3Rd Administrative Draft

Section 3.0 Environmental Setting, Impacts, and Mitigation 3.11 CULTURAL AND PALEONTOLOGICAL RESOURCES The following discussion evaluates existing cultural and paleontological resources and the environmental effects of implementation of the Envision San José 2040 General Plan. The analysis in this section is based in part on the following technical reports: • Cultural Resources Existing Setting, Envision San José 2040 General Plan, Santa Clara County, California, Basin Research Associates, July 2009. • Cultural Resources Impacts, Envision San José 2040 General Plan, Santa Clara County, California, Basin Research Associates, November 2010. • Paleontological Evaluation Report for the Envision San José 2040 General Plan, Santa Clara County, California, C. Bruce Hanson, September 2010. Copies of these reports are included in the Technical Appendices to this Draft PEIR (Appendix J). 3.11.1 Existing Setting 3.11.1.1 Overview Cultural resources are evidence of past human occupation and activity and include both historical and archeological resources. These resources may be located above ground, underground or underwater, and have significance in the history, prehistory153, architecture or culture of the nation, State of California, or local or tribal communities. Examples of historic resources include buildings (e.g., houses, factories, churches, hotels); structures (e.g., bridges, dams); districts (i.e., a group of buildings or structures that have a common basis in history or architecture); sites (e.g., prehistoric or historic encampments); objects (e.g., statues, ships, marquees); and areas (e.g., historic mining towns, parks). Cultural resources may include homes, buildings or old roads of early settlers; structures with unique architecture; prehistoric village sites; historic or prehistoric artifacts or objects; rock inscriptions; human burial sites; and earthworks, such as canals or prehistoric mounds. Historical and archaeological resources are nonrenewable resources that often yield unique information about past societies and environments. Paleontological resources are fossils, the remains or traces of prehistoric life preserved in the geological record. They range from the well known and well publicized (such as mammoth and dinosaur bones) to scientifically important fossils (such as paleobotanical remains, trace fossils, and microfossils). Paleontological resources include the casts or impressions of ancient animals and plants, their trace remains (for example, burrows and trackways), microfossils (for example, fossil pollen and small crustaceans such as brine shrimp), and unmineralized remains (for example, bones of Ice Age mammals or trunks of trees). 3.11.1.2 Cultural Setting of the City of San José Prehistoric Context and Native American People Native American occupation and use of the Santa Clara Valley extended over 5,000-8,000 years and possibly longer. The area’s favorable environment during the prehistoric period, including alluvial plains, foothills, many water courses and bay margins provided an abundance of wild food and other 153 Events of the past prior to written records are considered prehistory. Envision San José 2040 General Plan 672 Draft Program EIR City of San José June 2011 Section 3.0 Environmental Setting, Impacts, and Mitigation resources. Prehistoric sites recorded in the Santa Clara Valley include villages, temporary campsites, and non-habitation sites including stone tool and other manufacturing areas, quarries for tool stone procurement, cemeteries usually associated with large villages, isolated burial locations, rock art sites, bedrock mortars or other milling feature sites, and Native American trails. The Native American people who originally inhabited the Santa Clara Valley belong to a group known as the “Costanoan” or Ohlone, who broadly occupied the central California coast from the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula to Big Sur in the south and as far east as the Diablo Range. Around 1770 (the time of first Spanish contact), there were two Costanoan subgroups in the area – the Tamyen (Tamien) in the north along the Guadalupe River and the Mutsun in the south along San Felipe Creek and the San Benito River. There are an estimated 1,400 or more people of partial, local Native American descent who currently reside in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. The Costanoan/Ohlone people practiced a hunting, fishing and collecting economy focusing on the collection of seasonal plant and animal resources, including tidal and marine resources from San Francisco Bay. They traded with neighboring groups including the Yokuts to the east and exported shells, salt and cinnabar (mercury-bearing minerals) among other items. The customary way of living, or lifeway, of the Costanoan/Ohlone people disappeared by about 1810 due to disruption by introduced diseases, a declining birth rate and the impact of the California mission system established by the Spanish in the area in 1777. Historic Era The City of San José has developed in the context of the major historical periods that have shaped this region of California: Spanish explorations and colonization beginning in the year 1769 (Spanish Period); subsequent Mexican rule after 1822 (Mexican Period); and later annexation to the United States and Statehood in 1850 (American Period). Spanish exploration and settlement of the San Francisco Bay Area began in the late 18th century. As English, Russian, and Dutch expansionists on the western shore of North America became more ambitious around 1770, the Spanish undertook a concerted effort to solidify their hold on Alta (Upper) California. Spanish explorers in the late 1760s and 1770s were the first Europeans to traverse the Santa Clara Valley. The first party under Gaspar de Portola and Father Juan Crespi arrived in the Alviso-San José area in the fall of 1769, followed by another party led by Pedro Fages the following year. Other explorers passed through or near the Santa Clara Valley with the exploration party of Juan Bautista de Anza and Father Pedro Font reaching the lower Guadalupe River in 1776. Settlement followed soon after with the founding of the original Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe on November 29, 1777 on the eastern bank of the Guadalupe River. San José was initially laid out north of the current Downtown, in an area bounded roughly by the Guadalupe River, and present-day North First Street, Hamline Street, and Hobson Street. The adobes of early San José were the nucleus of a Spanish agricultural colony. They were clustered around the old road to Monterey with outlying fields assigned to each family. The Hispanic population of San José climbed steadily between 1777 and 1820, producing food for the community as well as for soldiers at the San Francisco and Monterey Presidios. Ranching was a primary activity and livestock populations expanded so rapidly in the Santa Clara Valley that their numbers were reduced in the early 1800s as herds had become difficult to manage. Envision San José 2040 General Plan 673 Draft Program EIR City of San José June 2011 Section 3.0 Environmental Setting, Impacts, and Mitigation Mexico took over the government of California in 1821 from Spain and secularized the California missions in 1833. This resulted in a change in land ownership patterns in the Santa Clara Valley by dividing mission property into private land grants. The new Mexican colonial authorities permitted more foreigners to visit Alta California and removed many restrictions on commerce. After 1822, San José was a major center of hide and tallow trade as well as other agricultural products. Part of the increased output was derived from Native American labor, which was in some cases enslaved. Attracted by economic prospects, other Euro-American pioneers from the eastern United States began immigrating to the Santa Clara Valley during the Mexican period (1821-1846). San José officially fell into American hands in July 1846 during the Mexican-American War. California officially became a United States territory in 1848 and formally admitted as a state in 1850. The population of the Santa Clara Valley expanded as a result of the 1848 Gold Rush which brought a massive influx of immigrants to California from all parts of the world. The large cattle ranches common in the area during the Hispanic Period of 1769 to 1848 were converted to farming varied crops during the American Period. The community of San José underwent its first rapid growth during the period between 1846 and 1860; transforming from Mexican pueblo to an American town. Growth was fostered when San José became the state capital for a time from 1850- 1851 and then slowed for the following 10 years. During this period the physical layout of the town using a standard grid pattern typical of other frontier settlements in the United States was set out. This included the one square mile area bounded by Julian, Reed, Eighth and Market Streets and the reservation of Washington Square (now San José State University) as a park or school grounds. After 1860, San José steadily expanded and urbanized. Agricultural activities surrounding San José shifted from cattle ranging to more advanced and specialized agricultural practices, including orchards. Also, with the arrival of the railroad and the advance of agriculture in the surrounding valley areas, a number of business, residential and religious buildings were constructed in San José. The need for expanding markets led to innovations in fruit preservation and shipping including drying fruit, canning

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