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OBSERVATIONS ON KJOKKEN MODDINGS

AND THE FINDS IN ANCIENT1 GRAVES IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA

Paul Schumacher, San Francisco, California*

The deposits of shells and bones that constitute the kitchen

~middens of the earlier inhabitants on the coast of California, the Indians,
tin external appearance completely resemble those in Oregon, which I have
kdescribed in the Report of the Smithsonian Institute of 1873, and which

mnifest themselves everywhere on the American coast of the Pacific Ocean --

tat least as far as it has been explored in this context. Granting that certain
kvarieties of shells abd bones of the vertebrates are different, owing to local
Lconditions and the age of the strata, we find, nevertheless, that they, as

1vell as the stone objects found with them, resemble the Kjbkken Mtddings in
bdistant Denmark.

.

I differentiate two types of such deposits:   one deriving from
temporary occupation, the other from permanent occupation.

The earlier inhabitants occupied the temporary campgrounds only
during a favorable season, to gather their provisions of marine shellfish.

e therefore do not find any sign of houses, no assemblages of flint fragments
hat point to an earlier existence of a workshop, where arrow- and spear-

points and the stone knives were manufactured. On the other hand there are
etremely sparse stores of bones of land animals, and graves are entirely

acking. Thin sandy layers once deposited by the wind indicate the temporary

|The somewhat indefinite designation "ancient" probably can be applied only

,to the last two centuries. According to the reports of various travelers,

,the utensils of the wild Indian tribes formerly living in Southern California
-were of exactly the same nature as those found in the tombs (see Waitz,

Anthropologie der Naturvoelker, V. IV, p. 240, and H. H. Bancroft, The Native
Races of the Pacific, Vol. I, pp 407 and 408). The islands of the Santa

Barbara channel also still were inhabited until the end of the last century
Wby natives, and therefore we should not attribute a very great age to the
ttomb finds described in the next article. In any case, the communications

,of Mr. Schumacher seem to have more importance for the ethnology than for the
-prehistory of America. (ed)

The following article was received by the editorial office in July 1875.   At
about the same time the office received from the author an issue of October
1874 of the periodical published in San Francisco and entitled "Overland

Monthly," in which the communications of the author are published, however

without illustrations. The study presented here is a translation made by the
author himself from the English original, in somewhat abridged form. (ed)

ranslated from the original German by Dr. Fred Stross, Research Associate
of the Archaeological Research Facility. Original article in Archiv fUr
Anthropologie, Vol. 8, pp 217-221, 1875.

I

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absence of the inhabitants, but only by carefully studying vertical cross

sections of such shellmounds, which we mostly find on sandy ground or the dunes.

Permanent habitations on the other hand are constructed on solid,
albeit easily worked ground, and they are recognized by tasses of flint
fragments and rock debris brought in by diverse mollusc shells that had

been taken from the rocks, as well as from the sandy shore, and by the bones
of diverse land animals. The practiced eye of the expert then also soon

discovers faint circular depressions in the soil, which sometimes are located
in regular rows, usually on a hill which commands a free view, and which
indicate to us the locations of houses of earlier times.

The graves I always found within a radius of 150 meters from the
former village, in Oregon even only a few paces from the domiciliary

depressions.  Once one has located the site on which there formerly had stood
huts, he should look for the most elevated location within the confines of
the village, and he will not fail to find the graves there, provided that
the soil did not prove too difficult to work with the primitive tools of

inhabitants of that time. The nature of the graves themselves is as follows:
About 5 feet below the surface, the sandy floor was calcined by means of a
vigorous fire, which produces a hard brick-like crust about 5 inches thick.
This cavity is subdivided into small spaces that contain the skeletons by
means of flat sandstones about 1-1/4 inches thick, k foot wide and 3 feet

high. Usually this sort of slab was placed horizontally above the skull, as
a protective cover, exactly as I found it at the Chetko River in Oregon,

except that those graves were lined with the easily cleaved redwood (Sequoia
sempervirens) instead of stone slabs. Painstakingly executed linings,

however, which required hauling in the material over great distances, were
not the rule, but evidently signified wealth, for in the case of such

skeletons always there were present votive objects, which most often was not
the case with the others. As to the stone slabs, I found them painted in

most cases. One slab, which I took with me, exhibited 32 red stripes opposite
each other on both sides of a dark center line, at an angle of 600; this

design thus reminds one of a fir or the backbone-of a fish (Fig. 58). In

most cases, however, only the lower surface of the stone was colored red. In
the graves outfitted in this manner the skeletons were lying on their backs
with knees pulled up and, usually, arms extended -- so that the hands were

lying adjacent to the feet-:- without, however, placing them perferentially
in any particular direction. They often were lying about in great disorder,
with the evident intention of reducing the room needed for the corpses. to

a minimum. In the case of female skeletons, instead of the horizontal slabs
we find a mortar placed on its edge as a protective device, so that the
skull reposes in the cavity; if it is a pot with too narrow a neck to

receive the shull, we find it buried under the head. Bowls and jewlry are

placed most often near the head, while beads are found in the mouth, in the
eye cavities, and the sand-filled brain cavity, forced there through the

foramen magnum by the pressure load of the covering. It is striking that in
some cases the skeletons are lying on top of one another, and sometimes

closely packed next to each other, so that the uppermost are often found only
e feet from the surface. Such burials-contain the fewest votive gifts, as
I often had occasion to notice, and they were mostly burials of women.

