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I mean I'm go away archaeologists like time travelers moved through the layers of earth to discover, recreate and report in the lives of earlier people. Clear lake basin in lake county California performed by the same geological stresses that created the

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san Andreas fault strikingly beautiful. It harbors the largest lake within California's borders Anderson marsh between Clear Lake and the town of lower lake with a rich array of plants, animals and minerals. It creates a resource island that has attracted inhabitants for thousands of years with each

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artifact that archaeologists free from the soil. A little more history of the different cultures that lived here is revealed peoples with different cultures and languages who shared both the resources and the land that they called. Viola Chlo Delbert, thomas, tribal representative of the indian

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colony and a local southeastern como como. People in this area have been here for quite a while. This location here has been documented as a area for fishing. You know where passersby from different tribes, not only the pomo people came through for fishing and gathering all

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different types of herbs and stuff in this area and on their way to the coast lands. In the early 70s, these prehistoric native American sites were recognized as important and nominated for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places. They have since been protected by the

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California Department of Parks and Recreation which purchased the land to create Anderson March State Historic Park. Alan walker, student archaeologist and volunteer docent points out some of the sites that the Department of Parks and recreation protects within the park where we are is inside this rock

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ring that we know with some sort of house or living structure. These rocks would have been used as a foundation for a Tuli hut canopy or um covering that would have formed around dome like living space. This smaller rock ring that's right next to the house

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ring we think was probably a food storage area who decorated these rocks. What were their cultures like And what happened to them from previous archaeology at Lower Lake? It looked as if people lived in sizable villages side by side with small campsites of other people who

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had different styles of weapons and other tools. Were they different ethnic groups who shared the same neighborhood, the same resources? How did they relate to each other? The opportunity to answer these questions by archaeological excavation arose when the importance of preserving these sites was overridden by

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the need to widen highway 53 for public safety. A creative alliance was formed among archaeologists. The Caltrans road builders, the Department of Parks and Recreation and the local native americans. Larry Weigel, contract monitor for Caltrans, the California Department of Transportation works as a liaison between Caltrans

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and the Department of Parks and Recreation. We wanted to do a road widening project. Okay, because there were archaeological sites that were on the National Register in the area. Uh We had to propose a treatment in order for the federal government to agree to allow the

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project to proceed and to fund it. Um we had to go to the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation in Washington D. C. And get their approval of what we were going to do to these sites and that we would mitigate the damage to them by retrieving

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the information that made them important. The strategy that we're using on on these this particular set of units. Archaeologist Greg White co project director briefs the team of scientists, native americans, students and volunteers that was assembled by Sonoma State University under the auspices of Caltrans. Their

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research plan, ask questions, proposed answers, determine which answers are substantiated by the findings. Once fieldwork began, it didn't take long for the first problem to arise with 1.5 miles of area affected and limited time and budget. Where should the team concentrate its efforts, archaeologist Dave fredrickson

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co project director. This is within the area that's going to be affected by the highway. And so our primary responsibility is to make certain that's what it puts in the path of the highway is adequately. What we're doing now is exploratory excavations Where we dig relatively

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shallow units spaced about 20 m apart for about Oh well we'll end up doing them for an area of about 200 m long here. Then we analyze what comes out of those and we're hoping to find a an area of relatively rich deposits that we can

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then focus on this side is of interest because right over here to the east we have Ziegler Creek which is a good fishing spot and probably was a good fishing spot for thousands of years, dig down a little bit closer over here so that you think

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you actually are sunshine pISO to the crew chief explains why the excavations are so exact. In all dimensions. You want to be able to compare not only one level to the other to see if we're getting increases and decreases, but by doing that and by using

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metrics. So it's a lot easier for statistics. We can also compare how it's doing with this unit or any of the units around and the volume size is always the same. And we can compare this site then to say that site over there or this site

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10 miles away and it's all consistent. The test units show where cultural material is likely to be found, but how deep is another matter. We've done five control units, four in the corners and one in the middle and then the rest of this has been dug

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by a backhoe so that when we get down to the two m area or whatever, You can also still have a good sample of what's going on down there. Fieldworkers screen the earth excavated from units to separate the shell bone, stone and artifacts, objects made by

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people from the dirt. The areas which have many artifacts are explored more thoroughly for information, soil from promising sites is taken to the lab for further cleaning Wendy nelson laboratory director this summer we will be excavating up to 15 unit localities. These buckets that they're bringing

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over have been soaking with baking soda. The reason for the baking soda is to break down the clay so that it doesn't stick to the artifacts. They're dumping the buckets in there and screening off all the mud and the smaller uh flakes and debris that that

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come off of it. The main point and using the water is to get everything as clean as possible so that we can identify the artifacts when they're mixed in with the dirt and the clay. Everything seems to be the same color and it takes a real

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keen eye to spot some of these things while they're screening if they find anything, a diagnostic artifact, a piece of bone. They'll pull that aside separated and put it in a special tray so that it will be easily identified when it gets into the lab inside.

