[Music]
so thanks everybody thanks for being
here I really appreciate it one of I you
know I have a wonderful job and I you
know at the California Academy of
Sciences and probably the thing I like
best about it is giving public talks and
then to give a public talk in the place
that is just absolutely really special
to me the Channel Islands and and all of
you are here because these are special
places to you it's just really fantastic
so thanks for coming and being here and
for the invitation for Laura and Kristen
and and in the park for being here
so you know the work we do on the
Channel Islands I just want to sort of
say you know I work with a lot of people
from a number of different universities
and institutions and I'm going to talk
about some of that work tonight and sort
of meld it all together we also work
with Chumash partners to make this all
work Channel Islands National Park and
the sanctuary and TNC so all of this
stuff that I'm going to talk to you
about is a Herculean effort by a lot of
different people in a lot of different
communities and interests so I want to
acknowledge them and thank them for all
their contributions as well so today I
want to take you through about why I
think the Channel Islands are central
and helping us figure out when and how
the first Americans arrived and I want
to take you on this sort of I'm gonna
start off on this story about how US
archeologists told you all the wrong
story for decades alright and then we're
trying to figure out the new one so this
idea of the human Odyssey and when and
how humans migrated in and and occupied
different continents and landscapes
allow around the globe is perhaps one of
the biggest questions the
anthropologists and archaeologists
confront this migration over a hundred
thousand years ago 200,000 years ago
migrations Out of Africa and around the
globe and certainly for us here in the
Americas the timing and route of this
migration into the new world into North
and South America has been a point of
fascination
and you for the first scholars to look
at this consensus was and this certainly
wasn't everyone but the consensus was
that the new world had a very short
chronology and claims for deep antiquity
of humans in the new world were often
met with skepticism and until the 1920s
most scholars believe that peoples
reached America's sometime only four
thousand years ago and this has a lot to
do with the politics of European
colonization of the new world it's much
easier to dispossessed people of their
land if you believe they haven't been
here very long right so this was steeped
in politics it was steeped in racism but
it was also sort of a conception of well
that Native Americans in the new world
didn't have the technologies the
agriculture that it was seen in the old
world that turned out to be wrong right
in many ways and in some ways there were
different technologies and different
adaptations but this was sort of what
the leading scholars what most
anthropologists what most archaeologists
believe for for a long time that
fundamentally changed with the discovery
of one site this happened in 1924 with
it with the discovery and this is a
reconstructed photo of it with a fluted
clearly human-made projectile point
embedded in the ribs of an extinct bison
right that went extinct somewhere at
least ten thousand years ago and this
one instance pushed back the chronology
of the people into the new world 6,000
years right and so there was this
paradigm shift and in scholars and
archaeologists were sort of an a race to
figure out then when and how people
first arrived if it was ten thousand or
more years ago and after decades of
research a sort of coherent story
started to develop and this was this
became known as the Clovis first
paradigm of new world colonization or
new world migration right this idea and
you've all heard this right if you
you remember this and college or high
schools or grade schools right that it
was big-game hunters who walked across
the Bering Land Bridge during the last
glacial maximum right when sea levels
were much lower and modern-day Russia
and Alaska were attached they walked
across presumably following animals
following game they staged in Alaska and
when things started to warm sea levels
rose in an ice-free corridor the Corps
Dillion and and Laurentide ice sheets
started to separate a route opened up
into the new world and perhaps
unbeknownst to these hunters and
gatherers they followed big game right
they followed these herds of mammoths
and other Pleistocene megafauna down
into the new world right and this story
seemed to fit right there were a lot of
sites dated to about thirteen thousand
five hundred to twelve thousand nine
hundred years ago many of which had what
are called Clovis points right these big
honking projectile points you have this
flute that was taken off and sort of the
last stage of its production that would
help haften onto a shaft and these were
the weapons these were the technologies
to hunt these big Ice Age animals right
inside after sight from sea to shining
sea in North America something a little
different in South America but this this
made sense right you would see in some
sights not not a lot it turned out
extinct mammoths and and bison bones and
association with these paleo-indian
Clovis points what became known as
Clovis points and a generation of
archeologists told this story right got
jobs at prestigious universities got
grants and and accolades in the study of
this first Americans right and it all
seemed to work and for something on the
order of six decades this became the
story of the first
Americans and the one that you probably
heard so Clovis then became regarded as
the first culture in the new world the
point of origin was presumed to be
Siberia passage into Alaska down this
ice-free corridor during the last
glacial maximum they entered the new
world somewhere on the order of 13,500
years ago this was the baseline for for
human origins in the new world that
became known as the Clovis barrier all
right and anything older than the Clovis
barrier earlier than the Clovis barrier
were called pre-clovis cultures right
and there were some rogue archaeologists