However, there is no evidence for the assumption that these were slaves of some
rich man of the tribe, for I usually found the lowermost skeletons disturbed in

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ch a conspicuous manner that it could have happened only by opening the

ave after decomposition. Thus for instance I found a lower jaw-bone, in

t proper place, but placed upside down, so that both rows of teeth pointed

ward; in another case the thigh bones were placed with the knee pointing
ard the pelvis, and frequently the bones were completely separated and

terchanged. Such disturbances in the placement of the skeletons led me to
e assumption that the corpses were buried at different times, and that

e disorder was brought about by repeated re-opening of the graves. The
jects found with the skeletons were in the correct position, which is

ily ascertained especially in the case of the mortars and pots; this is

reason for not assuming a later disturbance by action of a different tribe.
areoal is present in large quantities, with few exceptions consisting

the redwood mentioned above, which at present is found in this region only
the form of driftwood.  Sometimes one finds remnants of split rails 3 to

inches in diameter, and of boards that were approximately two inches thick.
ewing of such remains instinctively suggests that they represent the last

ins of the habitation of the departed, placed in the grave in the form
ashes, together with the other possessions -- and this custom I had
casion to observe in the case of the Chetko Indians a year ago.

The household utensils that I found in the course of excavation of

proximately 300-400 skeletons in the1graves [of the settlements] designated
mali, Temeteti, Nipomo, and Walecha ), remain so similar in their aspect

their nature that it is not necessary to attribute them to the respective
ayes, for they apparently belonged to branches of the same tribe.

The large cooking-pots, which are made in spherical shape from

Lcaceous schist, are especially remarkable, (Fig. 59). The opening, which
a a small protruding lip, is only 5 inches wide on a pot measuring 18

ches in diameter, and the wall near the opening is only 1/4 inch thick, but
ing to ward the bottom increases with greatest regularity to 1-1/4 toward
e bottom. Pots from the same material were also excavated, which from the
oint of widest diameter downward become more narrow, and appear more modern,

virtue of their wide opening (Fig. 60).   Others become narrower toward

he top, in a pear shape (Fig. 61). A whole aisortment of dishes was brought

light, which measure 1-1/4 to 6 inches in diameter. (Figs. 62 and 63). Some,
xcluding a few of fine shape, are made of serpentine and are polished.

ch smallest dish that was excavated I found enveloped in three shells (Fig.
i); it contained hardened black pigment. It is remarkable that all these
Lshes bad traces of color on them, and some were even filled with it,

ud we can therefore assume that such dishes were not used in partaking of
ood. Then there also was a pan equipped with a handle, (Fig. 65) and a

te, similarly made of micaceous    schist, which had a hole that clearly

owed that it had been made with a drill (Fig. 66). The mortars of sandstone

1he three first-mentioned graves are located within 14 English miles from each
other, and not more than 7 English miles from the coast; Walecha on the

other hand is 35 miles from the coast of San Luis Bay on the Santa Maria
River.

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(Fig. 67), vary widely in size; they were found to range from 3 inch-

diameter (at the widest part of the cavity) and a 1-1/2 inch height, to a diamet
of 16 inches and a hieght of 13 inches, with corresponding pestle (Fig. 68).

No spoons or knives were found in the graves.   On the other hand three fine     I
funnel-shaped pipes of serpentine were found, which resemble those found in
Oregon in form, although they are considerably more substantial (Fig. 69).

Few weapons were found, but what little there was, was mostly of
excellent workmanship.   Only one spearpoint of obsidian was found, 5-1/2

inches long; another spearpoint of chalcedony, 9-1/2 inches long and 1-1/4
inches wide is of very beautiful form and of most careful workmanship.

As concerns ceramic ware, I found during my investigations only

one noteworthy object, the vessel shown in Fig. 70.   The clay body as well
as the glaze is coarse-grained, and the different rosettes, which are of

primitive form, apparently were pressed in freehand, for the impressions are
not equal in depth, and their placement varies. Because of the small number
of such objects found on the Californian coast it is difficult to come to a
conclusion as to whether pottery was practiced by the natives themselves,

M^'k"  T 9m 4"^14t"^A fn^ A~nss. a n"-4n.r4  ^t thFhw  no^ ^hne%tan  unto niniiroA

wnLAn A amu Lnc.LneU LU UOUDU U prJLJ.r? ur wneuner LnuLL;: UuJpi:eLb wc&: ak;ku1Bu

from the peoples of Mexico skilled in the art of pottery, by barter; or

whether they, as well as other objects, such as the glass beads frequently

found, derive from the time of Christian missionaries, when objects from the
higher civilization were introduced among the natives.

Another object with an equally dubious pedigree, since nothing

similar has yet been found here, is a bronze cup (Fig. 71). It is molded
and the handles are riveted to it; the ornamentation consists of straight

lines, in a manner similar to that of the Hallstadt finds. The space between
the leg and the lowest line decoration of the cup fragment is divided into
small squares having a diameter of a pinhead, by means of shallow grooves,

but they are pronounced only in some spots; moreover the cup still exhibits a
design, which goes from the vicinity of a hold (molded) toward the pedestal.
Inside the cup one can see lanceolate leaves forming a star in the middle

of the bottom, e specially when the cup is wet. The entire vessel is covered
with fine vert antique.

I turned over my-cbllections to the well-known Smithsonian Institution
in Washington, at whose expense I shall soon organize a fairly substantial

field trip having the exploration of the islands in the Santa Barbara Channel
as its objective.

San Francisco, California, March

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Captions of Figures:

59-61, pots; 62-64, pan; 66, plate; 67, mortar; 68, pestle; 69, pipe;
70, pot of clay; 71, bronze cup; Fig. 64, 69 are represented in 1/2,
Fig. 62, 63, 70 in 1/8, Fig. 66, 71 in 1/4, Fig. 59, 60, 61, 65, 67,
68, in 1/8 and Fig. 58 in 1/12 of natural size.

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