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What kind of artifacts do the archaeologists find? These are for the most part stone tools. A few of shell and polished stone and bone, but mostly stone tools in the late period. Oh, the last 1000 years, 1500 years. Uh, there was a use of the bow

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and arrow with small arrow points, such such as this. Now, these in this tray. Also our arrow points. But you can see the difference in shape. These are kind of stemmed with little corner notch and these are kind of barbed and those are stylistic differences. Seven

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that really resent represent different interaction areas, same purpose, but it's a sign of a cultural break between communities at that point. These large ones over here would be used probably one like this uh could well have been used with a very heavy shaft and used as

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a not as a spirit to throw but as a thrusting spear. Uh if you can, you know using uh blinds and and disguises come up very close to the game and just Attack it kind of being to being. So we have three different technologies say thrusting

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spear dart and that little sometimes called a throwing stick, bow and arrow at different times. So just looking at this set of artifacts we see not only kind of basic technology, we're seeing sets of social relationships. Jim Brown, Jr tribal representative of the indian colony discusses

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with Greg white objects he and his father found on their reservation. These two are the main ones, Some rattlesnake island and is basically what it's called. But these were also collected on the other side of the island. So I just brought him in to do more

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identification on him. And the technical term for the whole form is a pistol. And I suspect that it had a lot of magic attached to it this church around here. I assumed that it was traded um from another area into there. But my father actually found

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this one. Um back in the early 70s we had real low water actually 76. And we're walking along the edge of the shore line and he stepped right on this. This was was like this in the mud and he stepped on it and he dug it

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out and this is the result of it. But in that same site within 3-4 ft we found these two here. You can tell from the water, you know they were they were laying in the water and then these other little ones came all from the area

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near the to lease. How do archaeologists know how old these stone points are? The ones made of obsidian, volcanic glass, lisa swilling er Obsidian hydration coordinator. When a obsidian is a fresh surface is exposed to the air or to the soil, it starts absorbing moisture from

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the air soil. And so the longer it's been exposed to the elements that further in the hydration penetrates the obsidian. You can see that hydration on, if you cut a piece of obsidian grind it really thin mounted on the side. Put it in a petra graphic

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microscope. The amount of hydration is then measured using electronic calipers. One leg is placed on the hydration front and the other leg on the surface of the obsidian. I'm going to line up this edge first. This is the diffusion front. It's how far it's penetrated into

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the obsidian. This is the obsidian. This is the slide. You can extrapolate a date from those measurements. If you have some good background data, each obsidian source hydrates at a different rate. So getting absolute dates is kind of tough at this point. Research coordinator Dave demonstrates

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how these points were made 5000 years ago. The first thing we have to do is get rid of some of the curve. If we want to come out with something flatter too thin a piece, you have to drive into it a little more than you would.

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Instead of deflecting off, you're getting in and there's this whole chunk is gonna pop out eventually and I may end up with something in there. That was a good flight though, you can tell the difference in the sound when it comes off. Rather clean break. So

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I press like this. I'll pop off short rather wide flakes and I'll get a steep edge by pressing into the piece. You get the flake to travel a little farther and it reduces that ridge that was there. Okay, so these flakes flattened out. What was the

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ridge there from this side, which is rather uneven. If I wanted to make a cleaner looking arrowhead, I need to press off flakes in this direction here and some in this direction here and I'll start leveling out that margin. This was an activity that probably took

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place in many areas of the west in the springtime or during the summer or in the fall since some of the Obsidian sources on the east side were under snow during the winter and it's not easy to do this when you're cold. These folks were off

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on hunting parties, extended periods maybe for a week or so. If they were fairly mobile going off in the hills, they probably carry a few of these backups and then some finish points have to uh it's pretty common I think to throw an atlatl spear point

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or shoot an arrow and have a break. Even if it's a game, you probably damaged it significantly. And this other than re sharpening could be a point similar to ones we find in this area where the base sometimes about this wide, the notches are a little

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lower than the ones we're seeing. So, other than maybe cleaning up the tip for an actual hunting episode point would probably stay as it is in this area right here. When while the excavation was going on, the excavator had hit a skull with this pick at

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that moment was when they stopped work and went and looked for Greg and myself and we came out on site and made the judgment that it was a burial, a possible burial at that time, they went to um some finer digging tools and exposed the rest

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of the burial and found that it was a complete burial, it wasn't an accidental death because of the way that the body was laying and the, the position of the bones and everything. Uh, I was just just the way that the burials that they had found

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in the past, the individual was laying here with his head in this position and we believe was bound and laying something like this. Which is one of the way that most of the barrels that we found out here have been what we like to do um,

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with most of the artifacts that are found within the general vicinity of a burial. We like to believe that it was associated with that person. So that those are all collected and upon internment re internment of that individual. We keep those together and place them with

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them to traditionally archaeology has searched for graves because they often have associated many artifacts that are representative of the culture. We realized that the artifacts, the things that are associated with that person have less to do with who that person was than the regard in which

