Speakers of Bay Miwok dialects occupied most of the area of Contra Costa County not bordering San Francisco or San Pablo bays. The territory of one Bay Miwok tribe, the Jalquin, may have extended into Alameda county and touched San Francisco bay at the mouth of San Leandro Creek.
Round Valley1 bedrock mortar with a pestle or hammerstoneElevation 442 ft.We found this mortar and its in situ pestle or hammerstone on the bank of Round Valley Creek.Bob illustrates how the pestle/hammerstone might have been deployed. The user would probably have straddled the mortar, however.A closer look at the pestle/hammerstone snugly ensconsed in its mortar.
Top of Hog Canyon1 bedrock mortar and slick.
Bob Walker’s Cave1 bedrock mortar, rock shelter, stacked rocksElevation 2147 ft.The late Bob Walker was an environmentalist, photographer, and president of the San Francisco Bay Chapter of the Sierra Club. During his tenure there he pushed for the expansion of Morgan Territory Regional Preserve and saw its acreage increase from 970 to more than 5,000 […]
Fig Pig Gulch Meadow19 bedrock mortars, including one broken and one probable.Stacked rock alignments.Elevation 1215 ft.This is a beautiful place for a picnic.Some of the rock alignments here form a nearly complete rectangle, which may contain the ruins of an inner rectangle.Figure I.3 in Archaeological and Geoarchaeological Investigations at Eight Prehistoric Sites in the Los […]
Joel’s StragglerOne bedrock mortar beside Round Valley Creek not far from its confluence with Marsh CreekElevation 245 ft.This mortar rock is less than 100 yards from the main trail into Round Valley. Absent Joel’s curiosity and keen eye, it might have remained unknown to us for years, or even forever. Indians were everywhere, folks. Just […]
Lower Volvon Village200 bedrock mortars and a 32 cupule rock. A second cupule rock also at the site. Numerous housepits.Elevation 1445 ft.This is one of the largest collections of bedrock mortars in California, and it is only about a mile and a half away from the main Volvon Village.The Lower Village sits on the side […]
Morgan Territory Ridge East Shelf #3Three bedrock mortars.Elevation 1560 ft.We discovered this beautiful funnel-shaped mortar in late Fall 2013.We also found this nice two mortar rock across the swale from the single mortar shown above.
Round Valley Village317+ bedrock mortars, two cupule rocks, and a stacked rock enclosure.CA-CCO-320This settlement is the largest of three that sit along the eastern base of the Black Hills.Joseph Chartkoff in “A Rock Feature Complex from Northwestern California,” American Antiquity, Vol. 48, No. 4, (Oct., 1983), pp. 745-760, notes the similarity between this stacked-rock enclosure […]
Trail Through Time27 bedrock mortars near a wayside exhibit along the Trail Through Time.Elevation 1665 ft.There are serious kitchen rocks here.A nice little exhibit with a map to most of the bedrock mortars at this site.
Bob’s Mortar75 bedrock mortars, including 9 in a satelilte site about 100 ft. awayElevation 1380 ft.This site was named for the first mortar Bob discovered on his own. It is a single large bowl on a rock right beside the trail. Below the rock a small perennial spring or seep dribbles water into a creek […]
