AN INTERMEDIATE HORIZON SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA Eleanor H. Bates The Palos Verdes Peninsula, a hilly extension of the Los Angeles Basin jutting into the Pacific Ocean, has attracted settlers since early prehistoric times. En- vironmental resources, from the inland to the seaward side, offered both an abundance and a diversity of foods and raw materials, thus providing incentive for aboriginal habitation. The greatest limitations were availability of fresh water, a scarcity of wood for fires or shelters, and an absence of acorn-bearing oak trees, source of California Indians' staple food. Archaeological sites attesting to the former pres- ence of native peoples were once numerous on the Peninsula. The sites were of two main kinds - habi- tation and quarry workshops. The latter were situated close to outcroppings or deposits of material used in the manufacture of stone tools. Living sites tended to be located towards the edges of broad, marine terraces, along coastal bluffs or near canyons where water might be found. It is not possible, today, to estimate how many prehistoric sites once existed on the peninsula, but it can be safely said that they numbered in the scores, if not hundreds. Some 70 were recorded dur- ing an investigation conducted during the early 1960s (Figure 1) (Bates 1963: Map 1). Although the date of earliest occupation of the peninsula has not been precisely determined, there are indications of a long, and presumably, continued habi- tation beginning perhaps eight thousand years ago (Wallace 1994:2). Throughout this long time span prehistoric peoples lived on a technologically simple level and were dependent for their livelihood upon foods and raw materials, which could be gathered, ready-made from nature. Certain minor modifications in subsistence patterns, which produced changes in the frequency of use of artifact forms, took place. These changes provide a basis for developing a local chronology (Wallace 1994) and for correlating it with the fourfold sequence established for the Southern California coastal region (Wallace 1955). Lunada Bay Archaeological Sites Five habitation sites were situated along the bluff that rises approximately one hundred feet above Lunada Bay. The existence of prehistoric dwelling places at this locality had been noted by N. C. Nelson as long ago as 1912 and again in the 1930s by Dr. F. H. Racer and Richard Van Valkenburgh. Although artifacts had been collected from their surfaces, as far as is known, no excavating was done at any of the five sites. The Lunada Bay shoreline offered certain attrac- tions to a native people, including easy access to a wide inlet with one of the few sandy beaches along this stretch of the coast. Wave-washed rock forma- tions provided a habitat for mollusks and offshore kelp beds harbored a variety of fish. In 1961, when it was learned that the land was to be leveled for a housing subdivision, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern Cali- fornia requested permission to conduct an archaeo- logical investigation. The developers granted the re- quest with a stipulation that the archaeological work should not interfere with construction activities. Ar- chaeological and earth-moving work began and con- tinued simultaneously. The entire bluff was first searched and a test pit dug at one of the sites in an area destined to be radi- cally altered by bulldozing. Here, occupational de- bris proved to be largely confined to the surface. It was decided to concentrate efforts at the largest of the village sites (designated as PV 8). The site lay at the base of a 175-foot-high rocky knoll (Figure 2). Cultural debris consisting of marine shells, pieces of chert and fragmentary stone imple- ments extended outward from the base of the knoll over a gently sloping area, measuring 225 x 390 feet. The land had long been cultivated and was planted to barley when the excavation began. A 50-foot-long, five-foot-wide trench was dug from SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA the base of the rocky knoll toward the ocean (Figure 3). Two additional side units were added to form a U- shaped excavation. A total of 21 five-by-five pits were excavated. A second trench, consisting of five 5 x 5 foot squares, was ,laid out to the north and west in order to sample the site's northern periphery. A volunteer crew, averaging six to eight members, began excavating