CABRILLO Shadows of the Past

RESEARCH DESIGN

One purpose of this overview is to provide meaningful ways to evaluate the scientific data potential of the archaeology sites at Cabrillo National Monument within the broader research contexts under study by other researchers in the region. This includes a review of past research and current criticism. Each site — known or to be discovered — will need to be evaluated for the spatial and vertical site complexity with a method proposed for qualitative artifact or sample volumetric comparisons. Finally, there needs to be a definition of the physical and cultural parameters required to design an archaeological mitigation program or treatment plan to achieve conservation and to avoid impairment of archaeological resources. A research design supports positive resource management as expressed in park-wide documents such as a general management plan and implemented through required compliance steps for approval of management plans.

The following research domains are divided by primary research issues, each with testable questions and potential archaeological data required to support sound scientific answers;

I. THE INTRA AND INTER SITE PATTERNING QUESTION

The first question posed to a field archaeologist after finding an archaeological site involves site size, integrity, and importance. These questions relate to how archaeologists link that site to broader patterns of prehistoric activities within a geographical region. A basic question is whether or not the site has patterns of artifact features that relate to behavioral activities. Is the site big enough and complex enough to contain kitchen, sleeping, tool repair or manufacture, or religious activities and are those features large enough to be linked to other sites in the Point Loma area?

This theoretical overview will introduce interrelated problems of "inter-site" and "intra-site" patterning which form a physical basis for measuring quantity and quality of archaeological sites on the peninsula. From this physical basis, substantive research problems involving site composition can be addressed. Ethnographic analogy will be reviewed as potential evidence for site function interpretation. Research issues such as lithic technology, exchange and trade, subsistence and techno-economics, and ecological change with adaptation will then be presented on the physical basis of site structure.

The primary assumption of intra-site pattern research is that prehistoric people's activities resulted in predictable patterns on the land. Those behaviors resulted in refuse that can be distinguished by sets of artifacts and features. James N. Hill demonstrated residential behaviors as distinct from non-residential behaviors in rooms within Broken K Pueblo (a prehistoric Arizona village site) which led Michael A. Schiffer to attribute functional tasks to refuse disposal patterns (Hill 1968; Schiffer 1976). Schiffer's concept of artifact type sets for functions led to important debate on the theoretical approach to intra- and inter-site pattern research.

Michael A. Jochim proposed inter-site patterning within regional catchment systems (1976) that required field definition of base camps and activity areas. John Yellen observed a confusion of behaviors within site types, which he proposed as too many for useful prediction (1977). Perhaps influenced by Jochim, Lewis R. Binford refuted Yellen with ethnographic evidence of Eskimo hunting that correlated artifacts and features to base camps, seasonal, and special activity areas (1978:330-361; 1980:4-20; 1982:5-31).

The result of this energetic debate in the late 1970s and early 1980s was to crystallize theoretical approaches to investigating spatial patterns of settlement within regional, as well as behavior correlated artifact patterns within individual sites.

Geographic Site Typology

Within San Diego County, regional studies of site types over large tracts of land have investigated a variety of correlated site types. Ronald V. May surveyed the Table Mountain area of the Peninsular Mountains, east of Point Loma, and quantified plant and geologic units with types of sites to test cognitive land use patterns among Late Prehistoric people (1980). Pat Welch re-examined the Table Mountain data to correlate data sets with base camps, lithic scatters, and quarry sites (1980). More recently, Brian K. Glenn and Richard L. Carrico have correlated sets of features and artifacts from coastal prehistoric sites, such as diverse densities of bone and shell in greasy middens, to base camps (1995). Bryan F. Byrd and Carol Serr have demonstrated specific artifact groups for resource procurement, processing, transport, and consumption found within inland sites between the Peninsular Mountains and Point Loma (1995).

Artifactual Data Sets and Site Types

Perhaps an even more stimulating research approach from the debates began with Robert Whallon's attempt to reconstruct tool kits within individual sites by functions (1973:16-34). James C. Bard and Colin I. Busby tested discrete living areas within sites by defining house floor features and testing within sites in the Hotchkiss Archaeological District in Contra Costa County (1978). John Craib empirically mapped flaked stone, ground stone, bone artifacts, beads, and pottery with SYMAP, a computer software program that diagrams high and low artifact concentrations on a flat field, and then used data to infer primary activity areas such as residence behaviors based on fire-altered rocks (FAR), religious, and ornamental objects (1982). Earlier, Ronald V. May, Stanley R. Berryman, and M. Jay Hatley correlated FAR ovens with residential camps near the coast of Del Mar (1976). The evidence mounted over time to suggest that intra-site artifact/feature functions within site structure defined inter-site behavioral function within a settlement system.

