UC Berkeley UC Berkeley Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Placing Refuge: Shell Mounds and the Archaeology of Colonial Encounters in the San Francisco Bay Area, California Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/605189z7 Author Schneider, Tsim Duncan Publication Date 2010 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California Placing Refuge: Shell Mounds and the Archaeology of Colonial Encounters in the San Francisco Bay Area, California By Tsim Duncan Schneider A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Kent G. Lightfoot, Chair Associate Professor Junko Habu Professor Margaret W. Conkey Professor Kerwin Klein Spring 2010 Placing Refuge: Shell Mounds and the Archaeology of Colonial Encounters in the San Francisco Bay Area, California © 2010 by Tsim Duncan Schneider Abstract Placing Refuge: Shell Mounds and the Archaeology of Colonial Encounters in the San Francisco Bay Area, California by Tsim Duncan Schneider Doctor of Philosophy in Anthropology University of California, Berkeley Professor Kent G. Lightfoot, Chair Spanish missions were established in the San Francisco Bay Area beginning in A.D. 1776 with the founding of Mission San Francisco de Asís (Mission Dolores). Native American accommodation and resistance to colonial settlements has been studied in a variety of contexts in California, including mission sites, but only recently have scholars challenged preconceptions of culture change to examine the range of sociocultural consequences that resulted from colonial encounters. With the present research I seek to identify the places beyond the mission quadrangles where hunter-gatherers both maintained cultural practices and negotiated the adoption of new ones, as well as the processes of cultural change and persistence. I examine a cluster of three shell mounds—CA-MRN-114, CA-MRN-115, and CA- MRN-328—located on the Marin Peninsula in the hinterland of Mission Dolores for evidence of long-term patterns of hunter-gatherer residence before, during, and after Spanish settlement (1776 -1830s). I critically evaluate whether hunter-gatherers returned on permissible leave from the missions or illicitly to these “places of refuge” to supplement introduced diets with traditional subsistence pursuits; practice seasonally-defined ceremonies and rituals; and to refashion social identities. I argue that periodic occupation of some shell mounds by runaway Indians over time both mirrors Coast Miwok subsistence routines that predate colonial settlement and would have reaffirmed connections to ancestral territories among mission Indians. My dissertation research contributes to the growing body of scholarship dealing with culture contact and colonialism. I frame my research within theories of landscape, resistance, practice, identity, and materiality, and I employ a combination of archaeological methods— digital mapping, surface collection, geophysical survey, augering, and targeted excavation; specialized analyses, including X-ray fluorescence spectrometry, AMS radiocarbon dating, and obsidian hydration dating; historical documents; and oral interviews with Coast Miwok descendants. My results suggest that, despite missionization efforts, hunter-gatherers continued to occupy shell mounds likely reinforcing connections to ancestral territories throughout subsequent periods of Mexican and American settlement in the San Francisco Bay area. 1 For my parents i TABLE OF CONTENTS Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………. ii List of Figures …………………………………………………………………. iii List of Tables …………………………………………………………………. v Acknowledgments …………………………………………………………………. vii Chapter One: Introduction ……………………………………………………. 1 Chapter Two: Landscape and Resistance in Colonial California …………….. 10 Chapter Three: Coast Miwok Hunter-Gatherers and Shell Mounds in the San Francisco Bay Area ………………………………… 34 Chapter Four: Archaeological Field Investigations and Museum Research ….. 57 Chapter Five: Analysis & Interpretation of Archaeological Remains from CA-MRN-114, CA-MRN-115, and CA-MRN-328 …………… 87 Chapter Six: Specialized Analyses & Temporal Resolution ………………… 141 Chapter Seven: Placing Refuge and Long-Term Entanglements in the San Francisco Bay Area ……………………………………….. 160 Chapter Eight: Conclusion …………………………………………………….. 182 References …………………………………………………………………. 191 Appendix A: Catalog Key …………………………………………………… 234 Appendix B: Faunal Data ……………………………….…………………… 235 Appendix C: Lithic Data …………………………………………………….. 263 Appendix D: Obsidian Hydration Report …………………………………… 275 Appendix E: AMS Radiocarbon Dating Report ………………….…………. 278 ii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.1 Location of study sites on Point San Pedro and the Marin Peninsula, California ……………………………………………………………… 3 Figure 3.1 Location of Bay Area archaeological sites discussed in text ……… ….. 