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in radiocarbon dating confirmed that the world’s These “flame-style” the ingredients of the stews enjoyed at the end of oldest known pots were actually made around pots were made some the last Ice Age by the hunter-gatherers of Japan 20,000 years ago by people in southern China. 5,000 years ago by and the Russian Far East. “It’s remarkable, because this was during the the hunter-gatherers of Understanding what these people were cook- last Ice Age and these people lived by hunting, Japan’s Jomon period ing has given Craig and his team new insight into (ca. 13,500–300 B.C.). gathering, and fishing, not farming,” says Oliver Chemical analysis of why they may have first adopted pottery. And an Craig, a bioarchaeologist at the University of Jomon ceramics has even more complete picture of why people would York. In addition, sherds from pots made by shown that people used decide to use pottery has come from halfway hunter-gatherers who lived in Japan and the Rus- them to prepare fish. across the world. At 3,000-year-old sites in the sian Far East have recently been dated to the end northeastern United States, hunter-gatherers liv- of the glacial period, some 15,000 years ago. Other discoveries ing in conditions very similar to those of Ice Age Japan made show that people living in Mali independently invented pot- the same decision to create pottery. Chemical analysis of pots tery 11,000 years ago. In the Americas, nomadic cultures in made by all these cultures, though they were separated by both Brazil developed pottery as early as 8,000 years ago, and on time and distance, has given scholars a new appreciation for the southeastern coast of North America, people first began the lives of the people responsible for one of humanity’s great making pots around 5,000 years ago. None of these early pot- technological revolutions. ters practiced agriculture, forcing archaeologists to rethink why people first began to use ceramic vessels. ARCHAEOLOGISTS WILL NEVER KNOW when the very The remnants of prehistoric meals left behind on potsherds first pot was created or what inspired the person may be key to answering this question. Craig is part of an who made it, but they have established that the international team of researchers who have been using new earliest known pots were fashioned in southern China techniques to analyze fats and oils, or lipids, left behind in during a period dominated by a cold climate. Up until then, charred crusts of food still attached to pots’ surfaces. They are people likely used containers such as woven baskets and also able to isolate lipids that are trapped within the porous nets, which disintegrate easily and leave no trace. “It’s easy walls of ceramics. This has allowed the team to discern some of to imagine hunter-gatherers building a campfire in a clay-rich archaeology.org 49

area and noticing that the clay bakes,” says and successfully analyzed hundreds of University of East Anglia archaeologist samples of food from some of the earliest Simon Kaner. “Possibly, the first use of clay RUSSIA Jomon pottery sherds. was to line baskets. Those first pots would MONGOLIA Amur River Jomon means “rope-patterned” in Japa- probably only have been used once or twice nese, and the people were so named because their pottery is characterized by before falling to pieces.” Archaeologists have recovered just a textures on the exterior of the pots created handful of sherds of very early Chinese by pressing rope into clay before it was pottery from Xianrendong Cave in Jiangxi fired. Over time, the patterns and shapes Province and Yuchanyan Cave in neighbor- CHINA Torihama of Jomon pots became more elaborate, ing Hunan Province. No chemical analysis Xianrendong Cave shell midden reflecting the new lifestyles of a people has been carried out on these 20,000-year- adapting to a changing world. The climate old ceramics. “They are seen as too rare and J A PA N and environment fluctuated dramatically during the early Jomon period, oscillating valuable for analysis that could harm them,” says archaeologist David Cohen of National between harsh Ice Age conditions with a Taiwan University. Instead, researchers have Yuchanyan landscape of coniferous trees and warmer tried to glean as much as they can from the Cave periods characterized by deciduous trees context in which the sherds were found. 0 500 1000 miles and lush vegetation. Early Jomon pots were “There’s no evidence of the sites being relatively plain and tended to have curved permanently settled or of these people producing their own shapes and pointed bottoms, which would have made them food,” says Cohen. “It suggests the caves were used seasonally easy to carry from place to place in net bags. Sometimes they by hunter-gatherers.” were decorated with subtle fingernail patterns in addition to A reconstruction of an 18,000-year-old Chinese pot based rope impressions around the rim. These pots were relatively on a cluster of sherds found in Yuchanyan Cave suggests it small, about four inches tall. was a simple vessel with a pointed base that stood just under By around 10,000 years ago, the climate was becoming one foot tall and had a cord-mark pattern on the exterior. progressively warmer, and the Jomon seem to have begun The pottery was fairly crudely made and small pebbles vis- making more pottery and experimenting with new shapes ible in some sherds show that and styles of decoration. Some potters had not cleared debris potters started to fashion flat- from the clay. Animal remains bottomed vessels that could not in the cave provide evidence be easily carried in nets, perhaps of the inhabitants’ wide-ranging indicating they were leading a diet, which included tortoises, fish, freshwater mollusks, and many species of bird and mammal. Analysis of deer bones from the cave showed that people had processed the animals intensely, most likely to extract the grease and bone marrow. “Typically, this would be done by boiling, but we can’t confirm that this is what the pots were used for,” says Cohen. “We have to use a lot of imagination.” THE FIRST CLEAR PICTURE of A pottery sherd (top, showing front and back) unearthed at China’s Xianrendong how early potters might have Cave is one of a handful discovered in southern China that date to some 20,000 used their vessels comes from years ago. Other examples have been found at Yuchanyan Cave (above). biomolecules clinging to 15,000-year-old pottery sherds from Japan. These pots were made by hunter-gatherers belonging to what archaeologists today call the Jomon culture, which lasted from around 13,500 to 300 B.C. Initially, Craig was skeptical that his team would be able to identify food remains on pottery so old, but over the last decade they have isolated 50 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