on July 12 and continued to work daily until August 7, 1961. In all 142+ person days were devoted to the digging. The soil was troweled in six-inch levels to sterile soil or rock and sifted through a quarter-inch mesh screen. In places where the soil became too compact for troweling it was loos- ened with ice picks. The archaeological deposit consisted of a heavy, dark gray to black adobe soil containing an abundance of marine shells and pieces of chert, as well as a scat- tering of artifacts. A humus line resulting from con- tinued cultivation extended six to eight inches below the surface. In the U-shaped trench, the midden de- posit varied in depth from 22-54 inches, shallower (10- 18 inches) in several of the five-foot excavation units. As the digging proceeded downward, the soil became lime impregnated and more compacted. It was un- derlain by a rough-surfaced layer of limestone. At the northwest corner, the limestone formation gave way to a fine-grained, brownish clay loam. In the shorter trench the archaeological deposit proved to be much the same, attaining a depth of 21-43 inches. Artifacts A total of 470 artifacts (including fragments) were recovered. They consist largely of utilitarian stone tools that, generally speaking, lack complex workman- ship. Locally available materials went into their manu- facture. Bone and shell artifacts were few in number. The pecking and grinding process shaped the greater numbers of artifacts. Two complete milling stones were found on the surface. Both are slightly basined sandstone slabs, covered with a calcareous deposit. The larger of the two is 50.8 cm long, 25.8 cm wide, 13.5 cm thick and weighs 54 pounds. The other is about half the size and weighs only 10.25 pounds. Three fragments, one picked up from the surface, are also of sandstone. Handstones form the largest group of artifacts (Fig- ure 4). Of 90 recovered, 68 have two grinding sur- faces; the remaining 22 show evidence of use on only one side. Most specimens are of sandstone, but there are a few of granite, basalt and mudstone. Three are pitted on their grinding surfaces and eight show evi- dence of secondary use as hammers. Two of the unifacial handstones are pitted. Some of the handstones are fire-blackened; others are covered with a calcareous deposit. All are of a size easily manipu- lated with one hand. They range in length from 9.4- 14.0 cm, in width 6.4-11.1 cm and 2.3-5.6 cm in thick- ness. The 24 mortars, complete and fragmentary, are bowl-shaped, thick-walled with shallow cavities. Ei- ther hard sandstone or sandstone conglomerate rounded beach stones were selected for their manu- facture. Exteriors of the vessels appear to have been pecked and ground and their grinding cavities worn smooth. Rims are rounded. The mortars stand 7.8- 9.7 cm high with maximum diameters of 6.9-9.5 cm and depths between 7.8 and 9.7 cm. Five complete and six broken pestles of sandstone or mudstone are in the collection. Two of the whole pestles are shaped, conical in form with rounded work- ing ends. One is highly polished with somewhat flat- tened sides (Figure 5). The largest of the two measures 20.5 cm in length and 8.7 cm in diameter. The second is smaller with dimensions of 16.4 cm and 7.2 cm. Two fragments are parts of similarly shaped pestles. Three whole and four broken pestles are natural cobbles of suitable size and form, put to use without shaping. One of the complete specimens has a pit pecked into one side and gives signs of having been employed as a hammer. A half dozen more stone objects were fashioned by pecking and/or grinding. One is a square mud- stone bead with cut and ground edges and a hole drilled through its center. The bead measures 1.0 x 1.0 cm and is 2 mm thick. The remaining specimens are of uncertain purpose. Most unusual is a fair-sized (66 x 66 x 5 mm) actinolite cobble with a groove passing completely around it. Traces of asphalt can be de- tected in the 4 mm wide, 3 mm deep groove. A thin oval-shaped mudstone pebble also has an encircling groove and an elongated piece of steatite has two such. A portion of a red siltstone disk and a piece of steatite with lines scratched into the surface complete the in- ventory of pecked ground artifacts. Chipped stone artifacts are relatively plentiful in the Lunada Bay assemblage. The material most com- monly used in their manufacture was cherty-shale, obtainable from outcroppings along the