AMS Radiocarbon Dates from Three Shellmounds in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA

The periodization used to distinguish sites and artifacts as "prehistoric" or "historic" translates to the selection of field methods and analytical techniques. This comes at the expense of developing new approaches to track continuities and adjustments in Native American site use, technologies, and other cultural traditions, such as mobility across an artificial divide between prehistory and history. To evaluate the mobility of Coast Miwok people in colonial San Francisco Bay, California, this article presents an experimental technique that compares radiocarbon and geochemical data from a Late period Phase 2(A.D. 1500-1800) shellmound (CA-MRN-114) to baptismal records from Spanish missions (A.D.l 776-1830s). Supported by eyewitness accounts of native fugitivism, furlough, and foraging at the missions, Coast Miwok baptisms before 1817 are at their lowest during traditional times of mussel harvests. After 1817, a different pattern is examined vis-d-vis the colonial landscapes taking shape in the region. Radiocarbon, geochemical, and documentary evidence supports the conclusion that seasonally oriented Coast Miwok mobility involving the collection of shellfish continued even during missionization. With further refinement, the proposed methodological framework holds promise for documenting patterns that often go unseen in the historical record and enhancing the archaeology of colonialism in North America.

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AMS Radiocarbon Dates from Three Shellmounds in the San Francisco Bay Area, California, USA

Abstract: This paper presents a set of accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dates obtained from various archaeological samples collected from 3 shellmounds—CA-MRN-114, CA-MRN-115, and CA-MRN-328—within China Camp State Park, Marin County, California, USA.

Cited by 3 publications

References 5 publications

Impact of climate change on mollusks and other invertebrate resources at the Dominican University of California archaeological site (CA-MRN-254), Marin County, California

Impact of climate change on mollusks and other invertebrate resources at the Dominican University of California archaeological site (CA-MRN-254), Marin County, California

New Radiocarbon Dates from CA-CCO-138 (Hotchkiss Mound) and CA-CCO-139 (Simone Mound) and Insights into Mounds, Settlement Patterns, and Culture History in the California Delta

Envisioning Colonial Landscapes Using Mission Registers, Radiocarbon, and Stable Isotopes: An Experimental Approach from San Francisco Bay

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