more settled way of life while still main- taining connections with distant groups. “During this time, we find that the same patterns appeared on Jomon pots in differ- ent locations, suggesting that potters were emulating each other and that different communities were in communication,” says Kaner. The Jomon continued to experiment with increasingly complex designs, including ceramics with wavelike rims made around 7,000 years ago, ultimately leading to the creation of “flame-style” pots some 5,000 years ago. Found mostly along the central western coast of Japan’s main Honshu Island, these tall, tapering showpiece pots are topped with elaborate swirls and spirals that leap from the rim and crown the vessel. Creating such pots would have required an enormous expenditure of time and a high A researcher in a University of York laboratory drills into a Jomon potsherd to degree of specialization. extract a sample for chemical testing. The foods that the Jomon people ate also changed over time. “With climate warming came the oppor- Each Jomon community seems to have had just a handful tunity for hunter-gatherers to diversify their diet, particularly of vessels at a time. This, together with the diminutive size with fruits and nuts from deciduous forests,” says Craig. Stone of the pots, which made them too small for processing large and bone artifacts uncovered alongside Jomon potsherds amounts of food, as well as the time and effort that went into include arrows, spears, and plant-processing tools such as hand- making and decorating them, suggests a specialized purpose held grinders and nutcrackers. The variety of artifacts suggests for these early pots. Although Craig and his team can’t pinpoint that the Jomon people exploited a wide range of resources as the species of fish that were being cooked, the chemical signa- the climate changed. tures they obtained from the pots suggest varieties of salmon. “Salmon run at a particular time of year, cre- ating a seasonal glut,” says Craig. “It’s possible that the pots were used to deal with this by rendering fish oils for storage, a task involv- ing heating the fish for a long period of time that was potentially made easier with a pot.” The resulting high-calorie, greasy soups made from fish oils would have been an important resource during colder times, but it is surpris- ing to see that the tradition endured through warmer periods, too. The Jomon even seem to have used the later elaborate flame-style pots to cook this oily dish. A reconstructed early Jomon pot (left) dating to some 15,000 years ago features a IT WASN’T ONLY IN JAPAN that hunter- pointed bottom. A later Jomon pot (right) made 10,000 years ago has a flat bottom. gatherer communities used pottery to make the most of seasonal surpluses. In It would seem logical, then, that the contents of the pots recent years, Craig and his colleagues have traveled to the would reflect the foodstuffs available at the time. To Craig and Russian Far East and analyzed potsherds uncovered at four his team’s surprise, however, lipid analysis of pottery samples, sites along the Amur River, near where it flows into the Pacific from such sites as the Torihama shell midden on the western Ocean. Radiocarbon dating of charcoal from each of the sites coast of Honshu Island, revealed that the contents of the reveals that people camped there between 16,000 and 10,000 Jomon pots did not change over time despite the dramatic years ago, an era when the climate began to warm and both shifts in climate and environment. Instead, almost all the pots coniferous and deciduous forests expanded in the region. seem to have been used for cooking fish. “It’s surprising,” says At that time, this stretch of the Amur River was inhabited Kaner, “because we don’t find much in the way of fish remains by people known as the Osipovka culture. Their conical pots or fishing gear in the early Jomon period.” feature a tapering rim and have flat bottoms, thick walls, and archaeology.org 51

distinctive parallel groove decorations made with hard comb- Pointe-du-Buisson like tools. Analysis of the food remains on these potsherds revealed that, like the Jomon people, the Osipovka communi- CANADA ties used their pots solely for fish, and that salmon was likely the most common variety. Bruce Boyd site Great Diamond Island Hunter-gatherers living on the Amur upriver from the UNITED STATES Osipovka people also began to make pottery, and the new tech- nology spread quickly along river corridors. Hunter-gatherer 0 100 200 miles communities throughout northern Eurasia eventually adopted pottery, which seems to have swept from east to west across PEOPLE BEGAN MAKING POTS in North America on Siberia, over the Urals, and eventually into the Baltic region the coast of what is now Georgia around 5,000 years by 6,000 years ago. Whether the knowledge of how to make ago. Some 2,000 years later, at the beginning of what pottery actually traveled from east to west or was developed archaeologists call the Early Woodland period (ca. 1000–200 independently multiple times is not certain, but it seems likely b.c.), hunter-gatherers living in the temperate forests that that the pottery first made by the Jomon and Osipovka people stretched from the Great Lakes to Cape Cod began to make inspired their fellow hunter-gatherers across Eurasia. pots with pointed bases that resemble those created by the Jomon. Evidence suggests that these people moved their What inspired the Jomon and Osipovka themselves to camps less frequently than their ancestors. Their pots had first create pottery around 15,000 years ago remains unclear. impressions on both the interior and exterior thought to have The lack of excavated burials and the absence of other arti- been created by cords wrapped around a paddle that was used facts such as bone fishhooks or woven traps at sites of this to shape the vessels. Excavations show that each community age has made it difficult to create a full picture of how these of these Early Woodland people had only a few pots, and that, hunter-gatherer communities lived and what benefits they like the hunter-gatherer pots found in Eurasia, they were too may have derived from pottery. Craig also notes that in Japan small to be used to process large amounts of food. and elsewhere in East Asia, it’s unlikely that archaeologists will be able to find enough artifacts to confidently distinguish Craig, together with Karine Taché of Laval University, contemporaneous sites where pottery was in use from those analyzed food remains on 169 sherds gathered from 33 dif- where it was not. Instead, to help understand the world of the ferent seasonal and semipermanent campsites across north- Jomon and Osipovka potters, Craig and his team have turned eastern North America. These include lakeside locations their focus to another continent. “The emergence of pottery such as the Bruce Boyd site on the shores of Lake Erie, sites in northern North America is far more recent,” says Craig. “So on rivers such as Pointe-du-Buisson near Montreal, and sites we are able to find sites that give us a fuller picture of how the in coastal regions, such as Great Diamond Island in Casco landscape was being used and what kind of social interactions were occurring when pottery first came on the scene.” Bay, Maine. The results show that, just as the Jomon and Osipovka people did, communities throughout this Sherds (right) of pottery made by hunter- large expanse of North America used their pots gatherers during the Early Woodland primarily to cook fish. period (ca. 1000–200 B.C.) in northeastern Food remnants, spearheads, and the remains of North America that was used to cook fish. A stone fish weirs in rivers show that these people reconstructed Early Woodland vessel (above) were opportunistic hunter-gatherers, enjoying has a shape similar to that of some Jomon vessels. nuts and berries, small and large land mammals, and fish. Animal remains found at some inland sites demonstrate that whitetail deer was a particular favorite, making up over 90 per- cent of the meat eaten in some cases. The fact that Early Woodland people consumed deer in such quantities deepens the mystery of why they reserved pottery for fish. Craig and Taché think that the answer lies in key social changes that coincided with the adoption of pottery. Ceramics appear to have first been used in this region around the same time the Early Woodland people developed new mortuary practices that involved placing red ochre and grave goods next to cremation burials. Various Early Woodland groups evidently inter- 52 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