out there who would suggests they found
a site that's older than 13,500 years
ago that was pre Clovis and they were
met with much skepticism from their
colleagues right and often their sites
there their arguments were dismantled
piece by piece right and this was sort
of the story that developed again for
six decades so while this story sort of
made sense in a lot of ways there were
problems right any of you been to Alaska
yeah if you've been to Alaska right
stood at the foot of a glacier looked
around what does that landscape look
like nothing writes Rock it's melt ice
melt it's barren it looks like this a
barren wasteland really inhospitable the
ice-free corridor for many folks that
were telling this story was conceived to
be this fertile paradise that mammoth
and Pleistocene animals were walking
down right so wow this is a bit
tongue-in-cheek the idea is when it's
not when the ice-free corridor opened
it's when it was habitable right you
can't migrate down you know a couple
thousand kilometer long route with
without there being plants and animals
to sustain sort of human migration right
so when did that happen and in fact
recent sort of reconstructions
paleoecological reconsider
options of this ice-cream free corridor
suggested then happened until relatively
late late so at a place called charlie
lake cave and sort of a centralized free
corridor ecological reconstruction
suggests that it wasn't till about
13,000 years ago twelve six that we see
the kinds of plants and animals that
would suggest this is a habitable my
gradable landscapes if that's a word
right i think it is in other studies
have shown a similar sort of thing right
that bison clads north and south of the
glaciers during the last glacial maximum
only start to have cho gene flow after
about thirteen thousand four hundred
years ago right so relatively late right
so if we have sites that are thirteen
thousand five hundred years ago south of
these ice sheets how do we explain this
right and then other data like this so
this is a really coarse data but this
put together by someone the University
of Tennessee but it's a distribution and
I won't get in the weeds on this of
fluted points this just means really
early points like Clovis and Clovis type
points a little later than Clovis but
the point remains where do you see most
of these points right big dots means a
lot little dots means a little where our
most misses this is this is the response
part of the the lecture on the East
Coast right you see them clustered on
the east coast well if you're coming
down a nice three corridor right and you
you end up in the heartland of North
America where would you expect most of
these points perhaps in the West or in
in the inner montane region now of
course this might be there are a lot
more people with a lot more farms a lot
more people picking up which we should
not do
archaeological projectile points and and
noticing these things so this might be
an artifact of archaeological visibility
okay if we look at the ice record a
recent dating of the ice-free corridor
on Clovis sites in North
shaaka and in the ice-free corridor and
in Alaska what we find are that Clovis
sites in the continental US are younger
our Clovis sites in the corridor are
younger than Clovis sites in the
continental United States so what does
that suggest people are moving up the
ice-free corridor potentially not down
the ice-free corridor that would suggest
people may have been in continental
North America to move north not moving
north to south directions correct there
so this was for the most part laid to
rest in the late 1990s with with the
discovery of a single site sort of akin
to win that 1924 site what was found at
a site at a place called Monte Verde and
Chile and it's sort of on the southern
extent of Chile it's not on the coast
it's what we call Perry a coastal it's
near the coast not quite on it has very
distinct clearly human-made technologies
and things like tent pegs and and and
bone points and lithic stone
technologies and an archaeologists are
really good archaeologists by the name
of Tom DeLay hey excavated this site and
he did something really smart that every
time a pre-clovis site dated this thing
to 14,500 years ago a thousand years
older than Clovis he did something
really clever right every time one of
his colleagues said well I have a
pre-clovis site archaeologists would
descend on their site not go to their
house or go to the site to send in the
literature that's the way we do things
in academia and sort of poke holes and
their arguments so what he did is he
invited all the the major Clovis first
scholars at the time got a grant invited
them all down to Monteverde here they
are looking at the archaeology and to a
person while they were there they agreed
this is real it's a real archaeological
site and it dates older than Clovis and
everything has changed story kind of
chain
just when they all get back one person
dissented but we won't get into that
either so I and just sort of give you an
idea of that how spectacular this site
was these are those tent pegs and these
are hide still secured to the tent pegs
this is sort of a semi-submerged site
where you get really incredible
preservation this is one of the sources
of radiocarbon the radiocarbon dates so
really really difficult to argue with
with how precise and how excellent the
archaeology is here so again this turned
everything on its ear so all those text
books needed to be rewritten we are in
now a phase of trying to figure out when
and how the first Americans arrived if
they were here potentially a thousand
years before the ice cream corridor was
open how did they get here and when did
they get here so John Erlandsson
my my advisor University of Oregon with
a number of colleagues in 2007 suggested
that they may and and he had been
writing about this and others had
suggested before but they put out this
hypothesis called the kelp Highway
hypothesis that it may be then its way
it was sort of an ecological paper that
demonstrated that there are many of the
same resources that ring the North
Pacific Rim that connect Japan on the
North Pacific down into North America in
