VENTURA COUNTY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY

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1 VENTURA COUNTY ARCHAEOLOGICAL SOCIETY Website : VOLUME 48, NO 2 OCTOBER 2018 MEETING PLACE Chumash Indian Museum 3290 Lang Ranch Pkwy Thousand Oaks, CA 2nd Tuesday of every month Direction: 101 freeway take Westlake Blvd exit, go to North Westlake Blvd 4 miles to Lang Ranch Pkwy, turn right. Museum is on right hand side V C A S : W H A T S H A P P E N I N G Oct 06th: 9am Archival Work Day Oct 09th: 7 pm VCAS Speaker: Paul Goldsmith on : Alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins Oct 20th: 9 am Archival Work Day What s Happening in VCAS VCAS October 2018 Meeting The Ventura County Archaeological Society invites you to join us for our Archaeological Lecture and Society meeting Tuesday, October 09th at 7:00 PM Our speaker for the evening will be: Paul Goldsmith, ACS Alone on the Island of the Blue Dolphins Paul will be presenting a short version (20) minutes of ALONE ON THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS and then perhaps a 20 minute "additional material film on the cache discovery and a short film on prehistoric San Nicolas Island. Paul Goldsmith, ASC. Paul studied film at NYU and then moved to California to work as a director of photography. He has filmed movies, television, commercials, music videos and documentaries. He is a member of ASC (American Society of Cinematographers) and has received awards including an Emmy. One film he photographed, WHEN WE WERE KINGS (Muhammad Ali in Zaire), won an Oscar. He is the author of TALKING STONE, ROCK ART OF THE COSOS. In the last decade he has produced his own independent documentaries ALONE ON THE ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS is the final film in trilogy he has made about Native Americans history in California. He is married with 4 daughters and lives north of Los Angeles. The Raffle It s always fun! We are now on Facebook! Please like and follow us there. We re running a bit low on our supply of entertaining, educational, or delicious items for the scholarship raffle. If you have anything in the way of books, objects d arte, wine, etc., you d like to contribute to the monthly raffle, please contact Barbara.tejada@parks.ca.gov. EDITOR: Judi Porcasi P.O. Box 4172 Thousand Oaks, VCAS Meeting Raffles and Sales We raffle off a variety of archaeologically-themed items at each meeting, including books, pictures, figurines, etc. A bit of fun each month. All proceeds support the VCAS scholarship fund.

2 VCAS September 2018 Speaker Don Morris, long-time veteran of the National Park Service, presented a detailed survey of the discovery and recovery of mammoth bones, both full-size Columbian and pygmy, in several western states. He focused on two recent recoveries of specimens from Santa Rosa Island and connected these findings to relevant other finds such as the famous Arlington man or woman. This famous femur bone was originally discovered and excavated in 1986 but has only recently been dated to 13,000 ybp. Morris terms this specimen Arlington human. The two pygmy mammoth finds include a nearly complete skeleton discovered in 1994 and a skull with tusks more recently found in Don Morris The Old Archaeologist says: You are never too old to play in the dirt! When the first few bones of the nearly complete pygmy mammoth were exposed it looked to some like the remains of some old cow left over from ranching days on the island. It took a team of four skilled scientists including paleontologist Larry Agenbroad to clearly identify the bones as pygmy mammoth. The skeleton is about 90% complete; even small toe elements and caudal vertebrae were covered in situ. It has now been dated to about 12,000 ybp actually younger than the Arlington human. The partial skull with tusks was also found in Arlington Canyon and was excavated in Soil matrix around the bones has been radiocarbon dated to 13,000 ybp--the same age as Arlington human. This specimen is currently being cleaned and processed at the Santa Barbara Museum. Further dating and DNA testing are planned. Pygmy mammoth bones, especially tusks and teeth, can be found even today eroding from cliffs and road-cuts on the island, yet it is extremely rare to find a complete or nearly complete skeleton or even cranial elements. Now, both these rarities have been realized on the island. Although the Channel Islands in the northern archipelago were much larger 12,000 years ago because of lower sea levels, they were never connected to the mainland with any sort of land bridge. The Santa Barbara Channel would have been narrower, and the mammoths apparently swam across to the island. Once there, over time the evolutionary process of dwarfism reduced the animals to their pygmy size. Whether this change was rapid or relatively slow is unknown at this time, and there are various mammoth specimens of many sizes that may or may not track the evolutionary process. Dwarfism is a result of natural selection for small size in the face of reduced environmental resources. Morris also noted that smaller size produced a more agile animal adapted to more effectively negotiate the slopes of the island. P A G E 2

3 P A G E 3 There is no direct evidence that the mammoths were killed or used as food by the humans on the island. However, Morris suggested three issues that may have caused their extinction: reduced landmass of the island over time as sea levels rose, a drier climate over time, and fire. Fire may have been the one direct effect of the human population on the island s mammoths. There is evidence of increasing numbers of fires on the island at about the time humans arrived there. Thus, a lot of vegetation that would have been food for the mammoths might have been burned. The animals might simply have starved to death overtime as human-caused fires modified the ecology of the island. In conclusion, Morris emphasized that much additional research is necessary to learn more about the island mammoth. New research technologies are being applied all the time. GREAT NEW ACTIVITIES AT THE MUSEUM Fourth annual Archaeology Day event sponsored by the National Park Service and California State Parks is being held on October 20 at the Santa Monica Mountains Interagency Visitor Center at King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event includes hourly speakers on area archaeology, a chance to see flintknapping and to try throwing an atlatl spear at a prehistoric target. Representatives of the National Park Service and local universities will have artifacts on display and hands-on activities. Children can learn how to excavate, measure artifacts in the lab, and color pages describing archaeological techniques. Free and fun for the whole family! On the second Saturday of every month the museum hosts a guided nature hike following a trail back to the rock shelter to view pictographs. Local plants, animals, and archaeological features along the way can be viewed and enjoyed. Fee is $10, and it is necessary to register in advance at SCA SOUTHERN DATA SHARING MEETING The SCA southern data sharing meeting is being held Saturday, October 6 beginning at 9 a.m. in room Malibu 100 at California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo. Coffee/tea and pastries will be provided in the morning, as well as a catered lunch in the afternoon. Parking is free for the first 30 cars. VCAS VOLUNTEER WORKDAYS AT THE MUSEUM Work Days are scheduled for the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. Here is the scheduled dates for the remainder of this year: Put them on your calendar. October 6th and October 20th November 10 (A second work day around Thanksgiving will be scheduled only if there is sufficient interest in getting together then.) December 8 and 22. The VCAS is still looking for help in our Archives project. We are looking for someone with library experience and/or interest to help organize the growing library collection. Contact Bob Lopez at rlarchcslt@aol.com if you have an interest in this.