bluff. Chert Bates 89 FENENGA VOLUME and chalcedony, both available on the Palos Verdes peninsula, were occasionally utilized. One specimen appears to be of green jade, a stone once found along local beaches. Eight complete (or nearly so) projectile points and three fragments were found. Their size and weight suggests that they tipped darts rather than arrows. Workmanship appears to be of rather poor quality, but this may be due to the nature of the material, rather than to lack of stone-chipping skill. The projectile points form a heterogeneous group, with five types represented (Figure 6): 1. Leaf-shaped, rounded base-one, nearly complete, three fragments, cherty shale, length (projected) 50 mm, and width 23 mm. 2. Triangular, straight base-one, cherty shale 39 mm x 26 mm x 6 mm. 3. Triangular, concave base-one, green jade (?),57 mm x 21 mm x 6 mm, exceptionally fine workmanship. 4. Triangular, long tapering stem-two, one chert and one chalcedony. 37 x 21 x 6 mm, 35 x 18x7mm. 5. Triangular, side-notched, concave base- two, one cherty shale, one chalcedony, 43 x 20 x 8 mm. 6. Unclassifiable fragments-two, cherty shale. Fifty-seven large, heavy and roughly worked cherty-shale blades, some obviously unfinished, are roughly leaf-shaped (Figure 7). However, they ex- hibit some variations in form. Five complete speci- mens and five fragments are quite narrow. They range in length from 71-80 mm, 23-29 mm in width and 9- 13 mm in thickness. Broader blades, three whole and 13 broken have lengths of 86-90 mm, widths of 38-44 mm and thickness of 7-15 mm. One leaf-shaped frag- ment has a concave base, another a straight base, a third exhibits incurving sides. A unique triangular chalcedony blade, broken and then resharpened has a pointed base. Twenty-eight blade pieces cannot be classified as to original forms. Numerous chert, cherty-shale, or chalcedony flakes of various shapes and sizes that could have functioned as scraping tools were turned up by the digging. One long edge on 33 of them was sharpened by removing flakes from one side, an additional 49 sharp-edged pieces were put to use without previous modification. Fairly thick (14-21 mm) flakes struck off from hard- textured beach cobbles also served as scrapers. Sev- eral have been sharpened from one or both sides along one border. There are four core scrapers-chert nod- ules flaked from both surfaces around three-fourths of their perimeters. The smallest measures 65 mm x 41 mm x 14mm; the largest 76mm x 61 mm x 21 mm. Drills consist of thick triangular pieces of chert, chipped along their edges. Twelve of the tools, ten lacking their tips, were found. Tips, where present, are blunt and show considerable wear. Two complete drills are 38 mm and 37 mm long. Chopping tools were produced from tough-textured cobbles (Figure 8). The great majority of the thirty- six found are cobbles split across the short axis and then trimmed from one side so as to give a sharp chop- ping edge. A few are made from large, thick cobble flakes. Fifty smooth, unworked beach cobbles, mostly oval, with one or more battered ends, obviously served as hammerstones. Eleven similar cobbles have shal- low depressions pecked into one or both surfaces for better grasping. Ten more hammers are split across the short axis of the stone and exhibit heavy batter- ing. Three of the thirteen are made from handstones. The pounding tools are all of a size to be easily ma- nipulated with one hand. The remaining twelve stone items are modified only by use. Peck marks and/or scarring on flat sur- faces of eight sandstone or mudstone slabs suggest that they saw service as anvils. Two sandstone pieces and one of slate, each with two worn and smoothed surfaces, appear to be hones for fashioning, sharpen- ing or polishing objects. An elongated piece of sand- stone, rubbed flat on one surface and battered at one end, may well be a combination tool for both polish- ing and pecking. The Lunada Bay archaeological deposit was very poorly supplied with bone artifacts, yielding only three. Two are slender, smoothed-edged pieces, pos- sibly parts of awls. The third is a section of a round, polished rod. 90 Bates SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA 91 Figure 1: Map of the Palos Verdes Sites LUNADA BAY O 1 2 APPROX.SCALE IN MILES CONTOUR INTERVAL ZOOFEET 1 FENENGA VOLUME Figure 2: Site 92 SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA Figure 3: Trench