45 Figure 4.1 Shaded relief and contour map of MRN-115 showing surface depressions and areas of Meighan’s excavations in 1949 …………….. 66 Figure 4.2 Three-dimensional surface map of project area in China Camp State Park, including MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 ……………….. 67 Figure 4.3 Surface collection units at MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 ……. 68 Figure 4.4 Shaded-relief of MRN-114 showing areas of high magnetic susceptibility ………………………………………………………….. 71 Figure 4.5 Three-dimensional map of subsurface resistive and conductive features at MRN-114 showing the location of the summer 2008 excavation unit 73 Figure 4.6 Augering at MRN-114 and at MRN-328, China Camp State Park …… 75 Figure 4.7 Distribution of auger test units at MRN-114 and MRN-328 …………. 77 Figure 4.8 Isopach model for MRN-114 showing approximate thickness of midden deposits ……………………………………………………….. 78 Figure 4.9 Isopach model for MRN-328 showing approximate thickness of midden deposits ………………………………………………………. 79 Figure 4.10 Photograph of Feature 1, Unit 1078N/1056E, MRN-114 …………….. 83 Figure 4.11 Profile illustration of Feature 1, Unit 1078/1056E, MRN-114 ……….. 83 Figure 5.1 Bone artifacts from MRN-115 ………………………………………… 103 Figure 5.2 Shell artifacts from MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 ……………. 111 Figure 5.3 Percentages of FCR, groundstone, and flaked stone artifacts at MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 ………………………………… 119 Figure 5.4 Counts of groundstone and flaked stone at MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 …………………………………………………………. 119 Figure 5.5 Distribution of groundstone artifact types by site …………………….. 120 iii Figure 5.6 Distribution of flaked stone raw material by site ……………………… 124 Figure 5.7 Distribution of flaked stone artifact type by site ………………………. 124 Figure 5.8 Obsidian artifacts collected from MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 130 Figure 5.9 Biface tool (Cat # 7/18/08-2E) from 20-30 cm, Unit 1078N/1056E, MRN-114 ……………………………………………………………… 132 Figure 5.10 Select bullet cartridge casings …………………………………………. 135 Figure 6.1 Bivariate plot of raw Sr and Rb values from archaeological obsidians 147 Figure 6.2 Bivariate plot of raw Sr and Zr values discriminating for Blossom Creek obsidian source …………………………………………………. 148 Figure 6.3 Bivariate plots of raw Sr and Rb values showing obsidian source discrimination by site …………………………………………………. 149 Figure 6.4 Twined basketry fragments from MRN-115 in the collection of the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Berkeley ………….. 152 Figure 6.5 Oxcal 4.0 plot of 1σ and 2σ calibrated AMS radiocarbon data ……….. 156 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1 Radiocarbon Data for East Marin County and Select Late Period Shell Mounds in the San Francisco Bay Area ………………………… 46 Table 4.1 Locations of tape and compass map datums ………………………….. 62 Table 4.2 Locations and descriptions of nine datums used to map project area …. 65 Table 4.3 Artifact counts and densities for MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 surface collection units ……………………………………. 69 Table 4.4 Summary of excavated auger units at China Camp State Park ……….. 81 Table 5.1 Counts (NISP) of macrobotanical remains from Feature 1 and Feature 2, excavated in Unit1078N/1056E, MRN-114 ……………….. 88 Table 5.2 Summary of macrobotanical remains from Feature 1 (2.0 L) and Feature 2 (7.2 L) (Unit 1078N/1056E) showing counts per volume …. 89 Table 5.3 Summary of faunal remains (NISP) for MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 ……………………………………………………………… 93 Table 5.4 Counts (NISP) and densities (per square meter) of faunal remains from surface collection units at the study sites ……………………………… 95 Table 5.5 Counts (NISP) of faunal remains collected from auger test units at MRN-114 and MRN-328 ……………………………………………… 96 Table 5.6 Counts (NISP) of faunal remains from excavation units at MRN-114, and from those excavated at MRN-115 in 1949 ………………………. 98 Table 5.7 Summary of modified bone artifacts from MRN-115 and MRN-328 … 107 Table 5.8 Shellfish MNI and NISP for MRN-114 and MRN-328 ……………….. 109 Table 5.9 Shell artifacts recovered from MRN-114, MRN-115, and MRN-328 … 112 Table 5.10 Counts and densities (per square meter) of FCR, groundstone, and flaked stone from surface collection units …………………………….. 114 Table 5.11 Summary of lithic artifact types (flaked stone and groundstone) collected from auger test units ………………………………………… 115 Table 5.12 Summary of lithic artifacts collected from excavation units at MRN-114, and from those excavated at MRN-115 in 1949 ………….. 116 v Table 5.13 Groundstone artifact types by site ……………………………………. 120 Table 5.14 Distribution of groundstone artifact types by depth