acted with one another across great distances, Shell beads (top) and copper beads (bottom) sharing burial customs and exchanging presti- have been found along with pottery at Early gious goods, such as copper and marine shells. Woodland sites in North America. The burials also show that some people were interred with simple artifacts and others were The fish oils left behind on the pottery buried with more decorative and valued objects sherds suggest that these gatherings probably such as bone and shell beads, copper bracelets, occurred when the fish were spawning. “This stone gorgets, and stone figures known as bird- rather overturns our view of hunter-gatherers stones. This suggests that in death, and probably being people who follow animals around the life, people were being separated into high- and landscape and live hand-to-mouth,” says Craig. low-status groups. “Instead, it paints a picture of people who could plan ahead because they knew that this seasonal resource The extent of these new networks, the distances over would arrive and could even schedule free time to allow them which materials and practices were exchanged, and the clus- to do things like make pottery.” tering of burials together in large cemeteries that were likely The fact that these Early Woodland pots were relatively shared by multiple communities all indicate that large social small, and that communities only had a few of them—as was gatherings were taking place. The oldest Woodland potsherds the case with Jomon and Osipovka pottery—suggests that have been found at sites near large bodies of water, not far- people did not need pots for daily processing of food. “We ther inland, suggesting that people did not need pots all year think that the pottery may have been used to prepare fish round. Instead, it is likely that early Woodland communities as part of a celebratory feast,” says Craig. “The art of cook- used pots during periods of the year when they congregated ing and consuming fish with these novel ceramic containers at locations near the coasts, riverbanks, or lakeshores. “We would have been largely symbolic, cementing social relations think that the places where we find the pots were points in during important feasting periods.” In addition, these pots the landscape that drew people together,” says Craig. “They might have been specialized equipment used for the prepara- were places where they held coming-of-age ceremonies, tion of high-energy fish oil. “Compared to other containers’ arranged marriages, and buried their dead.” materials such as wood, pottery has many advantages,” says Taché. “It can be put on a fire and used to directly boil food A stone gorget (top) and a birdstone (above) are among the for long periods of time, requiring little attention and effi- types of objects made by the increasingly sedentary hunter- ciently extracting maximum fat from meat.” The resulting gatherers of the Early Woodland period. nutrient-rich fish oil might have been exchanged with more distant communities and was likely a highly valued food to be consumed on special occasions. THE SIMILARITIES AMONG all three groups’ style of pottery and the ways they used pots suggest that the Jomon and Osipovka people may have experienced social changes similar to those through which the Early Woodland people lived. “The evidence suggests that the earliest Woodland pots were also associated with hunter- gatherer populations slowly becoming less nomadic and establishing wider networks,” says Taché. It is possible the earliest Jomon and Osipovka potters began experimenting with making clay vessels as their communities began practicing increasingly complex rituals and as their societies were taking on a more hierarchical character. Pottery enabled these communities to collaborate, to harvest seasonally abundant and predictable aquatic resources, and to store nutritious food to see them through the months ahead. In addition, for both the Early Woodland people and the hunter-gatherers of Japan and the Russian Far East, pots also likely had a powerful symbolic role to play during communal gatherings organized around annual fish runs. For these people, no coming-of-age ritual, marriage, burial, or momentous political decision would have been complete without a pot full of slowly cooking fish. Q Kate Ravilious is a science journalist based inYork, United Kingdom. archaeology.org 53

ARCHAEOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF AMERICA UNcOVERING PYLOS In 1939, an archaeological team led Mycenaean palace complex ever exca- by University of Cincinnati professor vated in Greece, and the hundreds of Carl Blegen unearthed the first traces inscribed Linear B tablets found there of what would soon be recognized as have provided archaeologists with a the ancient Greek city of Pylos and the unique window into how these Bronze fabled Palace of Nestor. Celebrated as Age centers functioned. one of the greatest discoveries of its time, it would forever change the study Almost eight decades later, the of Aegean prehistory. The 3,200-year- legendary site continues to reveal its old ruins are the best-preserved incredible hidden treasures. Additional discoveries in 2015 and 2017 would The AIA has created Uncovering Pylos, once again indelibly change the field of a special publication highlighting the history Aegean Bronze Age archaeology: the and archaeology of this ancient site. grave of the so-called Griffin Warrior and two monumental tholos tombs. To receive your copy of Uncovering Pylos, The burials contained a trove of finely make a $25 donation to the Annual Fund. crafted objects that have provided even Go to archaeological.org/donate more new information about the people who lived and died in Pylos thousands Or, please send a check, payable to: of years ago. These new discoveries continue to prove what an exceptional The Archaeological Institute of America place ancient Pylos once was, and Attn: Development Department that, although the site has been inves- 44 Beacon Street, Boston, tigated by archaeologists for more MA 02108 than three-quarters of a century, there is still much to be learned today while uncovering Pylos. The AIA thanks Richard C. MacDonald for his generous support of the Uncovering Pylos Project.

An 1886 painting by Carl von Perbandt shows a Native American camp in California. LETTER FROM THE BAY AREA CALIFORNIA’S COASTAL HOMELANDS How Native Americans defied Spanish missionaries and preserved their way of life by Andrew Curry In the shade of a ground-floor parking Between 1777 and 1833, what is today City in the late eighteenth and early deck inside a campus garage, Santa the city of Santa Clara was the site of nineteenth centuries. Clara University archaeologist Lee a Spanish missionary outpost. Home Panich points out a dark rectangle to a few Franciscan friars, a handful In 2012, construction work etched into the gray concrete surface. of Spanish soldiers, and hundreds of prompted the university to dig up an It marks the foundation of an adobe Indigenous Californians, it was one area the size of a city block a few hun- structure, one of the few physical of a string of missions that extended dred yards from the campus’ mission- reminders of a part of California the reach of the Spanish Empire style church, built in 1926 after a history usually left out of the books. nearly 2,000 miles north of Mexico fire destroyed the original. Historical records showed that many of the mis- archaeology.org 55

LETTER FROM THE BAY AREA Toms Point which began in 1769 with the establish- thought Natives came to the mis- ment of Mission San Diego and ended sions and lost their culture,” Panich China Camp State Park in 1833 when the missions were dis- says. “You can look at the archaeol- solved by Mexican authorities. ogy and see that wasn’t the case.” The San Francisco story archaeologists are telling now is This 64-year period is typically a hopeful one in which Native com- CALIFORNIA thought of as the end of the state’s munities in and around San Francisco Indigenous communities. “The pre- responded to the missions by retreat- Santa Clara dominant story is that Native people ing to remote areas or by adapting had their time and that it ended in the their traditions to cope with the new San Juan mission period,” says Tsim Schneider, European ones. In fact, these Califor- Bautista an archaeologist at the University of nian Native Americans are still here. California, Santa Cruz, and a member “Histories leave out the survivors,” 0 10 20 30 40 50 miles of the Federated Indians of Graton says Schneider. “We’re putting people Rancheria, a group made up of Southern back in the picture.” sion’s Native inhabitants were crowded Pomo and Coast Miwok people. For into long adobe barracks near the mis- more than a century, that dark narrative California was once home to sion church like the barracks whose hundreds of Native groups foundation is marked in the parking A dark outline in a Santa Clara with several dozen mutually garage. During the excavation, archae- University parking garage marks the site unintelligible languages. Their first ologists found evidence—postholes, of an adobe barracks that once housed fleeting contact with Europeans was artifacts, and plant remains—that Native people at Mission Santa Clara. in 1542, when Spanish explorer Juan other Native residents had made their Cabrillo sailed up the California homes nearby in dwellings constructed has dominated how California’s colonial coast. A few decades later, the English of lightweight tule reed, creating a bus- era is remembered. But new excava- explorer Sir Francis Drake made tling town around the church. Mem- tions in the Bay Area and new studies landfall near San Francisco. Past bers of Native American tribes from of collections in museum and university excavations have uncovered fragments across the San Francisco Bay Area storerooms are allowing researchers to of sixteenth-century Ming Dynasty lived alongside each other, for per- reconsider that old interpretation. (1368–1644) pottery from China haps the first time. “This was the core fashioned into scraping tools and of the Native neighborhood,” Panich Over the past decade, Panich and beads. According to Schneider, this is says, walking out into the bright Cali- others have uncovered evidence that evidence that Coast Miwok people fornia sun. “The only way you could Indigenous Californians maintained were interacting and exchanging have found it was with ground-pen- their traditions throughout the mis- material with Drake’s crew and others etrating radar or a big construction sion period, both within and outside who stopped briefly in the region. project like this.” the missions’ adobe walls. “People It wasn’t until the late 1700s that The soil stains left by postholes Spanish colonists began streaming into and firepits weren’t all that researchers California in earnest. The 21 missions uncovered. Hundreds of obsidian tools, they founded, stretching from San glass and shell beads, and other finds Diego to Sonoma, 20 miles north of now rest in dozens of cardboard storage San Francisco, left an indelible imprint. boxes at the university. These artifacts Even today, the geography of California and others are helping to illuminate is shaped by the missions. The Camino how Indigenous Californians reacted to Real, the “Royal Road” that linked Spanish missionaries—and how their then-remote outposts with Spanish cultures outlived the missions, persist- colonies farther south, still forms the ing long after Spanish rule ended. At main streets of many California towns Santa Clara and other sites across Cali- along the colonial highway. And some fornia, archaeologists are working to of California’s best-known towns and better understand the mission period, cities, from San Diego and Santa Bar- bara in the south to Santa Cruz and San 56 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

