 50 hearth (in ramada) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  106.70 106.70  yes      CA-BUT-1 2 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  122.00 122.00        CA-BUT-1 21 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  122.00 122.00 15.00       CA-BUT-1 46 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  122.00 122.00        CA-BUT-1 48 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  122.00 122.00        CA-BUT-1 51 hearth (in house) direct heat 1500.0 150.0  122.00 122.00       CA-BUT-12 P5 firepit direct heat 1700.0 150.0  63.00 63.00        CA-BUT-12 P1 firepit direct heat 1700.0 150.0  80.00 80.00  yes      CA-BUT-12 1 hearth DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0     yes   yes yes acorn, pinenut,bulb fragments, elderberry, retaining element sunflower family seeds

CA-BUT-12 5 hearth DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0     yes yes yes yes yes mussel, turtle, acorn, grape, pinenut, retaining element buckeye, grass seeds

CA-BUT-12 RF8 rock feature DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0  30.00 40.00      yes  retaining element CA-BUT-12 RF1 rock feature DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0  35.00 35.00      yes  retaining element CA-BUT-12 RF5 rock feature DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0  50.00 50.00      yes  retaining element CA-BUT-12 RF7 rock feature DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0  50.00 65.00      yes  retaining element CA-BUT-12 RF2 rock feature DH/rock heat 1700.0 150.0  60.00 65.00      yes  retaining element CA-BUT-288 9 rock and ash feature DH for stone boiling 2450.0 350.0  30.00 30.00 30.00 yes  yes   

115 116

Site Feature Feature type Feature type Occupation of Site Feature dimensions Feature components # (as noted in excavation earliest latest C14 of n-s e-w depth ash charcoal rock fire FAR food reports) feature cm cm affected clay/ oxidized earth CA-BUT-288 11 ash area DH for stone boiling 2450.0 350.0  134.00 91.50 30.00 yes    yes  CA-BUT-288 3 hearth DH/rock heat 2450.0 350.0  76.00 76.00 15.00  yes yes yes yes shell, bone retaining element CA-BUT-288 16/17 oven DH/rock heat 2450.0 350.0  79.25 51.82 15.00 yes yes yes yes  bone-fish, bird, mammal retaining element CA-BUT-288 1 hearth DH/rock heat 2450.0 350.0  61.00 36.50 15.00 yes yes   yes shell retaining element CA-BUT-288 6 hearth DH/rock heat 2450.0 350.0     yes yes   yes bone retaining element CA-BUT-288 7 ash deposit direct heat 2450.0 350.0  52.00 180.00 15.00 yes      CA-BUT-288 8 hearth direct heat 2450.0 350.0  152.00 60.90      CA-BUT-288 15 hearth earth oven 2450.0 350.0  70.00 30.50 15.00 yes yes  yes   CA-BUT-288 14 hearth earth oven 2450.0 350.0  111.00 50.00 15.00 yes yes  yes  shell, bone CA-BUT-288 10 hearth earth oven 2450.0 350.0    20.00    yes   CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens DH/rock heat 1500.0 150.0  30.00 30.00  yes yes   yes  retaining element CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens DH/rock heat 1500.0 150.0  60.00 60.00  yes yes yes yes  shell, seeds retaining element CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens DH/rock heat 1500.0 150.0  90.00 90.00  yes yes yes   shell acorn, bone, pinenut retaining element CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens DH/rock heat 1500.0 150.0     yes yes   yes  retaining element CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens rock oven 1500.0 150.0  90.00 90.00 7.60 yes yes     CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens rock oven 1500.0 150.0  90.00 90.00  yes yes   yes  CA-BUT-7 Locus E ash lens rock oven 1500.0 150.0  91.00 91.00  yes yes   yes  CA-BUT-7 Locus E rock concentration rock oven 1500.0 150.0  100.00 100.00  yes yes yes   bone, shell,seeds CA-BUT-7 Locus E rock concentration rock oven 1500.0 150.0  150.00 150.00  yes yes yes    CA-SHA-1556 2 earth oven rock oven 630.0 200.0  80.00 80.00 10.00 yes yes  yes yes  CA-SHA-1556 1 large burned area rock oven 630.0 200.0 200+- 80 100.00 200.00 15.00 yes yes yes yes acorn, manzanita berries

