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CALTRANS
CONTRIBUTIONS TO EASTERN SIERRA ARCHAEOLOGY
Archaeological
work in the Eastern Sierra began in the late 19th
century, when some
impressive rock art panels were first described,
but serious scientific investigations did not start until
much later. The famous anthropologist
Julian Steward carried out limited excavations in the 1920s, while he was
interviewing
 Native American peoples in the Owens Valley and
adjacent areas. More important early excavations did not
happen until the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. Four sites are of
particular interest, though many others were examined in
less detail (Early Research) the Stahl site at Little Lake, the
Cottonwood Creek site, the Rose Spring site near present day Haiwee
Reservoir, and the shorelines of China Lake. Largely
exploratory in nature, with no earlier work to build on,
these initial studies mostly just attempted to describe what
they found.
 The goals of
archaeology had changed a lot by the 1970s. It was realized
that you cannot understand the prehistory of hunting and
gathering cultures – people who rely entirely on wild plant
and animal foods that occur in different amounts at
different times in different locations – by looking at just
a few major sites. Such societies move around the wider
landscape over the course of a year. They might hunt
animals
in some places, collect grass seeds in other areas, and
gather pine nuts or roots in yet other locations. Certain
foods are always available, while others may be present
during just one short season. To piece together such a
puzzle required that archaeologists study a full range of
sites in different environments.
Robert
Bettinger’s research during the 1970s and 1980s began to
fill in the picture. He surveyed a portion of the Owens
Valley and excavated at several key locations. Bettinger
found that his oldest settlements were positioned along the
Owens River corridor, people later moving away from
steamside locations into nearby desert scrub habitats. Such
locations allowed easier access to more distant upland
(mountain) environments, which became increasingly important
as people began to rely more and more on pine nuts in the
later prehistoric era.
By the
mid-1970s we had a more complete view of Eastern Sierra
archaeology and the timing of important changes in cultural
patterns. But there was much more to do. And this is where a
long series of projects sponsored by Caltrans began to fill
in many of the gaps. These were performed in
conjunction with highway improvements and were done to
comply with environmental protection legislation. Cultural
resources that might be threatened by a project needed to be
first identified and then evaluated for their importance.
Where impacts to could not be avoided to significant sites,
valuable information needed to be collected before those
impacts occurred.
The scale of
Caltrans-sponsored archaeology in the Eastern Sierra has
been enormous. This brief overview cannot examine all of
these studies in detail. Nor can it do justice to
contributions
of the many archaeologists who have worked in the area over
sometimes
long
careers. This summary instead highlights a few key projects
from various eras. Some of these served to influence the
course of later research, others were the first to examine
particular parts of the region. Caltrans projects span large
swaths of Inyo and Mono counties, but most work has been
associated with the Highway 395 corridor.
LUBKIN CREEK SITE
(INY-30)
Perhaps the
first truly important Caltrans project in the Eastern Sierra
was the Lubkin Creek (INY-30) excavation. Discussed further
in other sections of this webpage, this multi-component site
was occupied from the early
Holocene until historic times. Work
at Lubkin Creek
provided new
kinds
of information
 and pioneered
new approaches to
archaeological
research that are still in
use today.
The
obsidian studies
were
especially influential.
Radiocarbon
dates from buried
houses were used to build the first
reliable obsidian hydration rate for volcanic glass from the Coso quarry. Obsidian sourcing results were employed to
reconstruct the settlement patterns and travel ranges of
people living at the site. These varied a lot over the
thousands of years the site was occupied. Other analyses
examined changes in flaked and ground stone technologies
evolved and explored implications of the rich animal bone
and carbonized plant materials recovered. Major shifts in
subsistence patterns indicated later peoples were using more
costly foods than earlier groups. They were also going
further afield to obtain these resources. Of particular
interest were the many house structures uncovered at Lubkin
Creek. Among the first buried houses ever found, Middle
Prehistoric domiciles were very different than those of the
Late Prehistoric era. Changes in size, construction,
artifact composition, and other furnishings were linked to
shifts in the scale and frequency of residential moves. We
now believe this has to do with adjustments in social
organization from earlier composite to later household
groups.
ALABAMA GATES
 The later
Alabama Gates project provided a better record of early and
middle Holocene archaeology, what we’ve collapsed here as
Early Prehistoric Times. These old artifacts were found in a number
of sites and provided clues as to how use of the Owens River
channel changed over the last ten millennia or so. Early
occupations were focused narrowly around the exploitation of
seasonal fish runs. Later ones relied on an increasingly
broad range of foods including seeds, small fish, and
freshwater mussels during the last few hundred years.
Alabama Gates also led to new ideas about why Early
Prehistoric flaked stone artifacts were made as they were.
Information gained from the project led to the idea that
long-term shifts in settlement organization had been far
more complicated than previously thought.