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LETTER FROM THE BAY AREA Archaeologist Tsim Schneider and a member of his team survey the site of Toms California, Berkeley, anthropologist, Point on the Tomales Bay north of San Francisco. Alfred Kroeber, sought out elders from various Bay Area tribes as part of Francisco farther north, began as lonely Mission records paint a grim pic- a larger effort among anthropologists mission churches. ture of the toll the system took. Of of the time to document “vanishing” an estimated 300,000 Native people Indigenous cultures. Kroeber and The outposts were a way for the living in California before the Spanish his students compiled place names, Spanish Empire to lay claim to Cali- arrived, only about 20,000 were left in vocabularies, and details about reli- fornia with relatively few colonists 1834. Church records show that more gious practices, traditional dances, and little expense. Each mission was than 8,200 Native people died from diet, and more. Because the people situated about a day’s journey from the European diseases such as measles or they interviewed spoke English and next and was supervised by one or two from the maltreatment and malnour- Spanish and did not act the way Kroe- priests. Archives kept by the Francis- ishment they were subject to in the ber imagined Native people should, can friars who ran the missions record- space of a few decades at the Bay Area he concluded that the Ohlone, Coast ing births, baptisms, and deaths show missions: Santa Clara, in the heart of Miwok, Yokuts, Mutsun, and other that thousands of Indigenous Califor- what is now known as Silicon Valley; tribes that had once lived around the nians were rounded up and brought to San Jose, located a few miles from San Francisco Bay were “extinct as the missions to be converted to Chris- what is now Fremont; the San Francis- far as all practical purposes are con- tianity, sometimes by force. The new co outpost at the entrance to the San cerned.” That assumption has shaped converts lived at the missions—often Francisco Bay; and those to the north archaeological research in the century unwillingly, able to leave only with per- in San Rafael and Sonoma. since. Native people and their culture mission from the friars in charge—and had been wiped out by the missions, labored for the Spanish. They grew After a little more than 60 years, the thinking went, so looking for evi- European crops such as barley, wheat, the missions came to an end. Mexico, dence of Indigenous culture after 1769 apples, and pears, and herded cattle, which controlled much of modern-day did not serve any purpose. whose hides and tallow were sources California at the time, gained indepen- of income for the church. Many lived dence from Spain in 1821. The missions Beginning when he was a graduate in adobe barracks like the one whose became Mexican government property student, Schneider was determined to foundations were uncovered in Santa and their land was sold off. Over the change that narrative. The federal gov- Clara, a dramatic change from their next century, the surviving Indigenous ernment stopped recognizing Schnei- traditional homes, which would have people were collected on rancherias, der’s Coast Miwok tribe in 1958, forc- been round houses made of wood and the California equivalent of reserva- ing its members to spend the next four tule reeds. Others, meanwhile, refused tions, which were often small pieces of decades fighting to prove it still exist- to move to the missions, continuing to rugged, remote land where it was dif- ed. This effort culminated in the tribe live in their traditional villages during ficult to make a living. winning back federal recognition in this period and beyond. 2000 and served as a reminder of the In the 1920s, a University of practical consequences of Kroeber’s claim that California’s Indigenous peo- ple had vanished. Schneider became interested in how his ancestors and other Native people managed to sur- vive and maintain their culture despite enforced conversion and the difficult living conditions of the missions. “The idea is to think about colonial sites dif- ferently—not as an end point, but as a waypoint,” he says. “People did the mission thing for a few decades, then went on to find other ways to live.” Between 2007 and 2009, Schnei- der conducted excavations at a trio of shell mounds at China Camp State 58 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

