Cultural Site Preservation

Gaylen Lee 9/7/08 Cultural Site Preservation

My presentation will be about cultural site preservation in California. With the building economy in full swing beginning in 2003, contractors were exploiting cultural sites. They had no integrity in cultural site preservation. Destruction of cultural sites on the coastal area was very heavy. Cultural sites that were being destroyed in these areas brought about legislation that protected California Indians. In 2005 California passed Senate Bill 18 (SB 18) that mandated consultation with local Indian tribes when contractors are going to excavate in aboriginal territories. SB 18 insures that counties work with contractors, who then hire local natives to monitor traditional sites, burial sites and cultural sites in their excavations. This senate bill preserves the sites in perpetuity for the indigenous inhabitants of California. In our tribal area SB 18 became a necessity due to heavy inhabitation of the Nim (Mono) territory. We have a vast area, which stretches from the Yosemite Valley to the San Joaquin River, and the Sierra Nevada Mountain range to the flats of the city of Madera. Many of the sites discovered in Nim territory can be dated back 7,000 years or more. Through traditional stories the Nim people know the world began in a high-elevation cave along the San Joaquin River The Nim society through the North Fork Rancheria wants their land be protected through site monitoring including archeological and cultural site identification. Thus, students were taken into the field to observe sites and to learn how to document what they saw. They mapped the sites and placed information on pertinent documents to be preserved for their tribe. They went to an archeological field school excavation to learn how to identify and catalog sites. Artifacts that are discovered, profiles of a wall, and soil stratigraphy were written onto unit level records. Osteology – the study of bones - the students learned how to identify human remains if they are discovered during their monitoring. Monitors do come across bone fragments in their site. They are now prepared to contact a coroner, as required by California law when the bone is of human remains.