the same species of kelp forests of kelp
that are available a break in the
tropics where you get productive
mangrove environments and those kelp
resources pick right back up into South
America as a highway potentially down to
Monteverde and so if you think about
walking from Alaska to Chile
the mountains the deserts the different
adaptations that you different
challenges that would face you the coast
potentially offers a migration route
with sort of the same kinds of
adaptations that can be applied
throughout right so by that we mean the
same kinds of shellfish and fish and sea
mammals
in habitats available along this Pacific
Rim that may have actually facilitated
migration into the new world and even at
Monte Verde is part of the spectacular
preservation there are there were
produced eight different types of kelp
and seaweed so these folks were engaged
in in terrestrial hunting and gathering
and going after coastal resources again
a thousand years before Clovis and so to
explain well the big challenge is right
that we have this ecological model we've
missed all these early sites for decades
right I just told you about Clovis first
for six decades how could we have missed
this why have we not been working on the
coast well one of the problems is well
where are all those sites on the coast
they're under you already know you
already have the punchline right so I I
always tell my students that the the
most difficult questions in life can be
explained with squiggly lines this is
one of them right and this is a record
of of temperature through time cold and
warm and this corridor of migration was
at a time when when sea levels were much
lower five percent of the world's water
was was captured and high altitude and
glacial ice that made sea levels
dramatically lower and if these people
were following coastlines into the new
world those sites may now be underwater
and this is where I live so I I show
this just as an example so I live in San
Francisco here and so from downtown San
Francisco from Golden Gate Park right
there where the California Academy of
Sciences is 14,000 years ago you could
walk out to the Farallon Islands right
so dramatic coastal change up to 120
meters over the past 20 thousand years
so significant change that that may have
sort of submerged many of these early
sites of this coastal migration
so unfortunately whoa we can't just say
they're underwater yeah wrap it we can't
say these sites are underwater I've
tried that with my colleagues their
underwater trust me they're there we
have to go out and find those sites
right or still test this hypothesis and
then that's sort of the phase we're in
and the northern Channel Islands turns
out to be one place that is just
absolutely spectacular for looking at
this kind of question so we have of
course the northern Channel Islands that
you're all familiar with and these are
very dynamic Islands 20,000 years ago
these islands were connected to one
another where you can walk from Anacapa
to San Miguel but you couldn't walk from
the mainland of course out to the
islands right so these in the letting
the quaternary these have not been
attached to the mainland the islands
haven't been attached to the mainland
but 75% of the Channel Islands that we
know today have been submerged by this
last glacial maximum sea level rise
right so a significant landscape is now
underwater so despite that challenge we
have one of the most significant
clusters of early sites of anywhere in
the new world it's absolutely
spectacular the oldest of which is who
has been found at Arlington Springs
excavated by Phil or at the Santa
Barbara Museum of Natural History in
1959 and recently dated by John Johnson
- 13,000 years ago right so on the order
of Clovis and certainly not Clovis I'm a
very different adaptation where people
were had to be in boats to get to these
islands 13,000 years ago after that sort
of that some of the oldest sites until
recently has been a very famous site
this is Daisy cave that has a variety of
deposits that span the Holocene but the
oldest of which are about eleven
thousand six hundred years ago and while
Arlington Springs
a set of human remains and and no
archeology other than those human
remains
Daisy cave has a spectacular set has
produces spectacular set of archaeology
including a chip stone technologies
things we call crescents and I'll get to
these in a minute
sandal fragments these woven sea grass
sandals olivella purple olive snail
beads for the just ground the top off
these are probably trimmings from
fishnet construction or somesuch these
sort of knots and these are the oldest
bone fish hooks in the New World bone
buy points fish gorges if they were used
for fishing and a colleague at the
Smithsonian torgan Ric did a lot of work
on demonstrating an adaptation of not
only shellfish gathering but intensive
kelp forest fishing 11,000 years ago and
not much other technology this was found
at the bottom and I'll show you why this
is important in the next slide but this
was found by Charles rozerr who was one
of the first to excavate Daisy cave he
found this in the bottom of the cave and
and when John Erlandsson excavated Daisy
cave in the 80s he thought that this
this point it looks like a bow and arrow
point it's really small really delicate
we know bow and arrows don't show up
until about 1500 after 1500 years ago so
they're very recent and so we thought
this this was found at the bottom of the
cave and the bottom of rose airs
deposits and we thought that it was just
intrusive it it a variety of processes
like ancient construction of burials to
deposit individuals it could have moved
down during excavations a variety of
ways we can explain this but we just
thought it was intrusive to these bottom
of these deposits and that all changed
in 2008 when my class islet at UC Santa
Barbara found a channel on these are
called Channel Island bar points here's
that point from Daisy cave in a site on
what
Sterne santa cruz island that dated to
8,000 years ago so again sort of a
moment in archaeology work sort of
everything changed for us on the Channel
Islands and we recognize that these
Channel Island the stemmed points were
