El Sobrante La HondaMidden and probable village site.Elevation 134 ft.Joel strikes again.The house probably sits on top of a village site, perhaps one those along San Pablo Creek marked on Sherburne Cook’s map of East Bay Indian villages.Midden soil.
El Sobrante LibraryVillage site and shellmoundElevation 95 ft.Another one of Joel’s discoveries.The library was constructed right on top of a major village site, but you’d never know it.Midden soil.
Glen Cove Park, aka Sogorea Te3,500 year old village site, shell midden, and burial ground.20+ bedrock mortars visible at low tide on wave-cut benchs.Elevation 10 ft.Thanks to Joel for leading us here.Inhabitants of this village crossed the Carquinez Strait in tule balsas to greet the Fages expedition in 1772. Fages noted in his diary that […]
Goat Rock Beach middenElevation 23 ft.Joel, who we now call “midden man,” led us here on a tour of his recent North Bay discoveries. Shell and bone fragments litter this mound of dark sandy soil. This is not a natural deposit.When we visited this site in December of 2011 a sand bar blocked the mouth […]
Keller RanchTwo portable stone mortars incorporated into the ranch house foundation, which was constructed on an extensive midden deposit.Elevation 393 ft.A major Chupcan village occupied this area at the confluence of Donner, Mitchell, and Diablo Creeks.One of the portable mortars in the ranch house foundation.Obsidian debitage picked up from the ground surface around the ranch […]
Mare Island shell middenDeteriorating shell middenElevation 23 ft.Joel seems to have a nose for midden. Keep sniffing ’em out Joel!This is probably one of the two “shell heaps” on Mare Island marked on N. C. Nelson’s 1909 map. Note the contrast between dark midden and tan soil.Joel thinks the shell fragments and midden soil are […]
Miwok Meadows #1Shellmound midden at the mouth of Miwok Meadows in China Camp State ParkElevation 25 ft.There are three known shellmounds in this general vicinity. We’ve found two. The map accompanying N. C. Nelson’s Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region showed eleven shellmounds along this stretch of shoreline. Undoubtedly this was one of them.This […]
Miwok Meadows #2Shellmound midden at the head of Miwok Meadows in China Camp State ParkElevation 43 ft.Looking over the mound with San Pablo Bay and the Napa Hills in the background. There was a Miwok village at this site. The map accompanying N. C. Nelson’s Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region showed eleven shellmounds […]
Parkman’s middenElevation 88 ft.We named this site after E. Breck Parkman, Senior State Archaeologist for California State Parks.We got to see Joel in action here. After locating a jasper boulder mentioned in one of Parkman’s reports, Joel paced out the distance to this midden, which was also mentioned in the report. He walked right to […]
Ring Mountain kitchen rockOne bedrock mortar, one anvil, and middenElevation 23 ft.This is another one of Joel’s discoveries. It’s a beautiful streamside site not far from the bay. The mortar is on mica schist. Look for small garnets and larger amphibolite crystals embedded in the rock. These are unusual high pressure, low temperature minerals.The kitchen […]
