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San Francisco Bay occupies a late Pliocene Epoch (2-3 million years ago) trough (great inland valley) that was flooded repeatedly during Pleistocene interglacials. The most recent filling of San Francisco Bay occurred during the past 10,000 years. At about 15,000 years ago, the coastal shoreline was more than nine miles west of San Francisco's present ocean beaches. Thereafter, the rising seas, caused by the melting of continental glaciers, began to encroach upon California's coast. Before 10,000, the great Sacamento River surged through the rocky gorge of the Golden Gate (see location on 19th century illustration at right) and then flowed across what is today the submerged continental shelf, finally emptying into the ocean many miles west of the present shoreline (Moratto 1984: 219). As glacial icecaps melted and sea levels began to rise over the next 10,000 years, ocean waters gradually drowned the inland valley until it reached a point 381 feet above the river's bedrock at the Golden Gate. A tidal lagoon at Mission Bay (see image above) was created late in this period of rising seas, reaching its present height about 5,000 years ago. After the last ice-melt raised the ocean level, Mission Bay extended over at least 560 acres of tidal mudflat and marsh. These low areas were filled in during the San Francisco's rapid development in the 19th century (Olmsted 1986: 2). Teeming Environs 10,000 years ago, San Francisco Bay contained deep waters. A natural estuary was formed at the confluence of the Pacific Ocean, the Sacramento River and the San Joaquin River. Mud flats formed on the shores of the bay and in combination with the adjacent rocky points, sand dunes, small estuaries, and marshes provided a variety of natural habitats for marine and terrestrial life. As a result, diverse biotic communities developed in this lush environment: Teeming with animal and vegetable life, these environs provided a breadth of accessible foods and materials for human use. Marine fauna included a variety of fish and sea mammals, mud-flat and rocky shore molluscan species, and marsh-dwelling water fowl. Terrestrial plant communities on the San Francisco peninsula included grasslands interspersed with low-growing shrubs, riparian habitats bordering small streams, and tules, grasses, and cattails surrounding a lagoon and small freshwater lake. These plant communities supported large and small game, such as deer, rabbit and birds [Alvarez 1993:13].By the time of the Coast Survey Map of 1852 [45 K], the silt deposited by the tides had transformed the 300 acres above normal high-water into salt marsh, leaving 260 acres of shallow lagoon covered by a foot or more of water at low tide. The incoming tides carried sediments from the engulfed river and the ocean. Mud and sand built up along the edges of the lagoon, forming islands that sprouted cordgrass and, at the higher levels, pickleweed. Except for the occasional winter storm blowing in from the southeast, Mission Bay remained a lagoon and marshland of calm, protected sunny water. With such a setting it became an abundant resource for enormous bird populations, including very large duck communities and migrating birds such as Canadian geese, egrets, herons, osprey, seagulls, visiting loons, hawks, owls, and falcons. Multitudes of mice, shrews and rabbits thrived in the upper reaches of the salt marsh (Olmsted 1986: 2). The area was a setting for humans, with an abundance of land-based game (e.g., deer, elk, waterfowl), marine game (seals, sea lions, sea otters), fish (salmon, surf perch, white seabass, jacksmelt), and shellfish (red abolone, mussels, oysters, clams) (Moratto 1984: 221). A Rich Environment for Humans
Archival research indicates that during prehistoric and early historic times a large marsh protruded inland south of Rincon Hill as far west as the Seventh & Mission study area as indicated on the 1852 Coast Survey map [45 K]. This area would have provided favorable habitats for biotic communities that would have been exploited by Native Americans and later historic populations. The greater San Francisco Bay area was rich in rocks and minerals, such as obsidian, chert, and hematite for pigment (Moratto 1984: 221). A combination of physiographic, geologic, hydrologic, floral and faunal factors resulted in a varied and rich environmental setting that provided a natural resource base conducive to prehistoric and historic human habitation. Diversity and Abundance Among Native Cultures
When the Spanish first established colonies in California in the late 1700's, Alta California was the home of more than 300,000 Indians-a greater number than in any comparable area north of Mexico. The historic period Native Californians were by no means "primitive," however. With some evidence that they practiced limited horticulture or agriculture, they relied mainly on hunting and gathering as the basis of their subsistence, developing complex social systems. So diverse were the Indian lifestyles that early 20th century ethnographers described no less than four major culture areas. The linguistic picture was even more elaborate, with approximately 90 languages, including several hundred dialects. Lifeways To sustain their populations, the California Indians pursued diverse economic strategies. Basic subsistence activities were gathering (acorns, roots, berries, etc.), hunting (deer, elk, sea mammals, and small game), fowling, collecting (mollusks, birds' eggs, insect foods), and both freshwater and marine fishing. Although only a half-dozen groups in southern California engaged in limited agriculture (growing maize, beans, gourds, and amaranth), many of California's transcendent hunter-gatherers achieved the status of "proto-agriculturalists": they sowed wild seeds; planted and/or tended native root crops, greens, and tobacco; pruned mesquite to stimulate growth; planted "vineyards" of wild grapes; irrigated desired plants; and used "quasi-agricultural" techniques to harvest acorns, grass seeds, yucca, mesquite, and pine nuts. They developed complex tools composed mainly of bone, chipped stone, and ground stone. Besides tools such as projectile (spear or arrow) points, sinkers, and bone saws, the Indians also made a great variety of non-utilitarian items such as ornamental charmstones and whistles.  View
sample artifacts from central California [Courtesy of the Treganza
Museum]:
The Native Californians managed their fish and wildlife resources in various ways. Among many northwestern groups, specialists controlled fishing and dam-building activities, regulated the opening of the salmon-fishing season, and managed the use of the spawning runs to ensure a sustained, efficient harvest. The Indians also widely managed their environment through the controlled burning of vegetation. Fire was used extensively to increase the yield of edible seeds, encourage the growth of desirable plants, flush and drive game, provide forage for deer and elk, and clear the ground below oaks and pines to facilitate nut harvests. Systematic burning was the single most important environmental modification by the California Indians, allowing them to control plant successions and, locally, to maintain biotic communities such as grasslands and oak savannas. Grass seeds likely were more significant in prehistory than has been thought and may have rivaled the acorn as a staple in the aboriginal diet. Trade Networks To optimize the distribution of resources over large areas, California Indians developed sophisticated exchange systems. Trade in this area has considerable antiquity: a string of Olivella shell beads from the coast was found at Leonard Rockshelter, Pershing County, Nevada, in deposits nearly 8,600 years old. By late prehistoric times, Indians were transporting such items as acorns, salt, fish, shell artifacts, clothing, bows and arrows, baskets, and even dogs over a network of trails. The obsidian trade was central to this exchange system that allowed the unique or surplus resources of one group to be distributed to others. Trade feasts, such as those of the Pomo and Chumash, afforded a mechanism for neighboring groups to exchange surplus goods. Trade, coupled with the general use of money (e.g., clamshell disks), increased the potential size and stability of populations by diminishing the specter of starvation in the event of local, short-term failures of normal food resources. In the economic sphere, the California Indians were by no means insulated. As early as AD 1800, and probably before, the Walla Walla were trekking from Washington to Santa Clara County to acquire cinnabar for use as a vermilion pigment; trade with the Great Basin was active for millennia; and lively commerce with the Southwest brought pottery, cotton blankets, stone axes, and other goods into California in exchange for shell and perhaps turquoise. There is also evidence that turquoise may have been mined in the Mojave Sink vicinity by Indians from the pueblos of northern Arizona. Social Organization California Indian societies often were stratified, with individuals classed as elite, commoners, poor, slaves, or drifters. Recognized also were bureaucrats (chief's aides and managers) and religious functionaries who merited a notch above commoners. Prestige came as well to such craft specialists as expert traders, basket weavers, and bead makers. In the more complex societies, craft guilds controlled certain industries, for example, canoe building among the Chumash. Social preeminence was reserved for chiefs. Usually supported by their communities, chiefs lived in relative luxury with large houses, fancy clothing, stores of food, and money. Chiefs often married several women in order to strengthen alliances with the elite of other groups. The basic landholding group in much of the California heartland was the village community or tribelet-an independent social entity governed by a chief. As many as 500 such tribelets may have existed in pre-contact California. Tribelets sharing the same language, culture, and history comprised nonpolitical ethnic groups. Individual tribelets held territories ranging in area from about 80 square miles to as much as 10,000 square miles. Tribelet activities often focused upon a principal town that served as a political, ritual, and economic center to which nearby villages were tributary. Beyond the tribelet or tribal units, higher-order alliances for trade, war, and ritual were found in many parts of California. These often linked members of diverse ethnic communities who had access to different resources. At times, as many as several thousand Indians would convene in one place for rituals, trade fairs, or military ventures. The Earliest San Franciscans: the Costanoans and Historic Ohlone