diagnostic of very early occupations on
the islands dating to at least 8,000
years ago and from then we began survey
efforts looking for these kinds of
technologies they've shown up all over
the islands one of the largest has been
on eastern San Miguel Island that is
produced dozens of Channel Island bar
points these crescents
these are Channel Island bar points
these are a variety that that we call
them mole points but very similar again
all dated to very early these to 12,000
to 11,000 years old right but hundreds
of these by faces no sea mammal bird
fish bones only shellfish right so they
certainly weren't using these to go
after shellfish right for any of you
who've gone foraging for a mussel dinner
right so what were they being used for
well John and I and an in torben Drake
and and some other folks are sitting on
eastern San Miguel here and we're having
lunch at this side and John looked
across and he was like you know you
could walk eleven twelve thousand years
ago to Santa Rosa Island - what is Santa
Rosa Island today right it was dry land
was all connected didn't start to
separate until about 95 hundred years
ago you could walk across and right
across you could see where Arlington
Springs was right and so the next season
John Tory Courtney Hoffman that some of
their students Leslie reader Myers
started a survey moving from Arlington
Canyon where Arlington Springs was found
that 13,000 year old sites and started
surveying the terraces along this and it
came up
other sites that produce abundant
stemmed points early stem points
crescents in sites that produced a new
array of a bone that tells us about what
these were used for so the remains of
snow goose and Canadian goose and
extinct flightless duck Chen deities and
sort of a fish bone sea mammal bone as
well just sort of round out that these
were maritime hunting technologies
here's another here's another shot of
some of those technologies this is what
archaeologists get really excited about
these really cool pictures of these
really early technologies again
crescents channel on the barbs and these
are mole points probably half did like
this to hunt things like waterfowl maybe
it's fishing point sauce huh small sea
mammals like otters hafta Don on shafts
and use perhaps without a lateral
technology to do this maritime hunting
so that brings us where we are today and
then recently - two years ago in April
2017 we found perhaps one is what is one
of the largest very early sites on the
island this is sort of an accidental
discovery and it happened during
construction monitoring for on Santa
Rosa Island work was being done to
restore and is ongoing to restore the
ranch house and and create an an
interpretive area that's going to be
spectacular and we stumbled on a site
that started to produce some of this
early technology and this has been I've
been involved in this project and a lot
of other people have I mean we've had
Chumash consultants the Semyon as a
variety of other Chumash communities
engaged in this work john Erlandsson
pictured here christina gill at the
university of oregon gary Brown and with
with NPS Laura Kern here that did our
introduction interns
volunteers and then I worked on on some
of the excavations data recovery but
this became a huge effort to sort of
understand this large site as this
construction and restoration of these
this ranch house complex was going on
and it turned out to be a really
spectacular sort of interaction with a
variety of different with the Chumash
with with archaeologists with academics
with NPS to sort of better understand
the site and salvage as much information
as we can in this what turned out to be
a really large site so the main site
area was right under this ranch house
and then we had another locust north of
the ranch house and just to give you an
idea I mean most of the time when we're
on the islands what we're doing is were
digging in places that are eroding into
the ocean we're saving information
before it's lost here where were
excavating and in a larger region to
sort of gather information as this
interpretive areas being put together
and we dug a variety of different units
we conducted paleo botanist augers and
mapping of this site with a variety of
different groups to bring this all
together and from it it produced over
7,000 lithic artifacts I crescents
you're hear a variety of broken
crescents these are Channel Island
barbed points and in a spectacular
archaeology of paleo coastal early
Holocene archaeology and here's kind of
the work conditions that this is from
Gary Browns work that we were working
under working under this house to sort
of salvage the site here's the
difference or taker fee and why I'm
showing this is we did a variety of
dating and Gary did a variety of dating
at this site and found that that the
dating was kind of all over the map we
had a lot of disturbance from this
historic activity the dates ranged from
you know nineteen thousand years ago to
basically recent except a shelf feature
and part of the site that dated to about
eight thousand years ago right in line
with those stemmed points right that I
showed you earlier
however this North locus where we north
of the ranch house where we spend some
time excavating small units we found
that all of these this area dated really
tightly between eleven thousand seven
hundred years ago and eleven thousand
two hundred years ago again a very early
site very large early site on on the
Channel Islands so at this point now
after this this site under the ranch
house and around the ranch house all the
other sites that we found on the islands
we have something on the order I think
the real number is like ninety eight so
I said ninety I'm it I'm I'm I'm a
little low there but we have ninety
eight archaeological sites they date to
more than eight thousand years on these
small islands seventy-five percent of
which are now underwater right
absolutely spectacular so just to give
you an idea here's that here they are
now I don't have all the sites up there
but here's what those Islands would have
looked like ten thousand five hundred
years ago these are maritime
hunter-gatherers using these
