Cattle in the Garden: an Environmental and Archaeological History of Ranching at Rancho Refugio - Wilder Ranch
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Cattle in the Garden: An Environmental and Archaeological History of Ranching at Rancho Refugio - Wilder Ranch Item Type text; Electronic Dissertation Authors Curry, Benjamin Asher Flammang Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 04/10/2021 12:39:09 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/626763 CATTLE IN THE GARDEN: AN ENVIRONMENTAL AND ARCHAEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF RANCHING AT RANCHO REFUGIO - WILDER RANCH by Benjamin A. Curry Copyright © Benjamin A. Curry 2018 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the SCHOOL OF ANTHROPOLOGY In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2018 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that an accurate acknowledgement of the source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the head of the major department or the Dean of the Graduate College when in his or her judgment the proposed use of the material is in the interests of scholarship. In all other instances, however, permission must be obtained from the author. SIGNED: Benjamin A Curry 3 Acknowledgements I am grateful to all the members of my dissertation committee, Mary Stiner, Thomas Sheridan, Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman, María Nieves Zedeño, and John Douglass for their support, help, and patience. All of my committee members provided much needed support and guidance. Mary Stiner and Barnet Pavao-Zuckerman in particular were endless helpful in clarifying my ideas and writing, and John Douglass and Thomas Sheridan provided aid in connecting this work to the larger picture of Alta California. Thomas Sheridan and Nieves Zedeño provided necessary refinements to the ideas in this work. I am eternally grateful to all of my committee members for their support and guidance, and any faults in this work are my own; and are largely due to my own obstinance and tendency to go down unnecessary “rabbit holes”. A great deal of gratitude also goes to a number of archaeologists at California State Parks (California Department of Parks and Recreation) for providing access to the faunal assemblage analyzed for this dissertation, as well as for the additional archaeological data, and for access to the Wilder Ranch State Park site. Special thanks goes to Mark Hylkema, Larry Felton, and Pete Hanchett at California State Parks. Mark Hylkema provided access to Wilder Ranch State Park, and readily shared his knowledge about the archaeology of the park and region. Both Larry Felton and Pete Hanchett provided help and guidance with the collections at California State Parks State Archaeological Collections Research Facility (SACRF), and patience while waiting for me to finish this dissertation. Additional thanks goes to the analysists who provided their expertise in making this research possible. Rob Cuthrell analyzed the column sample botanical remains from Wilder Ranch and readily shared and discussed the results of his analysis. Chad Yost analyzed the ungulate tooth calculus embedded botanical remains discussed in this work, and consulted on the interpretation of this data. Jim Ayers provided an analysis of several glass artifacts that were crucial to understanding the Wilder Ranch ranchstead, and Ron Shimelmitz provided an analysis and interpretation of glass-tool reduction techniques. Also, thank you to Lewis Borck, Saul Hedquist, Nicole Mathwich, Kathryn MacFarland, Andrew Richard, Steve Archer, Dean Lueck, and William Reitze for years of great conversations, that helped me refine and shape my thinking in general. Finally, both Rebecca Allen and Scott Baxter formerly of Past Forward Inc., and now of Environmental Science Associates (ESA), must be thanked for providing access to the Wilder Ranch faunal assemblage, data, and for helping in interpreting and understanding the Wilder Ranch ranchstead. I would also like to thank all those who worked on the 1987 and 2009 projects. 4 DEDICATION Dedicated to Erica Curry and Marcus Curry 5 Table of Contents List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………………..9 List of Tables ……………………………………………………………………………..13 Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………..15 Chapter 1 Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 16 The Case Study Site: Wilder Ranch ............................................................................................. 22 Wilder Ranch in the Broader Socio-Ecological Context .......................................................... 25 TREM, the native landscape, ranching, and ecological change .......................................... 26 Native Californians and the Missions ..................................................................................... 31 The Ranchos, Native Californians, and the Mexican Period ............................................... 38 Outline of Chapters ....................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 2 Framework and Methods ............................................................................................... 50 Theoretical Framework ................................................................................................................. 51 Research Questions ....................................................................................................................... 56 Testing the degree of cattle driven ecological change at Wilder Ranch ............................. 57 Examining social and cultural changes related to cattle ranching ....................................... 59 Methods ........................................................................................................................................... 61 Computer Modeling Methods .................................................................................................. 61 Zooarchaeological Analysis ...................................................................................................... 67 Chapter 3 Environmental Data, Analysis, and Interpretation ..................................................... 82 Environmental Description .......................................................................................................... 82 Soils and Geology ...................................................................................................................... 82 Water and Climate ..................................................................................................................... 88 Wilder Ranch Vegetation .......................................................................................................... 91 Cattle and Sheep ............................................................................................................................. 95 Live Stock Population Sizes ..................................................................................................... 95 Livestock Population Size and Drought ................................................................................. 97 Chapter 4 Social and Historical Context ...................................................................................... 100 Prehistory, Exploration, and Early Spanish Colonialism ...................................................... 100 Mission Santa Cruz and Villa de Branciforte .......................................................................... 105 SNA, Drought, and Mission Santa Cruz Recruitment ...................................................... 107 6 Ranching and Mission Santa Cruz Recruitment ................................................................. 112 Demographics at Mission Santa Cruz and the Continuation of TREM Practices ........ 117 Villa de Branciforte and Colonial Citizens .............................................................................. 122 The Mexican and Early American Period ............................................................................... 123 Chapter 5 Archaeology ................................................................................................................... 130 The Ranchstead, Site CA-SCR-38/123/H .............................................................................. 130 Feature 1 - the Bone Pit ............................................................................................................. 138 Construction Debris, Ceramics, and Dating Feature 1 - the Bone Pit............................ 142 Archaeobotanical Data ........................................................................................................... 147 Chapter 6 Faunal Analysis .............................................................................................................. 152 Ranchstead Faunal Remain Distribution ................................................................................