Abstract
The places in which people live and spend time are steeped in history, memory, and meaning from the intersection of daily life, environmental interactions, cultural practices, and ritual. Geologic features, plants, animals, and ecosystems merge with these cultural histories, forming critical parts of the landscape and areas of “high cultural salience,” or “cultural keystone places” (CKPs). We identify Kumqaq’ (Point Conception) and the surrounding area in California as a Chumash CKP. Ethnohistoric accounts and contemporary Chumash community members have long demonstrated the importance of Point Conception in Chumash worldview and identity, whereas biologists, ecologists, and conservationists reference the area's rich biodiversity and significance as a biogeographical boundary. Recent archaeological survey of the coastline surrounding Kumqaq’ highlights these connections, identifying over 50 archaeological sites—including shell middens, villages, lithic scatters, and rock art—with at least 9,000 years of occupation. Ongoing collaborations among archaeologists, the Nature Conservancy, and Chumash community members help document and understand the long-term linkages between cultural and biological diversity and how integrating these perspectives can help ensure the resilience of this nexus of human and natural history in the Anthropocene future.
Highlights
The places in which people live and spend time are steeped in history, memory, and meaning from the intersection of daily life, environmental interactions, cultural practices, and ritual
Studies of fishing and shellfishing that explore the importance of the Point Conception biogeographic divide on human subsistence present no data from within this area (Glassow and Wilcoxon 1988; Gobalet 2000). To help fill this void, we present the results of an archaeological survey and radiocarbon dating project focused on a 13 km stretch of coastline surrounding Kumqaq’, within an area known as the Jack and Laura Dangermond Preserve (JLDP), owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy (TNC)
The archaeological sites of the Kumqaq’ region document an archaeological record that attests to diverse Chumash landscapes created over 9,000 years, including the dense villages and satellite sites of the Late Holocene that persist into the historic period communities described in ethnohistoric accounts (Craig et al 1978; Gamble 2008; Johnson 1988; King and Craig 1978)
Summary
The places in which people live and spend time are steeped in history, memory, and meaning from the intersection of daily life, environmental interactions, cultural practices, and ritual. We identify Kumqaq’ (Point Conception) and the surrounding area in California as a Chumash CKP. The Nature Conservancy, and Chumash community members help document and understand the long-term linkages between cultural and biological diversity and how integrating these perspectives can help ensure the resilience of this nexus of human and natural history in the Anthropocene future. Identificamos Kumqaq’ (Point Conception) y el área circundante en California, como lugares clave de la cultura Chumash. In a time of rapid global change, understanding connections between the places people live and the relationships they form with local ecosystems through time is important for enhancing conservation biology and human and environmental welfare. Building on earlier work on cultural keystone species (Garibaldi and Turner 2004), Cuerrier and colleagues (2015; see Lepofsky et al 2017:449) presented the term “cultural keystone places” (CKPs), which is defined as follows:
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