technologies to go after fish and
seabirds many of their sites may
actually be underwater and this has led
to again another partnership that that
I've been really lucky to be involved
with funded by the Bureau of Ocean
Energy Management with the Park Service
a variety of academic institutions that
I've listed here there are probably
others there there are others all
collaborating to start to look
underwater if we have the spectacular
record none of which is older than
Clovis might there be even earlier sites
now underwater right so to do that is
probably the worst needle in the
haystack exercise that you can think of
right when you begin but you could start
to narrow targets so we use the trust
archeology where places that people like
to set up camps on the sub aerial
archaeology today or sub aerial
landscapes today and we predict where
these places might be under water so we
have begun with developing this this
predictive model of high probability
landforms where people might have gone
to set up camp and not only that where
those potential archaeology sites might
still be preserved right because some
places can be scoured out by heavy wave
action so it's not only where they might
be but where they might last right for
for over 10,000 years one of these
places so the ranch house facility right
in here this cluster of early sites 99
seven is one of those there's a variety
of others a variety of other these early
sites sort of Rim Santa Santa Rosa and
Santa Cruz so these stars are all
archaeological sites right in the middle
of between Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz is
this massive sub water submarine canyon
that comes up right in between these
islands and five of the largest
drainages on the islands would have
drained into this this Bay today John
Rawlinson called it Crescent Bay because
we found these sites with crescents and
stemmed points and this may have been
this really productive estrine
environment with these waterfowl with
sea mammals with fish with the shellfish
that people were going after that we see
in the sub aerial archaeological record
so after we predict that and find
interesting places we've gone out and
used sonar technology to map the
seafloor but not only map the seafloor
map the sea the sub seafloor and look at
the shirt a graffia the sea floor by
using what what's called this chirp
system launched it from a boat and do
this sonar mapping and so I'll give you
some example of what this produces right
we we look in
Bay this this high probability area that
we're really interested in here's one of
our track lines right right on the edge
of Crescent Bay that's what you get very
exciting everybody's quiet it's time to
go right well you work with marine
geologist and actually it is pretty
interesting because what it shows is
what we would predict there's this paleo
channel where freshwater would have made
its way down to Crescent Bay and on the
levees of that paleo Channel
there are what we're calling high
amplitude reflectors which means these
kinds of signatures have produced
archaeological shell moons and other
regions in North America and the Gulf of
Mexico they may or may not be but
they're interesting features in the
places where we think we should find
archaeological sites right so what we
thought should be there was actually
there so here's another one
understanding these paleo landscapes we
probably know more about the surface of
the Moon than we know about the seafloor
and right along in Crescent Bay here's
the Santa Cruz Canyon that big submarine
canyon here are these what seemed to be
a stirring deposits Paleo Sol's still
preserved right they they can yield a
lot of information about what this
environment looked like the time this is
just sand transparent holocene sediments
and that's piled on top of this right
and so the the the the final phase of
our research has been to actually then
if we've predicted these places we sonar
map these places then to go core and
look at these places test these
locations so along the channel islands
in these four places that we became
really interested three right in in
between Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz we
recovered 26 seafloor cores ranging in
depths from about 75 to 25 meters the
longest cores about two and a half
meters long we tried to find places
where there's not a lot of sand buildup
Holocene sand built
where we can maybe look try to find
paleo souls so at this point all of
these cores are up at Oregon State
University I wish I could tell you what
we found but they are still course up in
a core facility being scanned and logged
and unfortunately next month I'm going
up there well fortunately for me
unfortunately for you next month I'm
going up there
but we hope to find these a stirring
soils and and and kind of features that
we predicted this is the first step
right into finding archaeological sites
just to be clear I have I would not put
any money on us actually finding an
archeological site that is a losing bet
bet on the Warriors instead of that but
this is the first step understanding
these these submerged landforms being
able to predict them being able to
accurately predict where these are
preserved will down the road help us
identify I think submerged
archaeological sites that can help us
unravel this question of the first
Americans so where does that bring us
things are really interesting I have no
answer for you Clovis is not first
Clovis is real the story you're heard is
wrong when you were in school we don't
know when and how the people the first
people arrived but we're walking down
that road to figure out that answer and
the Channel Islands are going to be key
in helping us figure this out this this
play one of the many many reasons the
Channel Islands are so special is this
density of early sites on the island
they can tell us what people were doing
on those islands they can help us
predict where those sites might be
underwater and help answer this question
and it's going to be methodological
advancements new analytical techniques
like this sonar mapping like this
offshore chlorine and it's going to be
interdisciplinary work between agencies