Park north of San Francisco. The team conducted magnetometry and mounds, made up mostly of centuries’ electrical resistivity surveys looking worth of discarded mussel, oyster, and for evidence of houses or hearths on other shells, are massive—the largest the shell mounds at China Camp. is 15 feet tall and 145 feet across. Such With permission from the Federated shell mounds are now a rare sight, but Indians of Graton Rancheria, whose archaeological surveys from the early ancestral land included the China 1900s—before freeways, factories, and Camp mounds, Schneider excavated office parks transformed the landscape hearths and collected sediment of the Bay Area—documented more samples from the site, adding evidence than 400 similar examples. More than to boxes full of finds gathered at the just trash dumps, they often served as site in the late 1940s. And indeed, EXPERT-LED ARCHAEOLOGICAL & CULTURAL TOURS village sites and locations for burials. when shells, charcoal, basketry TOUR OPERATOR Yet until recently, archaeologists con- fragments, and other China Camp OF THE YEAR sidered these once-ubiquitous features artifacts were radiocarbon dated, the 2015 Gold Award, 2016 Silver Award, 2017 Gold Award, 2018 Silver Award & of the landscape part of California’s results showed that people occupied 2019 Silver Award prehistory. Life on and around the Bay the mounds from 1440 well into the - AITO (The Association of Independent Tour Operators) Area’s shell mounds, they thought, 1800s. They also continued to use One of the world’s ended as soon as Europeans arrived in traditional flint, obsidian, and other “Top Ten Learning Retreats” stone tools despite the - National Geographic fact that metal became CRUISING THE DALMATIAN COAST: FROM ŠIBENIK TO ZADAR common at nearby WALKING AND CRUISING missions. It is clear THE LYCIAN SHORE that people maintained Escorted Archaeological Tours, Gulet Cruises and Private Charters their traditions even Tel. USA 855 443 3027, UK 01600 888220 when European imports WWW.PETERSOMMER.COM 59 became available. Analysis of the plant remains and animal bones showed that people living atop the China Camp mounds subsisted on an abun- dant array of seafood and birds, along with Glass points from Toms Point (top left) and Mission deer, pronghorn, sea Santa Clara (above), as well as a ceramic point (top right) otters, and harbor seals, from the mission, were made by Indigenous people even as nearby missions in California who adapted their traditional techniques introduced European- to these new materials. style agriculture and cattle herding to the the area. When excavations in the early region. “It turns out we didn’t need the part of the twentieth century unearthed Franciscans to tell us where to live and evidence to the contrary—pottery and what to eat,” Schneider says. glass from the 1800s, for example—the The finds at China Camp prompted artifacts were dismissed as anomalies, Schneider and Panich to look for other evidence of a precontact site with early evidence that Indigenous communities American settlers living on top. “But persisted beyond the mission period. why couldn’t that be Native people living In 2015 and 2016 they excavated at on that site?” Panich wondered. a trading post called Toms Point— Over two summers, Schneider’s founded by a white settler in the early archaeology.org

LETTER FROM THE BAY AREA 170-year-old building. Opening a box full of black flakes stored in plastic bags, Panich explains that by analyzing chemicals in the volcanic glass, archaeologists can trace the tools back to their source and show that, alongside An obsidian point from Mission Santa Clara is evidence that the material was still the tool technology itself, precontact traded across California well into the Spanish mission period. trade networks persisted into the mission period. “Trade networks didn’t 1840s—on the Pacific coast north of that people there were applying just disappear,” Panich says. “Native San Francisco. To keep their impact traditional techniques to new people were still able to obtain these on the land as minimal as possible, the materials in the shadow of the mission materials.” At Santa Clara, he found team used ground-penetrating radar church. For example, there, too, they obsidian cutting tools from the height to identify the heart of the settlement. repurposed bottle glass and porcelain of the mission period that were sourced They then collected material from the sherds to make arrow points. “People from the Napa Valley, nearly 100 miles surface and from a handful of small had access to new materials,” Panich to the north, and even from the eastern test excavation pits. says, “but were using them as ironic slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Radiocarbon dating showed that commentary: ‘Here’s your trash and nearly 300 miles away. the site was occupied beginning 5,000 we’re going to make something to The excavations also revealed years ago and continuing through the shoot you with.’” evidence that the Ohlone and other mission period and beyond, contra- dicting the idea that the missions had rounded up or killed everyone living in the region. And just as at China Camp, the nature of the artifacts at Toms Point provided evidence that Native culture was far from extinct. Well into the 1840s, nearly 60 years after Span- ish missionaries first started pushing Coast Miwok people into missions, and just a few years before California became a state, people were crafting discarded glass bottles into cutting implements and metal spikes into fish- hooks while continuing to make stone tools. “We can see that these techno- logical traditions persisted,” Panich says. “The assumption always was that Mission San Juan Bautista is one of California’s best-preserved missions. metal tools were better than stone and had replaced them as soon as they were introduced. But people clearly During the 2012 preconstruction Indigenous people continued to didn’t give stone tools up.” excavations, archaeologists unearthed practice traditional religious beliefs at thousands of mission-era obsidian the missions. Pits containing burned More recently, Panich’s focus has flakes, more stone tools than shell beads, boot spurs, and other turned back to the missions archaeologists had collected in nearly personal possessions—“high-status themselves. Because of a century of Bay Area archaeology. stuff,” Panich says—showed that construction work to expand Santa Along with hundreds of other artifacts mourning ceremonies that included Clara’s campus, archaeologists were from the dig, these are now stored such offerings continued even after able to finally take a close look at the in a campus warehouse and at the Catholic friars banned them. “People part of the mission where Indigenous university’s Community Heritage Lab, people lived. Their findings showed an archaeology facility housed in a (continued on page 62) 60 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