CA-SHA-1556 8 fire hardened area rock oven 630.0 200.0 630+-80   17.00  yes  yes yes  CA-SHA-1991 N42/N43 hearth direct heat 3000.0 250.0  40.00 30.00 8.00 yes   yes  pinenut, acorn, faunal CA-SHA-1991 N35/E11 hearth direct heat 3000.0 250.0    10.00  yes  yes  pinenut, mussel, faunal

CA-SHA-222 5 firepit DH/rock heat 2330.0 1080.0  61.00 30.00 9.00 yes  yes    retaining element

117

Site Feature Feature type Feature type Occupation of Site Feature dimensions Feature components # (as noted in excavation earliest latest C14 of n-s e-w depth ash charcoal rock fire FAR food reports) feature cm cm affected clay/ oxidized earth CA-SHA-222 3 firepit DH/rock heat 2330.0 1080.0  88.00 55.00 9.00 yes  yes   Mussel and snail shell retaining element CA-SHA-222 4 firepit DH/rock heat 2330.0 1080.0  91.00 76.00 6.00 yes yes  yes yes animal bone retaining element CA-SHA-222 6 firepit DH/rock heat 2330.0 1080.0  106.00 61.00  yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-222 14 firepit earth oven 2330.0 1080.0 2330+- 98.00 61.00 9.00 yes yes yes  snail shells 170 CA-SHA-222  earth oven rock oven 2330.0 1080.0  49.00 67.00  yes  yes    CA-SHA-222 11 firepit rock oven 2330.0 1080.0 1080+- 61.00 61.00  yes yes yes   shell, bone 100 CA-SHA-222  earth oven rock oven 2330.0 1080.0  82.00 131.00  yes  yes    CA-SHA-222 9 firepit rock oven 2330.0 1080.0  91.00 91.00  yes  yes yes  animal bone, mussel shell

CA-SHA-222 2 firepit rock oven 2330.0 1080.0  121.00 91.00 9.00 yes  yes yes   CA-SHA-222 8 firepit rock oven 2330.0 1080.0  137.00 73.00  yes  yes    CA-SHA-222 7 rock concentration rock oven 2330.0 1080.0    yes yes yes  yes shell, bone CA-SHA-237 18 fire hearth DH/rock heat 500.0 150.0  50.00 74.00  yes  yes    retaining element CA-SHA-237 19 fire hearth DH/rock heat 500.0 150.0  50.00 132.00  yes  yes    retaining element CA-SHA-237 23 fire hearth DH/rock heat 500.0 150.0  56.00 66.00  yes  yes    retaining element CA-SHA-237 11 fire hearth DH/rock heat 500.0 150.0  109.00 104.00  yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-237 25 salmon bake oven rock oven 500.0 150.0  63.50 89.00  yes yes yes yes   CA-SHA-237 15 salmon bake oven rock oven 500.0 150.0  68.50 99.00  yes yes yes yes   CA-SHA-237 14 salmon bake oven rock oven 500.0 150.0  79.00 68.50  yes yes yes yes   CA-SHA-237 9B salmon bake oven rock oven 500.0 150.0  104.00 61.00  yes yes yes yes   CA-SHA-237 6 salmon bake oven rock oven 500.0 150.0  124.50 71.00  yes yes yes yes   CA-SHA-266 13 cobble concentration DH for stone boiling 900.0 600.0  104.00 54.00  yes  yes   shell CA-SHA-266 6 cobble concentration DH for stone boiling 900.0 600.0  136.00 200.00  yes  yes  yes  CA-SHA-266 1 firepit DH/rock heat 900.0 600.0  80.00 80.00  yes  yes yes  shell retaining element CA-SHA-266 17 baking oven rock oven 900.0 600.0 730+- 70.00 70.00  yes yes yes   shell, bone 110