TEA
SURVEY
Although not
an excavation effort, the TEA survey provided the first
intensive look at many areas outside the Highway 395
corridor. All rural highways in Inyo and Mono counties were
surveyed as part of this effort. Previously known sites were relocated
and many new sites were identified. Obsidian samples from
selected sites found on the project provided some of the
first sourcing information for large tracts of the Eastern
Sierra.
ABERDEEN - BLACK ROCK
 Blackrock was
one of the largest archaeological projects conducted for
Caltrans. Including some 26 separate sites, this
was among the first studies to look at sections of Owens
Valley between Big Pine and Independence. This strip of land
contains a tremendous amount of environmental variation and
showed a long history of occupation from the early Holocene
to historic period. Some of the most recent sites were among
the more important. These included locations that could be
traced to specific Paiute individuals, as well as places
that may have been used as refuges from Euroamerican
attacks. Which brings us to the two recent Caltrans projects
that together prompted creation of this webpage –
Manzanar-Independence and Ed Powers.
MANZANAR - INDEPENDENCE
  
The combined
Manzanar and Independence projects involved test excavations
at 15 sites and more extensive, data recovery work at six of
those locations. A few deposits had older deposits dating to
the Early and Middle Prehistoric periods, but almost all of
the occupation was during the Late Prehistoric
and
Historic eras.
This was
important in providing a detailed look at Eastern Sierra
lifeways just before
and after the
arrival of
Euroamericans.
The sites were also of
different
kinds. Some were small temporary camps, others were
specialized seed processing areas, and a few were larger
winter settlements where people stayed longer, built
houses,
and participated in a wide
 range of activities.
Several
important issues were clarified by this work. It confirmed
suspicions that the pattern of large villages described by
Julian Steward
developed in historic times. Prior to that people lived in
small, family-based units that rarely included more than one
or a couple houses. Groups consolidated around ranches and
towns to
 take advantage of paid work after traditional
opportunities collapsed. The project also documented many
changes to Late Prehistoric economic patterns. People were
using an increasingly wide variety of plant and animal
resources. Many of these had probably been avoided in
earlier times because they were difficult and costly to
acquire and prepare. Their later use reflects a growing need
to do so. It was also shown that recent Owens Valley people
had strong geographic connections with folks to the east.
Pottery, obsidian, cherts, and possibly other goods were
traced to areas around Death Valley and southern Nevada.
Archaeologists had thought that groups interacted mainly
with neighboring communities in the valley.
A large winter
village at Shepherd
Creek (CA-INY-5888) was the most important site
investigated. This site contained several houses, features
of other kinds, and yielded an extraordinarily rich
collection of artifacts and food remains. Many of the tools
were quite fancy and valuable. More than 300 beads were
found at the site, the largest total from one location in
the entire Eastern Sierra.
ED POWERS
  
The Ed Powers project provided a great complement to
Manzanar-Independence. Most of the sites investigated here
dated to Middle Prehistoric times or before. Initial work
was done at five locations, more extensive excavations at
just four. The most impressive site
was on the old channel of
Birch Creek (CA-INY-1384/H). Although some later
occupation was present, much of the site dated to a narrow
interval between 2200-1300 BP. No fewer than 14 houses were
found during the project, most of these in a narrow strip
along the highway. Many more such structures must occur
beyond this restricted area.
 Houses
at Birch Creek were exceptionally well preserved. Because
most were entirely excavated, we learned a great deal about
how they were occupied and what kinds of activities took
place inside them. Some contained cooking areas, others had
storage pits, and many had caches of whole tools that must
have been intended for later use. The implications of these
structures, very different than Late Prehistoric houses, are
explored elsewhere. It was of particular interest that most
were actually used at different times. Radiocarbon dates
were obtained for all of the houses and no more than two or
three were occupied at the same time. This was an important
finding. It indicates that even major settlements were not
large villages inhabited by numerous families.
OTHER IMPORTANT PROJECTS IN THE EASTERN SIERRA:
There have, of
course, been important archaeological projects in the
Eastern Sierra unrelated to Caltrans activities. Some were
conducted with grant funding from the National Science
Foundation or other institutions, others as part of
management efforts of federal agencies like the U.S. Forest
Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Department of
Defense. Three of these are discussed briefly here: high
elevation excavations in the White Mountains, studies of the
Coso obsidian quarry, and studies of rock art and occupation
sites on the Volcanic Tablelands above Bishop (Other
Non-Caltrans Studies).
Graduate
student research has also been both important and extensive.
Carried out in relation to both MA theses and PhD
dissertations, students have been affiliated with CSU
Sacramento, UC Davis, UC Riverside, the University of
Nevada, Reno, and CSU Bakersfield (Graduate Student
Projects).
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