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LETTER FROM THE BAY AREA (continued from page 60) present, not past.” Church, and the land around it to San Juan Bautista is one of the private owners. In 2021, scans of an were practicing traditional burial rites,” empty lot not far from the central Panich says. “It makes you wonder how state’s best preserved missions. It mission complex detected the circular successful the missions really were at was a destination for generations of converting people.” Bay Area fourth graders, who learned outlines of Native-style houses next about the mission system as part of the to one of the mission’s adobe barracks Schneider and Panich hope that state history curriculum. Until 2017, blocks. “We found the indentation archaeological work at the building replicas of San Juan Bautista missions and at Native sites in and other missions out of Popsicle of the floor surface and postholes,” the surrounding landscape will shift sticks or sugar cubes was an elemen- says GeorgeAnn DeAntoni, an how people talk about California’s tary school rite of passage, along with archaeobotanist at the University of Indigenous community. So do many California, Santa Cruz. This type of other California Native Americans. On a field trip to one of the surviving mis- evidence is uncommon, because the a windy day in the summer of 2021, sion churches. Those tours typically walls of the traditional tule round Kanyon Sayers-Roods stood outside skimmed over the toll the missions houses aren’t usually preserved in the the locked metal gate of Mission San took on California’s Indigenous popu- archaeological record. Juan Bautista, about 50 miles south of lation, such as the 19,000 Mutsun Santa Clara. Sayers-Roods, who also Ohlone and other California Native The tule houses, which were goes by CoyoteWoman, is Ohlone and Americans whose deaths are recorded burned regularly to eliminate pests and Chumash and a member of the Indian in San Juan Bautista’s mission archives. then rebuilt with abundant local mate- Canyon community. Her ancestors “The stories that have been told at San lived in the fertile San Juan Valley for rials, offered healthier living spaces millennia, even after the missions at Juan Bautista are very one-sided,” says San Juan Bautista and nearby Santa California State Parks archaeologist than the crowded Spanish-style adobe Cruz were founded in 1797. “It’s easy Zackary Moskowitz. houses arrayed near the mission’s to say, ‘They were here, they used to church. In 2015, another scan revealed do this,’” Sayers-Roods says. “But we Today, San Juan Bautista is a an unexcavated adobe barracks with need to talk about Native peoples as patchwork. Parts of the former 50 small rooms. Schneider says it may mission property are owned by the have housed hundreds of people in state of California and managed by crowded conditions that made it easy California State Parks. The mission for disease to spread. “As much as the church itself belongs to the Catholic Franciscan padres tried to get people inside adobe barracks, the people The adobe foundations of the former Mission Santa Clara have been found in chose not to live in them,” Schneider people’s backyards and across the university’s campus. says. “They kept building tule homes at the missions.” The houses and hearths offer an opportunity to explore plant remains to learn what Ohlone and others at the mission were growing and eating and whether they continued to use plants for food, medicine, and construction materials in traditional ways. With the permission of California State Parks and participation from the Amah Mut- sun, DeAntoni plans to analyze samples from hearths at the center of several pit houses. She hopes the results will also show how the missions affected the environment. “The knowledge you gain from one of these small tule houses could tell you a lot about how people were interacting with the landscape,” she says. DeAntoni suspects that, over time, traditional lifestyles became 62 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

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DISPATCHES archaeological.org FROM THE AIA EXCAVATE EDUCATE ADVOCATE ARCHAEOCON 2022: FROM MAYA MURALS TO SHIPWRECKS Almost 800 archaeology enthusiasts pandemic, we decided to hold ArchaeoCon last known ship to bring enslaved people spent Saturday, March 5, taking part in 2022 again as a fully virtual event. to America. He spoke about his experience ArchaeoCon—an annual public outreach as series adviser and frequent guest on program from the AIA celebrating ArchaeoCon 2022 featured live National Geographic’s Drain the Oceans and archaeology and archaeologists. This presentations from award-winning discussed how archaeological work and the was our fourth ArchaeoCon and our archaeologist and archaeological illustrator documentary series have informed each second fully virtual one. The reaction we Heather Hurst and world-renowned other. received to switching from an in-person maritime archaeologist James Delgado. event to a virtual program in 2021 was Hurst, a professor in the anthropology Between these two talks, archaeologist overwhelmingly positive. Attendance more department at Skidmore College, is an Ilaria Patania hosted a bread-making than doubled and people from all over the expert on ancient Maya wall paintings workshop that featured her take on a first- world logged in to see live presentations, and director of the San Bartolo-Xultun century A.D. Pompeian bread recipe. While participate in workshops, and peruse the Regional Archaeology Project. Her the dough was rising, Ilaria gave viewers a on-demand content that we created for presentation took viewers along on her brief history of Roman cuisine. the event. Most gratifyingly, we received 10-year effort to reassemble nearly 7,000 feedback from people who couldn’t attend fragments of mural paintings collected In addition to the live presentations, in-person events and were grateful for the during excavations at the Las Pinturas ArchaeoCon attendees had access to a program’s increased accessibility. Based on pyramid at the Maya site of San Bartolo variety of on-demand content, including this response and the lingering COVID-19 in Guatemala, a project you may have read trivia games, galleries featuring entries about in “Piecing Together Maya Creation from AIA’s photo and Build Your Own Archaeologist, illustrator, and ArchaeoCon Stories” in the November/December 2021 Monument contests, and prerecorded presenter Heather Hurst works at issue of ARCHAEOLOGY. interviews with archaeologists Kara Xultun, Guatemala. Cooney and Debby Sneed. Cooney, an Delgado has worked on some of expert on funerary and burial practices in history’s most iconic shipwrecks, including ancient Egypt, discussed her career and her Titanic, the lost fleet of Kublai Khan’s 1281 publications, including her newest book, invasion of Japan, the Civil War wreck of The Good Kings. Sneed shared her research USS Monitor, and most recently, Clotilda, the into disability and described the lives of disabled people in ancient Greece. ArchaeoCon has something for people of all ages who are excited about archaeology and are looking for a fun way to engage with archaeologists. People from 11 countries logged in to ArchaeoCon 2022, and more than 60 percent of our attendees were first-timers. Programs like ArchaeoCon help the AIA fulfill its mission of informing and educating people about archaeology and archaeological discoveries. We would like to thank all of you who attended ArchaeoCon and made it a resounding success. We would also like to thank our main presenting sponsors, Kathleen and David Boochever and Mark Hurst and Christine Cronin-Hurst. See you next year at ArchaeoCon 2023! 65