4 KEEPING UP WITH THE LATEST ARCHAEOLOGY IN CALIFORNIA The latest (June 2018) issue of California Archaeology includes (1) an article on relatively rare hand patterns in Baja rock art, (2) a study of fluted obsidian projectile points and their dating from Inyo County, and (3) a likely canoeman s double cache feature from San Nicolas Island. One part of the cache consisted of abalone shell, asphaltum, a fishhook fragment, and oddly several cormorant right femurs. (I guess he liked drumsticks!) The second part of the cache included net weights, a polished steatite cobble, a fossil moon shell, and several bones of a sea lion. Quite an unusual combination of artifacts and ecofacts. MORE NOTES ON CURRENT ARCHAEOLOGY IN CALIFORNIA The Archaeological Conservancy is currently involved in a major archaeological recovery project ongoing in the Borax Lake site, the Conservancy s first preserve in California. The recovery operation was necessitated following the recent devastation of the area by the Sulphur Wildfire last November. A professional archaeological firm is leading a team of volunteers in a surface survey to collect any artifacts exposed by the fire and to determine the boundaries of the site. Exposure would cause deterioration and overall loss of such artifacts. The Borax Lake preserve is one of the oldest in California, dating to about 12,000 ybp. The survey team has found many bifaces, points, crescents, and other artifacts. A report is being prepared for publication. AND SOME NOTES ON NOT-SO-CURRENT (i.e. long-dead) ARCHAE- OLOGY The Canadian Broadcasting Company recently aired a documentary ( The Ice Bridge ) in which the Solutrean hypothesis of the peopling of the Americas was once again resurrected. This hypothesis, put forth by authors Bradley and Stanford in 2012, states that Clovis-type people arrived on the East Coast of North America by trekking over an ice bridge link to Europe 20,000 years ago. The bridge was supposed to have skirted along the icy coastline of North Atlantic landforms. Why this hypothesis is being reiterated now is unknown. It has been shown to be scientifically implausible and has been rejected by the scientific community for several reasons. These are: There is a 7000 year time gap between the Solutrean culture and Clovis. There is no evidence of a maritime culture possibly having watercraft. There is no climatic record of an ice bridge. There are flaking technique differences between Solutrean and Clovis lithics. There is no genetic trace of such an early European migration into the Americas. Time to put a lid on it. Support the Ventura County Archaeological Society! The Ventura County Archaeological Society will have items for sale at our general meetings. These include VCAS logo tote bags and note cards, as well as coyote and turtle pins. Be sure to pick them up at one of our meetings! P A G E 4

5 VOLUME 48, NO 1 Fieldwork Opportunities P A G E 5 If you are looking for volunteer fieldwork, look at an online forum. There is an Archaeology Volunteer Opportunities listing where you can read volunteer announcements or post your own inquiry. The link is This website is an excellent resource for volunteer fieldwork as well as field schools. If you are interested in working for a week in a National Forest doing free archaeology, excavation and surveying, then this is the best site: The Passport in Time project is hosted by the US Forest Service. Certain forests throughout the US that have a heritage team working for them will provide weeks during the summer for volunteer crews to come out and help on excavations. Volunteers from all over the world come to participate and it is a great program. If you are interested in obtaining field school experience for your archaeology/anthropology class work, then you can find field schools here: Most charge a fee for tuition and/or lodging and equipment. Board of Directors Andrew Kinkella - President. Deb Roman - President Elect Noel Van Slyke - Treasurer Tom Trumpler - Secretary Bob Lopez - Archivist Advisors to the Board Paul and Judy Porcasi - Newsletter Barbara Tejada - Webmaster Karen Clericuzio - Advertising Julie Swift - Past-President VCAS: index.html MEMBERSHIP NOTES: Membership requires a pledge to adhere to the Society s Code of Ethics, VCAS dues were due as of Jan 2018 will be Regular $40, Family $50, Student $25. The due increase is to cover the increasing society costs. Mail Dues, with check made payable to: Ventura County Archaeological Society (Attn: Membership Chair) P.O Box 4172, Thousand Oaks, Ca Chumash Indian Museum Archive Work Day The work day for the archives is the second and fourth Saturday of every month. 9AM to 1 PM VCAS Work Days for the month of October are planned for the 6th and the 20th, in an effort to put the Archives back in order. We welcome volunteers on any or all of the planned Work Days, whatever help we can get will be appreciated. Meetings Tuesday at 7 PM The storage container is located behind the Chumash Indian Museum. By checking with Bob first rather than just showing up, you can be given directions to open the gate and drive near the storage containers. RAIN CANCELS If you plan to come, please check with Bob Lopez - rlarchcslt@aol.com By checking with Bob first rather than just showing up, you can be assured there is enough work for everyone. P A G E 5