at the Palos Verdes Site Bates 93 FENENGA VOLUME Figure 4: Handstones from the Palos Verdes Site 94 SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA Figure 5: Pestles from the Palos Verdes Site 95 Bates FENENGA VOLUME Figure 6: Projectile Points from the Palos Verdes Site 96 Bates SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA 97 Figure 7: Blades from the Palos Verdes Site FENENGA VOLUME Figure 8: Choppers from the Palos Verdes Site 98 Bates SITE ON THE PAL( Shell items were also few in number, with two Olivella beads and nine cut fragments making up the total. One bead is spire-lopped and ground almost down to the ,.main whorl; the other is a disk, 18 mm in diameter, with a central perforation drilled from one surface. Eight of the nine cut pieces are from abalone shells; one is of mussel. Two of the abalone pieces appear to be parts of ornaments broken during manufacture. The edges on one are serrated and another has a hole bored through it. The remaining seven cut pieces are prob- ably waste fragments. While not classed as artifacts, mention should be made here of pigments and asphalt. Specks of pig- ment, apparently coloring matter, occurred through- out the deposit. Hematite, in shades from orange to deep red, was most common and dotted a mudstone slab. Asphalt coated one surface of an irregular piece of slate and one of a sandstone cobble. Food Remains Shellfish remains formed an important constituent of all levels of the archaeological deposit, though there was some decline in quantity as the bottom of the midden was approached. Shells of the California Mussel, Black Abalone and Speckled Top Shell ap- peared most consistently in all levels. Other species represented included: Native Oyster Speckled Pecten Branch-ribbed Mussel Forty-ribbed Heart Clam Giant Keyhole Limpet Volcano Keyhole Limpet Banded Cockle Cooper's Tower Shell Festive Rock Shell Poulson's Rock Shell Rock-Dwelling Thais Nut-brown Cowry Scaly Worm Shell Owl Limpet Wavy Turban Shell Pink Abalone Pismo Clam Smooth Cockle California Cone Mossy Chiton Horn of Plenty Netted Button Shell Seaweed Limpet Showy Chiton Most numerous in the scanty aggregation of fish remains are those of the Pacific Sheepshead. There are also some Rockfish, shark (species unidentifiable) and eel (probably Moray) bones. Although by no means plentiful, small fragments of mammal and bird bone, many calcined, were scat- tered throughout the deposit. Identifiable are those of )S VERDES PENINSULA the California mule deer and sea otter. Summary and Conclusion Information gained from the archaeological inves- tigation points to occupation of the Lunada Bay site by a relatively small group of people who followed a simple food-gathering way of life. The abundance of shellfish remains in the midden implies that they de- pended heavily on collecting shellfish for subsistence. Numerous stone implements suited for processing wild plant foods suggests that they also drew extensively upon local grasses and herbs for food. That hunting and fishing played a lesser role in their food-getting activities is shown by the scarcity of fish; bird and mammal bones in the midden. Depth of the archaeological deposit suggests oc- cupation over a fairly extended period of time. Quite likely the site saw year-round habitation, perhaps with short forays away from the village to harvest wild crops or to hunt. Most of the Lunada Bay villagers' equipment con- sisted of utilitarian, technologically simple stone implements, manufactured from local, easily acces- sible stone materials. Surprisingly few bone tools seems to have been made and used. Ornamental or other non-utilitarian items of stone or shell were only occasionally made. No major cultural changes appear to have taken place during the period of occupation. The only pos- sible exception is an increasing use of mortars and pestles as time passed. The greater numbers of these implements were either surface finds or came from upper levels of the midden (Table 1). No information on disposal of the dead was ob- tained. Considering the amount of grading and earthmoving that went on at Lunada Bay, it seems probable that if burials existed in the area they would have been uncovered. Given the compact, dense na- ture of the abode soil, interment of corpses may have been done elsewhere in sandy or light soil where the digging of graves would have been less laborious. Chronological placement