Recently, researchers using large scale testing at Mill Creek in the Prado Basin of Riverside County have attempted to detect kitchen and residential areas by the presence of absence of FAR rock ovens (Grenda 1995). Donn R. Grenda has used magnetometers to detect underground fire hearths in an attempt to examine "male" versus "female" activity areas.

A. Research Hypotheses

1. The archaeology sites on the Point Loma Peninsula exhibit artifact and feature correlations to landform, geological unit, and vegetation.

2. The artifact types and feature types at sites on the Point Loma Peninsula correlate to ethnographic or published hypothetical behaviors.

3. The individual sites contain definable data sets known to correlate to site types such as base camps, (also known as primary activity area) temporary camps, residential areas quarry sites, resource exploitation sites, and religious sites.

4. There is sufficient stratigraphic context in the sites to distinguish changes in intra site behavioral patterning.

5. The artifact types, quantities of artifacts, and features present in the sites are adequate to interpret variation in activity areas within individual sites.

B. Data Requirements

Testing of the archaeology sites on the Point Loma Peninsula should orient data recoveries to analyze spatial horizontal and vertical arrangements of artifact, ecofacts, and features against previously defined inter and intra-site patterns.

1. Inter-site Patterns. Analysis of the archaeological sites should examine the presence or absence of correlates to regional site types. Detection of inter-site functional types, the field survey, and test records should provide clues to prehistoric settlement systems on the Point Loma Peninsula.

Base camps and residential sites should be identifiable by multiple house floors or living surfaces, FAR rock hearth features, variations in marine shell features, variations in food bone distribution, variations in cooking and butchering of food bone and dark midden soil.

Seasonal camps, temporary camps, or small residential sites should be identified by single house floors or small living surfaces, one or two FAR rock hearths, shell and lithic reduction features, and midden soil with low frequencies of marine shell and food bone.

Single activity areas or special activity areas should be identified as one or two features of marine shell, flaked stone, milling features and/or FAR hearths in shallow deposits.

Assay, mine, or quarry areas should be identified as primary lithic reduction features with metavolcanic or quartzite cobbles assayed with less than ten cortex flakes removed. It would be anticipated that mine or quarry sites on the Point Loma Peninsula would exploit cobble beds in the reddish-orange Linda Vista Formation sandstone.

Sacred areas should be identified as stacks of rocks, rock alignments, or burial features exposed on eroded Linda Vista Formation sandstone. Stacks of rocks and rock alignments should conform to ethnographic descriptions of Kumeyaay Sun solstice geoglyphs.

2. Intra-site Patterns. Analysis of archaeological sites should examine presence or absence of feature correlates to behavioral patterning within individual site structure. Defined as functional areas, dispersed features within buried midden, strata, or alluvium-masked sites should be detected by shovel tests, hand-excavated units, and mechanical investigation.

Residential functions should manifest as house floors, FAR rock ovens, fire pits and ash lenses, artifact features, burials or religious features, clusters of ground bone or shell, clusters of flaked or ground stone, and clusters of marine shell or processed food bone in sufficient horizontal and vertical quantities to indicate multiple behaviors over time. Classic house pits have not been reported for the San Diego coastal sites, but post hole alignments and packed living surfaces coincident with high frequencies of flaked and FAR stone artifacts should reflect living areas.

Specialized functions should exhibit artifact or feature data sets that are known to correlate to behaviors such as milling seeds, working wood or bone, cutting and shaping shell, cooking plant/shell/bone, mining, quarrying, assaying and limited stages of flaked stone working. Broken Tizon Brown Ware, Lower Colorado River Buff Ware, Salton Brown or Southwestern ceramic types should be anticipated in association with game trails and springs (Gross, Hildebrand and Schaefer 2000).

Religious functions should exhibit artifact or feature data sets that are known to correlate to behaviors such as shrine observance, funeral, devotions, shamanistic decoration, and destruction of the property of the deceased. Personal amulets, such as arrow points, should be anticipated at the perimeter of sleeping areas. Red and black painted ceramic vessels should be correlated with sacred activities, such as feeding hawks for eagle dancing ceremonies. Since shell ornaments are scarce, concentrations of spire-lopped side-wall olivella beads, soapstone beads, abalone pendants, carved stone pendants, ground graphite and hematite should correlate to personal adornment and possible sacred activity areas.