between academics between interested
folks that that are going to contribute
to this work so stay tuned
hopefully we'll have an answer at some
point and I wanted to say thanks you
know this I was invited here kind of
talk a little bit about this this
excavation in the ranch house and I and
I did a little bit and I tried to frame
it in a larger context but I wanted to
say this this crew and they're not all
here was she and and helping us complete
these this work at the ranch house and
at nine nine seven and this really
important early site on the Channel
Islands and a variety of folks really
worked hard to make that happen and I
really appreciate it
so and a variety of collaborators on all
the work we do so thanks so much I can
answer any questions I saw a hand up
first right over here yes right yeah
yeah I would first tell them that that
the archaeology is in treasure that is
that is our shared human history and
seeing it and leaving it alone is
probably the best thing we can do but
what what really excites me about the
archaeology out there and what I tell my
students and tell folks when I'm out on
the island is that you know we know what
the islands look like today and we have
a lot of great folks who work really
hard to to manage the islands and and
and make them a spectacular place they
are but we know the islands have
undergone tremendous change right
especially in the last you know fifty to
a hundred years where fishiness is has
changed the
Ecosystem ranching which is an
emblematic part of the islands but it
changed the islands in a lot of ways
right and they've undergone tremendous
change in the plant communities the
animal communities both marine and
terrestrial in archaeology is actually
one of the absolute keys to figuring out
what these islands look like for
thousands of years right and if we're
gonna really restore the islands and
figure out where these islands are
headed we have to know what they look
like in the past not saying we have to
put them back to what they were
that's probably impossible right there
were domesticated dogs out on the
islands for thousands of years there
were thousands of people out on those
islands for thousands of years right so
we're not gonna put them back to what
they were but it gives us a road map to
what's possible in what we want them to
look like and it's for me and and I'm an
archaeologist so I'm biased archaeology
is some of the best records to do that
so if we lose those records either
eroding into the ocean or we don't take
care of them then that information is
lost and we are steering the ship blind
yes there are lots of caves all over the
islands so I yeah I can't really comment
on you know particular caves and and
what they are where they're at I would
just say there's caves all over the
islands some have archaeological sites
and some don't
yeah so yeah yeah
yeah so so what happens when when
there's construction or do you want to
take this oh I'm sorry
okay yeah that's great so the question
was was was the work at the ranch house
precipitated by construction or did we
start first
NPS started first right so
archaeologists go and they look for
sites and and the islands are
archaeological sites so this is very
very difficult right yeah so they look
for archaeological sites they assess and
they do consultation then if everything
seems to be a go they start construction
and that's what happened construction
and renovation was started an
archaeological site popped up because
subsurface work had to be done which
often happens right because you can't if
it's not on the surface you don't know
it's there potentially right so there
are other ways we deal with that but you
don't always know things came up
everything was halted a new plan was put
in place Gary Brown came out did a bunch
of work first and then once that was
done and we knew more then I came out
and did even more work and then once
that was done and everyone felt
comfortable with we have all the
information we need we properly salvaged
we put a good plan in place then
restoration work began again yeah a
locust is with so we can have you know
we consider we put boundaries around
sites right and within sites and those
can have multiple different you know
just so think of your house as an
archaeological site you have the
backyard where you may barbecue that's
one locus you have the place where you
live
that's another locus you have the garage
where you park your car that's another
locus similar kind of thing with
archaeology there's different activity
areas they may date two different things
and yeah
yes sure yeah so yeah sure so the
question was a little bit more about the
kelp Highway what that means what the
archeological signature along that
potential route may be and what that
that looked like so the kelp Highway is
largely an ecological model that just
shows that there are these similar kinds
of habitats that sort of circle the
North Pacific Rim that would may have
facilitated migration in places in the
old world like in Japan we have sites
that day to 16,000 or more years ago you
know a very early archaeological record
along coastal locations along that route
we have maritime voyages out to the
riyuku islands like twenty-five thousand
years ago right so we know that people
were sort of adapted to these maritime
environments very early in that part of
the world as we move into you know
Beringia area there is just a massive
area that that was once above water that
is now submerged you know like the in
that place where there's in Beringia you
can go miles and miles and miles off
shore and still be in places that during
the last glacial maximum would have been
above water right so there's very little
archaeological record early
archaeological record in in the North
Pacific right so you get to places like
Washington State there's sites that now
date to 12,000 years ago 13,000 years
ago you have monteverde down in chile at
14 five their sites in South America
they date to about fifteen thousand
years ago there that are on the
potential coast but there is very little
archaeological record it's older than
Clovis
than 13,500 years ago on the modern
coastline and I think many scholars