of the Lunada Bay site presents some difficulties, since it shares characteris- tics of two of the prehistoric periods (Milling Stone and Intermediate) recognized for the southern Cali- fornia coastal district (Wallace 1955). The prominence of the millingstone-handstone complex and scarcity 99 100 FENENGA VOLUME Table 1: Depth Distribution of Artifacts Class of Artifact Depth in Inches 0 0-6 6-12 12-18 18-24 24-30 30-36 36-42 42-48 48-54 54-60 Milling 1 1 1 Stone Manos 26 6 3 12 12 8 3 2 Mortars 14 2 Pestles 4 Projectile 2 1 6 1 1 Points Blades 21 3 7 7 3 7 2 1 2 1 1 Scrapers 27 14 15 9 5 5 5 3 2 Drills 7 3 1 1 Choppers 28 5 6 4 3 4 2 Hammers 29 3 7 9 3 3 5 Hones 2 1 Anvils 2 1 Stone Beads 1 1 Grooved 1 Stone Shell Beads 1 Worked Shells 2 3 3 2 Bone 1 1 1 SITE ON THE PALOS VERDES PENINSULA of bone, shell and steatite artifacts are traits shared with the Milling Stone stage. However, none of the large, deep-basined mills typical of the time period are in the collection, and there is a greater abundance and variety of chipped stone implements. Conform- ing more to the Intermediate period are traits such as greater use of mortars and pestles, an abundance and diversity of chipped stone artifacts and a mode of sub- sistence more dependent upon shellfish gathering. The weight of the archaeological evidence seems to dem- onstrate that native occupation of the Lunada Bay vil- lage site occurred during the Intermediate period (ten- tatively dated between 2000 B.C. and A.D. 500), per- haps early on when a shift was being made from an essentially wild-plant-gathering mode of subsistence to one more solidly based upon shellfish collecting. Several other Palos Verdes Peninsula prehistoric sites have been assigned to the Intermediate period: a quarry-workshop in Rolling hills (Cooley 1982), a village site at Rancho Palos Verdes (Hector and Rosen 1980) and another on the western slope above San Pedro harbor (Butler 1974). The latter was inhabited from Milling Stone to Late times. Native peoples also lived at the nearby, long-occupied and culturally-strati- fied Malaga Cove Site at this time (Walker 1952). Farther afield, the Little Harbor Site on Catalina, the basal levels of which were radiocarbon dated at 3880 +/-25 B.P., has been assigned to the Intermediate era (Meighan 1959). The Little Harbor excavation pro- duced a much richer and diversified assemblage of artifacts. Conspicuous differences between Little Harbor from Lunada Bay include a much higher pro- portion of projectile points to blades, a wider array of bone tools and many more animal food remains. Aboriginal occupation at Lunada Bay evidently ceased prior to the beginning of the last prehistoric phase, for no typical Late period artifacts such as small projectile points, abalone shell fishhooks, and cook- ing vessels fashioned from Catalina steatite were re- covered. What drew people away from their attrac- tive living place and why it was never reoccupied is by no means clear. References Cited Bates, Eleanor H. 1963 The Cultural and Temporal Setting of Palos Verdes Prehistory. Unpublished MA Thesis. University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Butler, William B. 1974 The San Pedro harbor Site. A Pri- mary Subsistence village on the Southern Cali- fornia Coast. Pacific Coast Archaeological Society Quarterly 10(3 and 4): 1-98. Cooley, Theodore G. 1982 Analysis and Interpretation of CA- LAN-844: A Prehistoric Quarry Workshop and Fac- tory in the Upper Palos Verdes Hills, Los Angeles, Califomia. Unpublished MA Thesis. California State University, Los Angeles. Hector, Susan M., and Martin Rosen 1980 Archaeological Excavations on CA- LAN-847 and CA-LAN-848. City of Rancho Palos Verdes, Los Angeles County, Califomia. Unpublished MS. Meighan, Clement 1959 The Little Harbor Site, Catalina Is- land: An Example of Ecological Interpretation inArchaeology. AmericanAntiquity24(4):383- 405. Walker, Edwin F. 1952 A Stratified Site at Malaga Cove. In Five Prehistoric Archaeological Sites in Los Angeles County. Publications of the Frederick Webb Hodge Anniversary Publication Fund 6:27-69, Los Angeles. Wallace, William J. 1955 A Suggested Chronology for South- em Califomia CoastalArchaeology. Southwest- ern Journal of Anthropology 11 (3): 214-230. 1994 Palos VerdesBuried History. Archae- ology of the Terraced Land. Rancho de los Palos Verdes Historical Society Museum. Rancho Los Palos Verdes, CA. Bates 101