25. REPORT ON PEDOLOGIC OBSERVATIONS MADE AT

THE "CAPAY MAN" SITE IN WESTERN YOLO COUNTY

By Frank Harradine

The human burial was embedded in a small dome-shaped, softly con-
solidated and calcareous substratum comprising non-marine sediments

(Fig. 2). This formation underlies much of the eastern foot slopes of
the Coast Ranges in this area. A small stream has cut through the more
or less isolated rounded knoll exposing a grave about 30 inches below
the apex.

Soil material has been deposited by a stream action on top of this
formation at some time after the grave was dug.

There is no way to estimate the time lapse between the time of burial
and the beginning of the deposition of soil material which now caps the
formation. A considerable time must have elapsed, however, because the
back-fill above the burial is uniformly consolidated and there is no

evidence of soil mixing from above. This calcareous substratum material
could easily have been reconsolidated and redistributed uniformly with
little or no trace of disturbance, providing there was a time lapse of

several hundred years before the present soil material began to be deposited
on top.

The age of this   formation is probably late Pliocene, but this fact
gives no helpful clue as to when the grave was actually dug. All that

can be stated from observations is that the burial presumably was made at

some time before the present soil mantle was deposited on top of the forma-
tion.

The soil now lying uncomfortably on top of the Pliocene sediments is
quite similar to the Zamora series of soils as identified in adjacent

counties. This is a youthful secondary soil and a profile of this charac-
ter could form in about 800 or 1000 years under a Mediterranean type of
climate which prevails in the area at the present time.

The lack of cherty pebbles in the upper soil profile and an abundance
of them in the underlying substratum is good evidence that the over-lying

oil did not form in place but has accumulated as transported alluvium.

As a rough approximation of the time of burial, considering the condi-
tion of the back-fill, topography, and character of soil profile formed, I
estimate about 2000 years have elapsed since the burial took place.

Division of Soils

University of California

(Berkeley)

November 15, 1951

NMr. Yerington's opinion was that the burial-containing alluvium is
"Pleistocene or younger"(i.e. post-Pleistocene).

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