118

Site Feature Feature type Feature type Occupation of Site Feature dimensions Feature components # (as noted in excavation earliest latest C14 of n-s e-w depth ash charcoal rock fire FAR food reports) feature cm cm affected clay/ oxidized earth CA-SHA-266 2B baking oven rock oven 900.0 600.0  70.00 40.00  yes  yes    CA-SHA-266 2A baking oven rock oven 900.0 600.0  80.00 40.00  yes  yes    CA-SHA-266 12A earth oven rock oven 900.0 600.0  85.00 64.00  yes  yes yes   CA-SHA-266 2 earth oven rock oven 900.0 600.0  93.00 80.00  yes  yes yes  shell CA-SHA-266 3 baking oven rock oven 900.0 600.0  100.00 100.00  yes yes yes   mussell CA-SHA-266 12 baking oven rock oven 900.0 600.0  113.00 100.00  yes yes yes yes   CA-SHA-484 4 ash lens DH/rock heat 600.0 50.0    15.00 yes yes  yes yes shell retaining element CA-SHA-484 1 ash lens direct heat 600.0 50.0    15.00 yes     mussell CA-SHA-484 5 charcoal and ash deposit earth oven 600.0 50.0    30.00 yes yes  yes yes  CA-SHA-484 10 hearth rock oven 600.0 50.0 570+-80 106.00 106.00 16.00 yes    shell, acorn, bone, pinenut, manzanita, fish

CA-SHA-571 west side fire-affected rock DH for stone boiling 2290.0 200.0           CA-SHA-571 1 ash and clay earth oven 2290.0 200.0 250+-70 50.00 50.00 5.00 yes yes no yes no shellfish, acorn, filaree, red maids concentration CA-SHA-571 2 shellfish concentration uncertain 2290.0 200.0 220+-70 46.00 46.00 15.00 yes yes  shellfish, acorn, filaree CA-SHA-961 7 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  50.00 40.00 13.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-961 5 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  60.00 40.00 15.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-961 1 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  65.00 30.00 33.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-961 6 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  70.00 30.00 15.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-961 4 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  85.00 45.00 10.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-961 3 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  100.00 35.00 40.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-SHA-961 2 firepit DH/rock heat 350.0 100.0  110.00 100.00 50.00 yes  yes yes   retaining element CA-THE-1262 2 ash lens earth oven 1250.0 100.0 240+-50 50.00 61.00 6.00 yes yes  yes no acorn, pine nut, small seeds

CA-THE-1262 1 ash lens earth oven 1250.0 100.0 360+-40 90.00 130.00 10.00 yes yes  yes no acorn CA-THE-1523 5 baking oven rock oven 1500.0 150.0    10.00     yes  CA-THE-1526 2 hearth earth oven 800.0 150.0 600+-80 50.00 60.00 10.00 yes yes  yes  

119

Site Feature Feature type Feature type Occupation of Site Feature dimensions Feature components # (as noted in excavation earliest latest C14 of n-s e-w depth ash charcoal rock fire FAR food reports) feature cm cm affected clay/ oxidized earth CA-TEH-1526 3 rocks over ash grill 800.0 150.0  20.00 20.00 15.00 yes  yes    CA-TEH-256 1 earth oven rock oven uncertain uncertain        yes yes 

CA-TEH-261 1 red earth area rock oven 3000.0 150.0        yes yes  CA-TEH-45 2 oven earth oven 1500.0 600.0 1010+- 100.00 100.00 10.00 yes yes  yes  manzanita, acorn, grass seed, other seed 100

CA-TEH-847 2 cobble concentration DH for stone boiling 3000.0 150.0      yes yes yes   CA-TEH-847 1 ash lens direct heat 3000.0 150.0     yes      CA-TEH-847 5 ash lens direct heat 3000.0 150.0     yes yes    