DISPATCHES FROM THE AIA EXCAVATE EDUCATE ADVOCATE ARCHAEOLOGY ABRIDGED Winning entry in the AIA’s 2022 photo contest, Monuments category: The pandemic and its restrictions encouraged the AIA to The Library of Celsus in Ephesus by look at new ways to fulfill our mission of public outreach and Sabian Hasani engagement. We started Archaeology Abridged to respond to the cancellation of in-person public lectures. The program features AIA HOLDS 11TH ANNUAL 30-minute online talks by archaeologists in a wide range of fields, PHOTO CONTEST followed by Q&A sessions with the speakers. Almost 200 photos were submitted to the AIA’s 11th annual photo Archaeology Abridged talks are held approximately monthly contest. The entries featured over 50 archaeological sites from during the academic year. The 2022 season began in February with more than 30 countries. Photos were submitted in five categories: Kate Liszka, the Benson and Pamela Harer Fellow in Egyptology Archaeological Landscapes, Excavation, Field Life, Fun Finds, and and Associate Professor of History at California State University, Monuments. Winners in each category were selected by popular vote. San Bernardino. Liszka presented her work on amethyst mining Over a weeklong voting period, more than 19,000 votes were cast. in the Eastern Desert of ancient Egypt and the dangers that Winners will receive a complimentary one-year AIA membership, thousands of ancient Egyptians faced to acquire the beautiful and the top photos selected by AIA staff will be included in the purple stones for the pharaohs. AIA’s 2023 calendar. Check out the winners and all the entries at archaeological.org/2022-aia-photo-contest-results/. In April and May, we featured Maya specialist Heather McKillop, the Thomas & Lillian Landrum Alumni Professor in the MEMBERSHIP Department of Geography and Anthropology at Louisiana State University. McKillop spoke about the incredible ancient Maya All AIA programs are supported by AIA members and our wooden residential structures that she and her team discovered generous donors. AIA Society members receive access to preserved underwater off the coast of Belize. Wood rarely special benefits such as the AIA Travel Discount Program, survives in the Maya region and McKillop’s discoveries give us an AIA MemberDeals, and more, all while supporting unusual look at everyday dwellings of the ancient Maya people. archaeological research, outreach, education, and advocacy. Her second presentation introduced us to the work she is doing Become an AIA member today at archaeological.org/join/. using 3-D digital imaging and printing of ancient artifacts to create To find out about supporting the AIA and our activities, go to replicas, especially of waterlogged objects that cannot be displayed archaeological.org/give/. or handled. YOUR SUPPORT IS CRITICAL Archaeology Abridged talks are free, but registration is required. Learn more and see past lectures at archaeological.org/ The AIA is North America’s largest and oldest nonprofit organization archaeology-abridged-webinars/. dedicated to archaeology. The Institute’s commitment to excavation, education, and advocacy is made possible by the generosity of ARCHAEOLOGY ABRIDGED PREMIUM our donors. Help support our mission by making a gift online at archaeological.org/donate/ or by texting “GIVE” to 833-965-2840. Archaeology Abridged Premium features exclusive lectures from some of our favorite Archaeology Abridged speakers. Archaeology Abridged Premium has a modest registration fee of $5 for nonmembers and is free for AIA members. The fees support the program’s operating costs. Our second Archaeology Abridged Premium talk, held on March 10, 2022, featured Elizabeth M. Greene, Associate Professor and Canada Research Chair in Roman Archaeology at the University of Western Ontario. Greene’s fieldwork and research explores Roman provinces and frontiers, with particular focus on Roman Britain and the dynamic military communities that inhabited the area. Her Archaeology Abridged Premium presentation described the life of children and adolescents growing up in military communities. 66

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ARTIFACT BY JARRETT A. LOBELL Many cultures, ancient and modern, have imagined magic as a supernatural WHAT IS IT art performed by specialists who undergo mysterious training. But for the Vessel ancient Greeks, magic consisted of a number of common rituals practiced by men and women from all social and economic classes. “The Greeks CULTURE trafficked heavily in magic,” says historian Jessica Lamont of Yale University. “It was one of Greek the ways they managed competition, vulnerability, and risk.” The most common expression DATE of ancient Greek magic was to curse people perceived as a threat by inscribing their names on lead tablets or pottery vessels, such as this pot dating to 300 B.C., which was found in the 300 B.C. corner of a building just outside the Athenian Agora, the city’s commercial center. MATERIAL On the pot’s exterior are 30 full male and female personal names as well as letters or Pottery, chicken bones strokes of letters belonging to an additional 25 names. The vessel was pierced with an iron nail and contained the bones of a young chicken, both clear indications that whoever buried FOUND it intended to bring harm to the people named, says Lamont. Because the pot was found in a building where terracotta, bronze, and marble objects were manufactured, Lamont GREECE believes that the malediction was motivated by a legal dispute among craftspeople. “I think the high number of names is a big clue that this Athens relates to a court case,” she says. “The idea was not just to curse one litigant, but also all witnesses, supporters, the magistrate—anyone DIMENSIONS who could affect the case.” 4.3 inches tall The curse pot also reveals the wide range of people who participated in the Athenian legal system. “There aren’t just elite male citizens named on this pot,” Lamont says. “Through this and other curses, we have access to a much broader section of Greek society. This kind of evidence captures the voices of those, like women and craftspeople, who have slipped through the cracks of history.” 68 ARCHAEOLOGY • May/June 2022

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