After the Scorpion Fire, 48 New Archeological Sites on Santa Cruz Island

Surveying archeological sites after the Scorpion Fire. NPS.

In May 2020, the Scorpion Fire burned about 1,395 acres of eastern Santa Cruz Island in Channel Islands National Park.

From compliance to discovery

• The plan: Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) funding paid for environmental compliance, including an inventory of burned archeological sites by park staff and Chumash tribal partners. They set out to assess 34 known sites.
• The surprise: fieldwork found and documented 48 new sites.
• Beyond emergency money: BAER covers inventory and stabilization, not research such as radiocarbon dating. Support from the Southern California Research Learning Center and other collaborators turned the project into a science effort, funding radiocarbon dates from 18 sites — many threatened by erosion and sea-cliff retreat, made worse by climate change and post-fire vegetation loss.

What the dates show

The samples were marine shells — shellfish were an important food and raw material, and are common in Chumash sites. Radiocarbon dating showed the sites were used from 6,049 BP (4099 BC) to 269 BP (AD 1681), shedding light on how 300 generations of Island Chumash settled, moved and gathered food and materials on eastern Santa Cruz Island. The results were to be presented at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Partners

The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, the Barbareño/Ventureño Band of Mission Indians, and faculty and graduate students from CSU Channel Islands, UC Santa Barbara and Norco College.

Sources

Based on "Compliance Inspires Science on Santa Cruz Island," Channel Islands National Park, series Using Science to Preserve the Past, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain. Next in the series: archeological field school at Honouliuli National Monument.