Research Items

Abstract

Chumash Prehistory.—In 1927 and 1928, Mr. Ronald L. Olson spent some weeks excavating in the neighbourhood of Santa Barbara, California, and on Santa Cruz Island. The more important finds are reviewed and comparison between the sites of the two areas made in vol. 28, No. 1, of the University of California Publications in American Archæology and Ethnology. In both cases difficulty was experienced in finding burials that had not previously been rifled by relic hunters. The sites on the area facing the ocean front are of the familiar shell-mound and kitchen midden type, varying in size from an insignificant scattering of a few thousand fragments up to deposits twenty feet thick. On the islands the sites are larger and more abundant. It is probable that they were occupied only seasonally and not all the year round. In all the mounds there is a progressive diminution in number of objects as the bottom of the mound material is approached, especially noticeable in the bottom two feet. This is due mainly to a decrease in shell and bone objects. Differences in pattern a,nd style in the objects are scarcely noticeable. Mortars, pestles, metatés and mullers, flint work, fish hooks, and barbs and ornaments, if present at the various levels, show uniformity throughout. One mainland site, however, showed that there was a change in the prevailing method of grinding when the lower strata were laid down; metaté and muller were used almost exclusively, but later gave way to mortar and pestle. Post-European objects were found on these sites. It is probable that shell heaps yielding metatés and mullers are the oldest. The stratigraphical evidence points to (1) An early mainland period; (2) An intermediate mainland period; (3) A late mainland period. On the islands an early island period equates with the last phase of the early mainland and the beginning of the intermediate. A late island period occurs in which European objects are found. The sites yielded no evidence of oceanic contact, though canoes and circular shell fish-hooks were found.