New Insights from Legacy Archaeology Collections

University Of California-Berkeley, Berkeley CA

Investigators

Abstract

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University will undertake the study of impressive mounds constructed of shell and other materials by people worldwide in many riverine and coastal places. For more than 5000 years, indigenous groups created coastal landscapes dominated by such artificial hills built from many tons of shellfish that left a legacy from which to study social and environmental change over millennia. Archaeology can provide new insights about how and why people built these mounded landscapes where shell was used to build architectural features (pyramids, ridges, walkways, plazas), to create mortuary mounds, and to construct elevated villages. A major challenge in the study of shell mounds is that many have been heavily damaged by the rapid development of coastal areas worldwide. This project will develop and implement new and innovative methods for working with "legacy" museum collections recovered from sites before they were destroyed. Researchers will generate new insights about the nature of shell mounds, provide training for undergraduate and graduate students in archaeological and museum methods, and contribute to a public outreach program highlighting the significant cultural heritage of these places. A centerpiece of this project will be the development of a public outreach program about shell mounds in collaboration with local tribes, community members, museums, and city governments. Members of the research team will engender a better understanding of the people who built mounded landscapes using new techniques to highlight their economies, social organizations, and mortuary/ceremonial practices. The research will involve the fine-grained reanalysis of museum collections recovered from sites now destroyed employing new methods for recovering botanical remains and starch grains, identifying small animal bones using molecular fingerprinting, investigating "micro" artifacts, dating materials using state-of-the art techniques, and employing computer-generated mapping approaches. Research will focus on the shell mounds in the greater San Francisco Bay Area (northern California) where hundreds of sites once dotted the shoreline before their destruction by urban development. The West Berkeley shell mound, one of the largest and oldest of these mounds, will serve as a test case. Archaeological materials from the 1950s excavation (before its destruction) now curated in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology provide an exceptional opportunity for implementing new analytical approaches for the study of museum objects and soils, for training students, and for evaluating the history of this important place over more than 4000 years. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.