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they were held by the people who actually performed the burial ceremony. We are responsible to Delbert in our performance, professional performance. We listen to Gilbert's recommendations exclusively and will do the work that he requests that we do. We're more interested these days. I think, in, in

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understanding the residues of daily living, how people, how people live actively hard packed over here. This is the native soil that's been baked, which indicates there's been a fire on top of that area. This is a, a living surface. It's restricted an area that is, it

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doesn't go over the entire side area. It's located right here. So it is a, the major alternatives. It's the floor of a house like this possibly could be a post hole, but we'd have to get into it further to find that out or it could be

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a working area near a house where people brought in this soil packed it down so they could work on it more comfortably. My suspicion is that it's, it was inside the house. It may have started out as a as a baking heart or maybe a acorn

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bread loaf was laid in and and they and this might be a living area here. So people would pour the rocks back in after this after it was done. So they're kind of jumbled. Now. It's pretty rare to find a heart that Was used to bake

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and just forgotten somehow. But it's really a nice, nice one. And you guys are doing a great job in this little catch being brought up as we're digging this unit here, which is a rectangular unit down about this depth. We found a layer, a very thick

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layer of obsidian and it was in two clusters went over here and one over here, but very, very concentrated. It was like in a quarry site. There's a little bit of dirt between them, but most of it was just obsidian. It's as though it's a flint

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nappers, uh, debris either from house cleaning or maybe it's a material that they intended to use later to pick uh, specimens out of for to make into tools In this site area alone, over 2500 cubic feet of dirt were removed and processed. The total for the

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entire project was about 10,000 cubic feet. So after all this digging, sifting and analyzing, what did the archaeologists learn learned about the people and the environment that they lived in. There are sediments and soils, sediments that are brought in by local streams, soils that developed in

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place at the very bottom of the unit as a yellow clay that's the most ancient. It's adjacent to an old stream bed that we can't see here, but in a backhoe trench next door. Subsequently, the area was occupied by people who lived along the banks of

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that stream. So we have to well defined strata. The upper brown clay contains material. The date back to around 3000 years ago. A transitional soil that is a stream bank occupation and then a very early occupation At the very top of the yellow clay at the

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Yellow Clay. Brown clay contact, dating around 10,000 years old. Very rare and usually find that so we know how old the sites are. What about the people who lived here as we work, we discovered a pattern on one side of the project area. We found permanent

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villages in another part of the project area. We're finding temporary settlements. And we found by dating through obsidian hydration and C14 that they actually were contemporaneous through a long span of time. And we discovered by analyzing the artifacts that were associated with these two localities. There

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in fact, separate cultural traditions entirely. The temporary camps were used by people who had obvious affiliations, if not the very same people as those that lived in the, in the surrounding hills. There were more mobile people. They move through different parts of the year to a

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place where they might collect seeds, another part of the year, they might hunt deer, another part of the year. They might go to the fishing camps which were finding here because the mobile uplands people traveled in small groups to many areas to obtain their food and

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manufacturing materials. Their tools and weapons were more varied, both in style and composition. While many more of the subtle lake people's implements were found, they were much more uniform and style and material. They were made almost entirely of borax. Lake obsidian. They lived in a settled

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village, had a very hierarchical structure, very elaborate material culture, um, high production and use of materials trading and interaction with people around them. And we suspect that, uh, the the settled people are ancestral to Delbert and elim people that they're probably pullman and uh owned or

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administered the lands here, uh, and would invite or arbitrary people from the outside who would come in and use the streams during intense fish runs, which happened in the spring. So where did these people go? Don't ever assume that there are no indians, the kind of

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prejudice and uh, very hostile, negative. Uh, the violence that was perpetrated on them was such that many chose to identify themselves as uh, mexican spanish, uh, because indians were really treated extremely badly in California. I was born and raised in this area, not near the reservation

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here. Our reservation now is over in the clear Lake Oaks area. L. M. Indian colony. We still do hold our annual dances and stuff over on the reservation. The pomo people have lived here In the lower lake area and this area here for quite a while

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and there was a reservation that was terminated in back in the 50s I believe. And they still have a cemetery site out there. And that's all that remains of the old reservation. There's six native americans here working on site. There's four of us that are native

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american advisers and we're just on site. Give advice anytime you find human remains on what we would like to have done with them because the public needed a safer highway. The native americans who continued to occupy lower lake were connected with a part of their history

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which had been lost. Other possible discoveries which remained buried for future archaeologists will be protected by Anderson March State Historic Park. It's a lot a lot of hard work but it's interesting to know something about your history and the history of the people. And for us

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it's really interesting because you know we are descendants from this area. So it's a learning process for us to learn a little bit more about our past. The earth yielded many artifacts, much data And a better understanding of the Native Americans who occupied lower lake. But

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the work revealed much more different groups with different interests can all benefit by cooperating. It showed us how to people's very different in their life ways. Technologies and histories lived side by side sharing the land, the resources, the neighborhood for over 5000 years. Mm