It is uncertain when the first humans appeared in the San Francisco area. The earliest known occupation sites have been radiocarbon dated to about 5000 to 5500 years ago. The first humans may have come with the technology and paraphernalia of the historically known Costanoans, skimming over the shallow waters of Mission Bay in their balsas, the buoyant watercraft made of tule reeds lashed together in bundles. With pointed sticks, they may have pried mussels from rocks and dug up clams, scooped up smelt with woven baskets, and snared ducks and shorebirds with throwing nets weighted by grooved stones. Independent of the tides, they could paddle inland up Mission Creek to cut willow withes for their baskets and for lashings to hold the pole framework of their huts. In the brackish backwater along the creek, they could have harvested the tule reeds that gave them new boats, fibers for their sleeping mats and aprons, and thatch for their conical houses. Beside freshwater springs they may have set up their encampments, living lightly on the land until the season changed or their food supply was exhausted and they had to move on within their tribal territory. Table: Archaeological Periods in Central California (from Fredrickson 1973:115) ___________________________________________________________________________________ Period Approx. Date Archaeological Site/Unit Upper Emergent AD 1,500 Phase 2, Late Horizon Lower Emergent AD 300 Phase 1, Late Horizon Upper Archaic 2,000 BC Middle Horizon Intermediate Cultures Lower Archaic 6,000 BC Early Horizon Early San Francisco Bay Early Millingstone Cultures Paleo-Indian 10,000 BC San Dieguito Western Clovis Early Lithic? Farmington? Santa Rosa Island? ___________________________________________________________________________________Prehistoric mounds containing burials with artifacts and middens dating back to at least 2000 years ago were found on Hunters Point, some near the shore at Candlestick Park. The people of these mounds may have been the ancestors of the Costanoans, as the Spanish named the coast people. The Costanoan linguistic group, comprised of eight separate languages spoken by 50 autonomous tribes (each with its own dialect), has been traced to AD 500. At the time the Spanish arrived the coast people had fished the waters of Mission Bay for 1,275 years. They numbered 10,000, all in the same linguistic group, of which 1,400 are thought to have spoken Raniaytusk-the language spoken by the group most closely associated with Mission Bay. "Costanoan" has been the useful descriptive category for the people who belonged to this large linguistic group and lived on San Francisco Peninsula as far south as Monterey on the ocean side. Indians living in the Bay Area today reject "Costanoan" because it is Spanish; they prefer "Ohlone," meaning "the abalone people," which is closer to their own conception of their ancestors' identity. Studies of basket fragments and materials found in middens, descriptions of the tribes' physical and social life set down by the Spanish Fathers and visiting explorers (mostly in the early 19th century), plus the threads of memory recorded in ethnographers' field notes of the early 20th century-these form the basis for all later accounts of the coast people. Mission Bay Settlements That the coast people had an encampment at Mission Bay seems certain. The small lake edged with willows, and Mission Creek leading directly to the sheltered feeding ground for thousands of birds, made the sunny bay the perfect setting for a people whose choice of food was mussels. Whether their settlement was large or small, temporary or permanent, we cannot say. Tribelets ranged from 50 to 500 members; the average village had about 200 people. Larger groups were more likely to have a permanent central village with outlying, temporary camps placed near specific food sources. The absence of oaks at Mission Bay, in a culture where acorns were used every day as a staple food in the form of gruel or small cakes, suggests that Mission Bay was one of several temporary encampments visited periodically from a permanent village further inland. One of the puzzles about California Indians is the fact that the languages of the tribes differed so greatly, even within the same linguistic group. Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, for example, brought an Indian from Monterey to San Francisco to serve as interpreter, but even though he was a Costanoan, he could not understand Indians in the Bay Area. Anza also discovered that his Indian guides were afraid to cross specific physical boundaries; a certain territory was allotted to each tribe, and boundaries were respected. The religion of the tribes was a mixture of witchcraft and their belief in magic, myths and the importance of their dreams. All of this would have made them particularly vulnerable to the Spanish missionaries. Mission music and ritual chanting at high mass had great fascination for the neophytes. The importance their own ceremonies had for the Indians was matched by the great significance religion held for the Spanish Fathers. Read
details about Archeological Investigations in the San Francisco Bay Area
and San Francisco Peninsula Coming
of the Spanish, the Gold Rush, and the Early Days of San Francisco
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