think that's because those sites are
potentially underwater and and we need
to find them yes yeah yeah so absolutely
and more and more of that has happened
honestly you know the logistics of that
have been challenging for academics and
and we're trying to do a better job of
interacting with with different scholars
around the world and that stuff is
happening but you know I've been to
workshops about migrations in different
parts of the world and folks a maritime
migrations in different early maritime
migrations in different parts of the
world so scholars are getting together
and sharing knowledge and and trying to
confront these problems in sort of a
global community but it's probably in
its early stages and more of that work
needs to be done so absolutely yeah
absolutely
100% yeah so um yeah sea level rise and
and an anthropogenic climate change is
we are talking about that across
agencies across universities as a major
problem for the preservation and
protection of coastal sites around the
world and it is a daunting task
right because coastal sites are gonna
road they're gonna they're gonna a road
that's part of the process there is no
stopping it but the rate of erosion with
ants with with climate you anthropogenic
climate change is accelerating and it's
a challenge we need to confront
yeah yes yeah processes we'll use to
look under sites look at sites
underwater right now it's corny but
there are other ways so in those cores
you know they're four and a half inch
diameter course so even if we were to
hit an archeological site or what might
be an archaeological site we would have
to go back and do more work because it
would be really difficult to really nail
that down is really being an
archaeological site and certainly we
want to you learn more so it just
depends on the depths of things right so
our Ovie's autonomous vehicles can go
down and do sophisticated work we send
divers down our Parker geologists is it
as a diver that is going to help us out
on a future project and so there are a
variety of different ways that we can do
that but it's time and effort and
there's a safety element that all plays
into it and that makes it a really
challenging environment yes yes no yeah
so that's a great question the focus is
the focus on the northern islands
because the southern don't have
archaeology there's spectacular
archaeology on the southern Channel
Islands and there are a variety of
colleagues who are who are working on
that I'm I'm I focused my time on the
northern islands just because I've spent
my career working here but there are
yeah there are a lot of great efforts
including offshore efforts on the
southern islands so there's great
archaeology it's it's different
archaeology it's different in character
and nature those islands are much
different but there's a lot of
similarities with the northern islands
and there's a lot of folks doing that
work
I think there's been a longer history on
the northern islands perhaps because of
its a national park in the facilitation
of research by the National Park for
30-40 years now his really helps the
nearly I there are like nine thousand
year old dates ten thousand year old
dates on the southern islands there's
not nearly as many on the southern
islands and we could go down in the
weeds on that but maneuv it I think is
sort of the distance from the mainland
to some of those islands and then you
have Catalina which is closer in a
larger Island harder to survey still a
population out there a lot of different
sort of challenges and so the protection
of National Park is is kind of been
instrumental and and helping develop
this record and understand this record
yes right yeah yeah uh I have not
personally looked there folks have
looked there I would love to go with
their yeah oh great so the question is
there's a really early site in Chile in
southern Chile and there's early sites
in North America and it seems North
America you go north to south but South
America you of south to north where's
the muddle in the middle right
what about Central America I it's the
challenges of doing work and in some of
those places those mangrove environments
are really difficult to work in they're
a you know it's partly it's it's just
the history of research there hasn't
been an intensive effort in some of
those places in Central America and
there's been vast tracts of South
America that have had that effort and
you know for me when I
I look I look at the record the places
where there's been concerted efforts by
groups of archaeologists to find early
coastal sites early coastal sites have
been found
so there's Peru and Chile coastal Peru
and Chile a lot of work and spend on and
I knew would show you all of them
there's a number of sites that have been
found Pacific Northwest there's a lot of
work that's been going on I'm around
how did Y and a number of early sites
have been found Channel Islands same
thing so but not every place is great
for looking for sites so if you look at
a place like Northern California far
northern California Oregon and
Washington coast that place has a the
Cascadia subduction zone right offshore
it seems to slip about every 300 years
causing a massive tsunami to come hit
the coast and that would scour an early
archaeological record so some places
because of these geologic processes
aren't great places to look and it's
probably not because people weren't
there it's because the record hasn't
preserved they get someone yes yes yes
yeah yeah that's a great question so the
question is well we get these earlier
sites in South America how about people
moving south to north along the coast
right just like I told you with Clovis
like you know moving up the corridor
right is that controversial and I would
say yeah most people would not consider
that the route and that's not only
because the archaeology it there's
linguistic evidence there's genetic
evidence that suggests that there's
connections to Northeast Asia that that
make the most viable route of Pacific
route moving from Northeast Asia into
the Americas and you know I don't think
we have they were we don't have the
earliest sites right so all of that is
