Shell Mounds and Mounded Landscapes in the San Francisco Bay Area: An Integrated Approach

Abstract

ABSTRACT Current understanding of the shell mounds of the San Francisco Bay Area, now almost completely destroyed due to urban expansion, is summarized. After interpretations of how and why coastal hunter-gatherers created these sites are discussed, salient characteristics of shell mounds from the area are outlined. Because core questions concerning the meaning and function of these sites remain unresolved, a new project that integrates the results of re-analyses of older museum collections with archival records and CRM work is discussed, an approach that may have applicability in other developed coastal areas. Results of a regional analysis that relies on an assessment of site type drawn from many site records are then presented. First-time discovery of site type throughout the past 100 years is then analyzed across 20 topographic quadrangles; we conclude that the region's earliest archaeologists captured a surprising range of site type diversity, especially with respect to shell-bearing sites. A north-south pattern of shell-bearing sites is identified, micro-regional differences are characterized, and a subset of the sample is analyzed through GIS to investigate the nature of site clustering. Finally, in light of the site clustering, we present models that may help to explain shell mound occupancy and function.