gonna chant I hope in 20 years
Monteverde is just another early site on
the coast and it's you know no longer
there your list or not even close I you
know I think that's the direction
hopefully we're headed so I think this
is the story is going to fundamentally
change yes yeah so that's a great
question so how long does it take in
generations or what not to travel from
Alaska to Chile along this kelp Highway
and you know I don't have a good answer
for that you know just just answer
anyway even give a bad answer I'll give
a bad in well I'll get hitch on my
answer how's that so when this Clovis
first model was in place there were
mathematic there there was a group of
archaeologists that we're doing sort of
mathematical modeling of how quickly
right cuz that the whole continent
basically in all of the new world gets
populated in six hundred years and
you're like that's really fast right two
continents in six hundred years how can
that be
and actually with mathematical modeling
and birth rates being fairly moderate
and highly mobile people moving across
the landscape these mathematical models
suggested that it it was possible right
so I think this idea you know what we I
always sort of when I'm thinking about
archaeological questions I always try to
be careful about like you know how long
it would take me to canoe from Alaska
down to Chile is not a good measure and
how long it would take people that were
well adapted to these environments and
lived them all their lives and had their
parents and grandparents and
great-grandparents teaching them how to
do this it would be very different so I
think it could be actually very wrapped
in a very rapid migration why they might
do that
um why they might make that migration is
also I think a really interesting
question and another I don't have a good
answer for but this this idea of
exploration and seeing what's along in
the next Harbor and the next Cove or
resources that might be available people
can move pretty quickly and in fact we
know that that Polynesian people's very
different adaptation very different
technology but they spread around the
vast Pacific very very quickly in a
matter of you know three thousand years
they had colonized the entire Pacific
and every little speck of Island you can
find again very different technology but
gives us this lens into how quickly
people can move when motivated yeah so
yeah so what about watercraft yeah when
we talk about so what kind of watercraft
might this migration look like again we
have no idea yeah I would suspect things
like skin boats but those don't preserve
well in the archaeological record and
we're talking about a migration within
kelp forests right people aren't going
we don't envision this kind of migration
is people going out into the deep ocean
right they're not going pelagic fishing
there's no evidence of that but it's in
kelp forests where wave action is sort
of a little calmer you can have hold
fast for boats but what kind of boats
those were we don't really know right we
don't know much about those early
boating technologies just it just
doesn't preserve right I mean we read
boats were probably there early boats on
the Channel Islands and but if those
technologies change what those look like
you know if you know they you know if
there were different kinds of boating
technologies coming from from Northeast
Asia we don't we don't really know one
more yes
so we work so there's a lot of great
work going on in the genetic world doing
ancient DNA work looking at ancestry and
that field is changing at a rate on that
I can't even keep up with like every
week it seems like a new significant
genetic study is coming out about early
migrations and peopling of the new world
and it's spectacular what I would say is
that is also a changing landscape partly
because the methodologies and the
technologies are changing so rapidly
that we're getting more and more
information we're able to sequence more
and more genetic material to to put
towards this question but it still
remains a field that is like archeology
we have a small number of these early
sites they have a small set of data that
they're using in terms of like sample
size right they're getting more data
from the small sample but they are
building the sample size and and the
jury is out on where that is headed
right now it meshes well with the
archeology that it connects with a
coastal migration along the Pacific
coast from Northeast Asia some time
since the last glacial maximum between
you know probably eighteen to fifteen
thousand years ago but again that can
change
[Applause]
can you hear me there we go that was
really fascinating and I just as long as
I have you guys as a captive audience I
know many of you are with The Naturalist
Corps and those of you who aren't
probably loved the islands and visits
and talk about them so thank you for
your service there was a question about
what do we tell people who might
encounter archaeology and I wanted to
just share the Park Service perspective
Todd talked about you know just really
eloquently about how these are
touchstones to the past and really one
of the most important keys scientific
keys to unlocking these complex puzzles
it's also important to tell visitors
that if they encounter something like
this not only is it you know the right
thing to do to appreciate it in place
and leave it alone it's also important
to know that these landscapes are
treasured by our tribal partners the two
mesh people and to them these are their
and the places of their ancestors and in
ceará ancestral homelands and they are
very I would say very concerned that we
protect these places and if all else
fails it's against federal law to pick
up or damage or destroy anything any
archaeological resources on federal
lands so we have many layers of
protection many many many good reasons
for leaving these things in place so we
really appreciate you spreading that
word and thank you so much for coming
out tonight this was a fabulous
conversation with Todd we really
appreciate you sharing your information
and I hope everyone is as inspired as me
to envision these places as they once
were and we'll be thank you
[Applause]
you